“It can only be a delaying action,” said the wizard.
“Yes, delay and harass,” Blayne replied. He stared through the trees, remembering the scene at the emperor’s camp. In his mind he saw the ranks of soldiers, the herds of horses, the tents and baggage wagons. Above all he remembered the three great war machines, the tubes of the bombards mounted on huge wagons.
“If we merely delay him, he’ll bring those weapons up eventually, and Vingaard Keep will be destroyed,” Blayne said thoughtfully. “So we must take him by surprise, strike at his strength.”
“What’s your idea?”
“The horsemen will harass him,” said the young knight decisively. “But when the wagons are halted, waiting for the road to clear, I will lead a group of determined men from ambush. We’ll attack with torches and pitch, and we will destroy his great weapons- before he can bring them to bear against our home.”
From the comfort of his command center in the fortified camp, which resembled a temporary city, with a picket wall of trees and neat paths lined with tents and exercise fields, Jaymes ordered General Dayr to bring the Crown Army up from the Vingaard. The two forces were to merge at the camp, which occupied the ridge of hills overlooking the lone ford across Apple Creek.
The vanguard of the Crown Army, led by General Dayr himself, came up to meet the Palanthian Legion.
“The lancers under Captain Blair are busy patrolling along the river,” the general informed the emperor. “But I left the Stonebridge unguarded, as you requested.”
“Good. The more of their men they put in the field against us, the easier it will be to conquer the keep later on,” Jaymes said.
“What’s the next step, then?” asked Dayr.
“I’ve already given the order. We will attack across the ford,” the emperor replied. “General Weaver’s legion will lead the charge. I’ll hold your men in reserve-I’d rather blood some of my newer troops.”
“Of course, Excellency.” Dayr rode off to see to the deployment of his men. General Weaver quickly and precisely deployed his Palanthian Legion, and in a matter of less than two hours, the units had been moved into position, the attack prepared.
“General, send the first wave across the ford,” ordered the emperor.
“Aye, my lord,” replied Weaver.
The emperor and his two generals sat astride their horses on a low hillock overlooking Apple Creek, very near to the ford crossing. Nearby, a knot of couriers and signalmen awaited commands. All watched eagerly as Weaver gestured to his flagmen, who raised the pennant signaling the advance.
Immediately, three companies of light infantry moved in columns toward the bank of the creek, where the rutted gravel road sloped into the water. The warriors wore leather tunics and carried short swords and small, round shields. The first wave of the attack would be borne by those free citizens of the New City of Palanthas, who had enlisted in the past year. Fresh to war, they advanced eagerly, ready to impress their general and their emperor.
“Forward! Double march!” barked the sergeants.
The first attackers splashed into the water at a trot, swords and shields held ready, and began to slosh across to the other side. Just beyond the opposite bank, the road curved to vanish among the trunks of the trees in the hushed apple grove. The leading men broke into a run as they found their footing on the far bank.
A dozen of the New City men fell at once, amid a flight of slashing arrows visible to the commanders on the hilltop. They heard screams and saw many of their soldiers writhing on the ground.
Still pressing forward, the troops stumbled over the fallen bodies of their companions, and more went down under the relentless fire. The archers remained unseen, hidden in the orchard, but they obviously had clear fields of fire. The volleys were heavy, lethal, and persistent. The big, steel-headed arrows punctured leather breastplates and wooden shields, even pierced metal helmets.
The surviving troops darted into shelter behind tree trunks and among the dense hedges that lined the road. Wounded men crawled toward safety, while more than a score lay motionless on the ground, apparently slain. More missiles continued to shower the lead ranks, and within minutes all three companies were pinned down.
No further command was given-the plan was already known to company officers-as the next wave, the heavy infantry, moved into the ford. Those soldiers wore mail shirts that descended almost to their knees, with steel caps to protect their heads, and they wielded much larger, heavier shields. Their swords were longer too. They were brawnier veterans, and they hoisted their shields to protect themselves from the arrows. The soldiers advanced slowly, passing through the ford, scrambling up the far bank and pressing toward the trees.
A number of those men, too, stumbled and went down, tripping over bodies or potholes, and several soldiers who lowered their shields momentarily took gruesome wounds from arrows that pierced cheeks, eyes, mouths, and throats. Inevitably, the column spread to the right and left of the narrow road as men fought to find advantageous positions. Spread out and inching along, covered by the layer of shields, the second unit resembled a moving pincushion.
That heavier rank finally penetrated the grove and drove against the picket line of Vingaard swordsmen who awaited them. Steel clashed against steel, and shouts of triumph competed with shrieks of pain and moans of the dying. More Crown infantry pressed across the river, ignoring the continuing arrow fire as they progressed toward the concealed enemy.
The defenders fought stubbornly, working in pairs. The men of Vingaard Keep didn’t bother with shields, but instead stabbed and parried from behind the stout trunks of the apple trees.
A bold Crown Knight raised a hoarse cry, lunging forward, chopping with his mighty blade-only to catch the sword in the tough limb of a tree. Before he could wrench it free, one of the defenders thrust from below, driving his keen steel right through the mail shirt and into the knight’s belly. With a low groan, the stricken veteran released his grip on his own blade and sank back into the arms of his comrades, who dragged him back.
In a skirmish such as the one being waged, numbers would inevitably prevail-that was understood by the commanders on the hill and by the swordsmen on both sides. Company after company of the Crown Army marched across the ford, some veering right, others left, expanding the frontage of the attack. Ultimately, the men of Vingaard had to fall back through the trees, though they gave ground only grudgingly-and even then, at a high cost in blood and misery. As the shadows swallowed them up, they retreated more quickly, and the attacking soldiers gave chase, a tide of steel and fury, bent on avenging their losses and carrying the day.
That tide broke, very abruptly, against a levee of pikemen who materialized, as if by magic, between the trees. They had not been disguised by any spell but merely had been camouflaged and lying low. The long polearms were unwieldy in the grove, but Kerrigan and his son had arranged the line shrewdly. Seemingly a thousand men stood shoulder to shoulder against the attack, forming a barrier that bristled with razor-sharp spear tips.
Most of the attackers hesitated in the face of the surprising obstacle, although a few courageous Crown soldiers charged forward and were pierced to death. The defenders met the onslaught with taunts and jeers, drawing still more to reckless charges. But the line never wavered, and the attack faltered.
One Crown sergeant managed to break a pike and bash another to the side, creating a temporary wedge. He charged ahead with a howl but was chopped at from all sides by multiple blades, losing an arm, and getting a fiendish cut in his thigh, which spurted blood.
Everywhere swordsmen waited among the pikes, and whenever the solid line showed signs of a rupture, the swordsmen stepped into the breach and took on the charging warriors. The entangling trees prevented easy flanking movement, and the defenders had piled great nests of brambles all around on the ground. Sharp thorns hooked into clothes and skin; even the most sure-footed of the emperor’s men were tripped up by the tangle of branches.
For th
irty bloody minutes, the ponderous, chaotic struggle raged. Each side killed and each side died, and whenever the attackers gained a few feet, the defenders struck hard and drove the Crown soldiers back. When a man’s sword broke, he seized another from a fallen foe or comrade, and when he was wounded, he dropped back, allowing a fresh fighter to take his place in the line.
Vingaard archers scrambled into the trees and showered arrows over the heads of their comrades, into the faces and breasts of the attackers. A rank of Crown men armed with crossbows came up behind the first line of the charge and returned that fire with admirable accuracy, their steel-tipped bolts puncturing the green leather shirts of the targeted bowmen with ease. The missile duel increased in ferocity until the opposing bands were engaged in their own lethal fight for supremacy, a battle that took place literally over the heads of most of their comrades trapped in the melee.
On the hilltop south of the stream, the emperor strained to scrutinize the fight in the woods, his face showing ill-concealed displeasure. From there he could not claim to know the details, but the reality was plain. As more and more of his men crossed the stream, they were bunching up in the grove, and the advance had bogged down. Men were dying in growing numbers, and their sacrifice had ceased to have any meaning.
“Sound the withdrawal!” he snapped finally.
Dayr signaled to his trumpeters, and a trio of heralds raised their brass instruments and brayed out the command to retreat. Immediately the men at the edge of the grove turned and raced toward the ford. Others broke from the shelter of the trees, coming down the road, converging from the right and left on the narrow ford.
“Dammit! They’re panicking, running like fools!” snapped the emperor. He put the heels to his horse and, with Dayr trailing behind, galloped down the hill.
There were a dozen companies clumped together on the near side of the river, waiting to cross, and they scattered out of the way of their enraged commander. Jaymes drew up his horse at the edge of the river, even as a hundred men splashed into the shallow flow. Fleeing, stumbling, falling, and choking, they clawed their way toward the safety of the south bank.
Jaymes pulled back his reins, and the roan reared. He brandished Giantsmiter; the blue flames that crackled on his legendary blade were visible even in the bright sunlight. The panicked men hesitated at the sight of their lord on his rearing horse.
“Hold your formations!” he shouted. “Remember your training!”
Some of the men responded, while others continued to flail through the water. More arrows showered from the woods, felling more soldiers. Even though Jaymes used the flat of his blade to slap at the first of the wretches to crawl up the near bank, he couldn’t stem the tide. The officers and commanders shouted themselves hoarse, trying to organize a proper withdrawal. The men of the New City, new to battle as well, did not listen.
The enemy captain-Jaymes fleetingly wondered if it was Lord Kerrigan’s son-saw his opportunity, and hurled forward his line of pikemen. The pikemen poured out the apple grove, their long weapons prodding at the disorganized retreat. Vainly, the Palanthian officers shouted and cursed, trying to get the ranks to wheel and face the deadly threat to their rear.
It was Dayr who saw what had to be done. He barked out commands to a large troop of longbowmen, who had been holding their position on the near side of the stream. Immediately they commenced a shower of arrows, which arced over the heads of the retreating soldiers, falling among the advancing Vingaard pikes. Quickly the pikemen halted their pursuit, withdrawing into the safety of the trees, as the weary and bedraggled attackers slogged through the stream and collapsed on the south bank of Apple Creek.
Jaymes rode his horse back and forth before the shamed, defeated men. Scorn dripped from his voice as he addressed them in loud, angry terms. “You men fought like you’d never heard the horn of battle before! I won’t fault you for failing to break a line-but to run like whipped curs at the first call of retreat? I would never have expected it, nor would I believe it if I hadn’t witnessed it with my own eyes.”
“Forgive us, my lord!” cried one commander, standing amid the seated, soggy ranks. “Let us try again. We’ll carry the line of these traitors-or die trying!”
A few of the soldiers raised a cheer at his brave statement, but most kept their eyes on the ground, humiliated and shaken. Jaymes spoke sternly. “You’ll have the chance to fight again. When you do, this shame will be scourged. Until then, you will all live with the memory of your failure-and you will not march with the rest of my army, but stay behind to lick your wounds and ponder your failure.”
Some of the men wept, others shouted in protest, but he ignored them all as he spun his horse and rode back to General Dayr. “We’re going to have to march down the road and take the bridge after all. I’ll leave these men here so the enemy will have to worry about another crossing-but I want the rest of the army on the march within the hour.”
“I’ve got them ready now, my lord. These hills along the stream should conceal us for the first few miles, so perhaps we can surprise them by our decisiveness and speed.”
“All right,” Jaymes replied. He looked again at the ranks of defeated, soaking men near the ford, his eyes narrowing with displeasure. He stared for a moment then shook his head and put his knees to his horse, ready to join the march column on the road.
CHAPTER SEVEN
LORD OF THE WILDERNESS
At first, Ankhar was enchanted with the ogre wench he had claimed as his prize from the two arguing chieftains. Pond-Lily had many natural charms: the swelling cheeks that gave her face such a fetching roundness, the twin globes of her immense breasts, the sturdy, admirable muscles of her hamlike legs. She was a pretty little blossom, a change of pace from the emerald-green wilderness.
But after a month of sampling the delights of Pond-Lily’s physical attributes, he was forced to realize her name was a pretty fair estimation of her intelligence and conversational abilities.
In fact, he thought as he glowered into the dying coals of his campfire, there might be swamp flowers out there that had more personality, and more intelligence, than his current hut-mate. That was probably why he was still sitting and sulking, long after most of the village had gone to sleep, reluctant to seek the comfort of his own sleeping pallet.
With a sigh, the hulking half-giant got to his feet, pushing himself off of his log with both hands. He couldn’t help but notice the bulge of his gut, and he flushed with embarrassment when he thought of the trim physique that had carried him through his great war campaigns.
“Once I was master of half of Solamnia,” he declared aloud, as if amazed by the realization. “Now I am a master of the swamp and of a wench who is a pond-lily by any name.”
“How would you like a return to the power you once held-or to reach even greater heights?”
The question was whispered so softly that the half-giant whirled around, growling, ready to smite whoever had dared to sneak up on him and mock him. But no one could be seen.
“Who speaks to me?” he growled, his tiny eyes glaring from their fat-enfolded sockets as he stared into the darkness. “Who is there?”
A man-or at least, he thought it was man, based on size and shape-emerged from the darkness at the edge of the trees. The stranger was cloaked from head to toe in black, including a gauzy mask that utterly concealed his face. Most surprisingly of all, he approached the looming half-giant without any obvious display of fear.
“How dare you!” spat Ankhar, starting to take a step toward the interloper, to smite him with, at the very least, a powerful blow from the back of his hand. Surprisingly, however, the half-giant’s booted feet remained frozen in place, as if he had stepped into soft mire that had suddenly congealed around him. He stared in amazement as the man approached casually and took a seat on a log very near to the one where Ankhar had been sitting.
Abruptly, Ankhar’s feet came unstuck, and he stumbled, realizing that a magic spell must have gripped him for a moment. T
he man who had cast the spell had obviously released him from its thrall-so the interloper had to be regarded with suspicion, but also with a wary respect. The dark-cloaked man settled himself down and waited for a few moments until Ankhar, almost unconsciously, came back to the fire and sat down nearby his strange visitor. The half-giant’s anger had dissipated in the face of his visitor’s cool self-confidence, and he found himself more curious than angry.
“Who are you?” he asked
“Ask your mother-she will know me at once,” replied the man, his tone somehow courteous even though he had refused to answer the question. Somehow, his calm certainty only made Ankhar more uneasy.
“My mother sleeps-the hour is late. Tell me yourself,” he insisted.
Instead, the mysterious visitor said, “This is a nice village,” his masked face turning this way and that as he took in the crude huts, the wooden palisade, the muddy central square. Again, his tone was innocuous, even pleasant, but the half-giant felt himself bristling.
“It is nice enough for my needs,” he declared guardedly.
“But is it secure enough to hold your treasure? The vast wealth your armies took from Garnet and Thelgaard and other places of Solamnia? Don’t you worry that some army will come and batter down your palisade, make off with your cherished hoard?”
Ankhar growled, a deep, menacing sound by any measure, though the black-clad visitor seemed hardly to notice. And in truth, there was little vitriol behind the chieftain’s noisy bluster. Again, his curiosity was stronger than his anger. The growl faded out as he shrugged.
“My treasures were many, but they were taken by the knights after the Battle of the Foothills,” he said. “I do not miss them. They were useless trinkets, heavy to haul around, not good to eat.”
“I see,” came the soft reply.
“Besides, such baubles are more the concern of humans. What need have I of steel and jewels, of great castles and high stone walls? I am happy here, and I am the master of all this place!”
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