A Hero's justice d-3

by Paul B. Thompson

  In time, a raging sea can wear down a stone cliff. So it was with Tumult’s companies. Little by little, they pushed the bakali back. The price was high; blood, both crimson and purplish red, ran thick over the parched soil.

  Ackal V, watching from a knoll in the center of the battlefield, had not yet committed his left wing to battle. He was holding them in reserve, ten thousand warriors led by a young Daltigoth warlord named Vanz Hellman. They sat on their horses, motionless as statues, waiting for their emperor to summon them to battle.

  Ackal V fed more and more warriors into the battle’s center, shifting his hordes sideways and forward like pieces on a game board. When the bakali formed a tough defensive position, archers and spearmen scourged them until saber-wielding Riders could break them.

  Against fierce resistance, the Ergothian center slowly advanced. The casualties were appalling, especially among the sword-armed hordes. They had to close in to fight, and the lizard-men exacted a terrible toll.

  The center pulled abreast of Janar’s Riders, then ground ahead. The bakali stronghold was closer now. Built of logs and mud, it resembled a great hornet’s nest fallen to the ground. The fetid, telltale reptilian odor wafted strongly from open holes in its sides. The smell was strong enough to reach the emperor, overcoming the odor of horses, sweating men, and spilled blood.

  “Lordjanar falters,” said one of the emperor’s aides, pointing. “The enemy has him stopped!”

  Janar had found himself facing a solid wall of green, scaly skin and bronze armor. Bakali continued to spill from the mound in great numbers, filling in the ranks ahead of him until his way was blocked completely. Many were only half-equipped, gripping a sword or axe and wearing the usual ring-mail coat, but lacking shield or helmet. Although strangely uniform in height, the lizard-men varied in appearance. Some had yellow horn ridges on brow and upper lip, and large, domed heads covered by small green scales. Others, lacking brow ridges, had smaller craniums sheathed in iridescent, pale green skin. They stood shoulder to shoulder, horned beaks gnashing, hacking away.

  Janar was wounded but still fighting when a message arrived from Ackal V: Press the enemy harder. Voice cracking from the strain, the warlord urged his men to even greater efforts. He knew the consequences of failure.

  A shrill screeching sound filled the air. It came from the summit of the bakali fortress and echoed eerily from the dark tunnel mouths. Hearing it, the lizard-men engaged with the Ergothian center ceased fighting and drew back. Before the surprised Ergothians could pursue, a new terror appeared.

  Holes opened up in the ground amidst the ranks of Ackal’s hordes. Lids of packed earth, mud, and twigs exploded upward, revealing the entrances to several large tunnels. Armed bakali poured out of these holes. In the blink of an eye, hundreds of fresh enemy soldiers appeared in the midst of the Ergothian center.

  Horses reared, throwing Riders to the ground. Ackal V, his son, and his personal retinue were inundated by furious bakali.

  The emperor drew his saber and cleaved the skull of an axe-waving foe. As he fended off billhooks and poleaxes, his war-horse lashed out fore and aft with massive iron-shod hooves. Dalar could not hold on and shrieked in terror. Ackal V hacked off the clawed hands grabbing for his son, grasped the neck of the boy’s hacketon and lifted him onto Sirrion’s back.

  A bakali thrust a long spear at Dalar, now seated in front of his father. Ackal V lopped off the spearhead, but the wooden shaft caught the emperor in the throat. Choking and furious, he put the point of his saber through the lizard-man’s eye. Blood sprayed over the ashen-faced prince. His father cursed and shoved the dead bakali off his blade with the toe of his boot. Warlords in his retinue finally cut their way through the throng of lizard-men, surrounded their liege, and fended off further attacks.

  All organization was lost as more bakali poured out of the hidden tunnels. Ackal’s well-planned attack degenerated into a vicious melee.

  “Your Majesty!” cried his cousin, Hyduran Dermount. “Summon the reserve! Send for Lord Hellman now!”

  In answer Ackal V struck the gray-bearded warlord on the jaw with the hilt of his saber. Hyduran fell backward off his horse.

  “No man gives me orders!” Ackal V roared. “We came here to kill bakali. So kill them!”

  Several warlords suggested he and the crown prince should remove to safety, but Ackal V refused. “Better to die in battle than yield to these lizards!” he told them.

  Six hundred paces away, Lord Janar likewise was battling for his life.

  The blond warlord, who’d been a shilder with Tol at Juramona twenty-five years before, weighed sixteen stone and was known for his robust constitution. Four times wounded, including a deep stab in the thigh, he still sat tall in the saddle and bellowed encouragement to his men. When he noticed that the outpouring of bakali from the stronghold had thinned, Janar called for the rearmost horde in his formation, the Thorngoth Sabers, to ride wide around the bakali line. Under cover of the heavy dust clouds hanging in the air, the Sabers pulled out of line.

  That order was Janar’s last. An thrown axe connected solidly with his forehead. He swayed in the saddle, and fell. Unconscious by the time he hit the blood-soaked ground, he was hacked to pieces by five bakali who muscled through the press of horsemen to reach him. They in turn were slain by vengeful Riders.

  The Thorngoth Sabers found the edge of the bakali phalanx and rode wide around it. Hooting and screeching, the lizard-men turned to meet the new threat. The lead Riders steered around their slower, clumsier foe. Agitated, the creatures thinned their line further in an attempt to contain the Ergothians. Their line was four ranks deep, then three. When it thinned to only two bakali deep, the Sabers wheeled in unison and charged.

  For one brief, gory moment the bakali line held. Then it shattered. Bakali, minus limbs or heads, flew aside as the Sabers burst through into the open. Leading the charge was young Estan Tremond, son of the governor of Thorngoth. Estan wore his golden hair long, like his father, and it flew behind him as rode hard for the ramp leading into the fortress.

  The pressure on Janar’s hordes slackened. A shout went up. The Ergothians had flanked the bakali line. They were nearly to the mound. For the first time the lizard-men wavered.

  Moments later, the same hesitation struck the bakali fighting among the Ergothian center. Their usual cold-blooded prowess faltered. Anxious looks were cast back at their threatened fortress.

  The emperor thrust a clenched fist into the air. “Now is the time!” he declared. “Send word to Lord Vanz to bring his men forward. He will strike the enemy on our left, as we contain them here!”

  Six couriers carried the message, to ensure it would reach its intended recipient. Only two made it through the confusion and carnage. The first courier found Lord Vanz sitting on horseback in the shade of an alder tree.

  Only twenty, Vanz Hellman was already an imposing figure. A descendant of northern seafarers, he was dark-skinned and very tall. When his hair had begun to thin two years earlier, he shaved his head and kept it so. He wore no mail beneath his cuirass, so his bare arms, impressively muscled, showed clearly under his turned-back mantle.

  The courier galloped up to him, gasping out his message: “My lord! His Majesty commands you to advance!”

  “Thank you,” Hellman replied. His voice was low and very deep. He remained motionless on his white horse, giving no orders.

  As the puzzled courier prepared to repeat his message, the second messenger arrived, face bloody, right arm hanging limply at his side. He relayed the emperor’s order and received the same calm acknowledgment.

  Lord Vanz called for a draft of wine.

  More than a league away, the Thorngoth Sabers gained the foot of the enemy’s ramp. The thick walls of the bakali mound were heavily plastered with mud and leaves. The ramp spiraled upward, growing narrower as it rose. Scores of round openings dotted the walls next to the ramp. None were defended.

  The Sabers sensed a trap, but urged their horses o
nto the ramp anyway. When they tried to turn the animals toward the first of the yawning holes, the horses balked. Ergothian war mounts did not shy from the clash of iron or the smell of human blood, but none could be made to push through the vile, throat-clogging odor emanating from the entrance to the bakali stronghold. Their riders were forced to dismount and proceed on foot, sabers drawn.

  Within was a winding gallery fitfully lit by the streams of sunlight coming through the entry holes in the walls. As more Riders arrived, they followed their comrades inside, leaving the lowest-ranking among them outside to guard the horses.

  There were only two choices, head up or down. As the stronghold was broader at the base than the summit, it made sense to seek the enemy below. Armor jangling, Captain Tremond and his men descended the curved gallery. The interior ramp was wide enough for them to walk five abreast.

  A single guard appeared, wielding an axe in each clawed fist. He held them off for some time, skillfully dodging saber thrusts and whirling his twin blades with such force that a single hit severed heads or limbs. They finally overwhelmed him by sheer weight of numbers. After severing his hissing, spitting head from his torso, they continued downward.

  The evil stench grew stronger as they descended. So did the enervating heat and humidity. Some warriors, veterans of many battles, became so nauseated they collapsed. Comrades with stronger stomachs kept going.

  The curving gallery ended in an open chamber. Pine and cedar knots burned fitfully in the gloom, casting just enough smoky light to reveal the room’s vastness. It was forty or fifty paces across, its domed ceiling supported by trees ripped from the ground and installed with their branches and bark still on. The chamber was lined from wall to wall with thousands of oblong yellow-gray objects, each about the size of a small wine cask.

  Tremond poked the nearest of the objects with his sword. The leathery skin yielded. Instantly he realized what they had found.

  “Corij preserve us!” he breathed. “It’s a hatchery!”

  The bakali eggs were layered four or five deep. There were easily a hundred thousand of them in this single room. They accounted for the terrible smell, as well as the heat and drenching humidity.

  An Ergothian slashed the nearest egg. Its pliant shell split and thick green fluid gushed out, as did an amorphous-looking dark mass-an immature bakali. Several soldiers gagged at the sight, but most, following their comrade’s example, began slashing at the eggs. Soon the soldiers were ankle-deep in yellow-green slime.

  Tremond halted his men’s frenzied retribution. At this rate they would drown before a thousand eggs were destroyed. Something stronger was needed.

  Torches burned in the curving gallery behind them, but the eggs were soft and moist, and the air heavy with damp. It would be impossible to get a blaze going without copious amounts of oil or some other fuel.

  “The trees!”

  The cry had come from a warrior who carried one of the axes taken from the bakali guard. He stepped out onto the uneven surface of the egg trove and picked his way toward the center of the chamber. There, he drew back the iron axe and began to hack at a tree trunk. Wood chips flew.

  Chest working to take in the humid, harsh air, Captain Tremond thought briefly of home, of the fresh breezes that blew off the bay in the mornings. Then he shouted, “Everyone! Cut down those posts! All of them! Right now!”

  A soldier with gray in his beard caught his young captain’s arm. “You know what will happen when we cut through those supports, don’t you?”

  “Yes,” Tremond said evenly, “we’ll save the empire.”

  The imperial reserve shifted restlessly, ten thousand warriors on ten thousand horses waiting for their commander to obey the emperor’s order to advance. So far Vanz Hellman had drunk a cup of wine, watched the injured courier carried away, talked idly with his officers, and removed his mantle in the heat of the day.

  After his mantle was carefully stowed in a saddle bag, Hellman sat up straight and wrapped the reins around his hands.

  “The hordes will advance by columns, to the left,” he said quietly.

  Heralds relayed the order as trumpets blared. At a trot, the left wing of the imperial army moved up on the west side of the bakali position. The leading elements of Hellman’s hordes found numerous concealed traps-pits, ditches, deadfalls of huge logs. Each was marked and circumvented. Had the hordes galloped straight ahead, they would have suffered grievously from the traps.

  “My lord, how did you know the obstacles were there?” asked Hellman’s second-in-command.

  “Because I would have put them there, if I were a cunning lizard.”

  Their approach was so deliberate and calm they surprised a phalanx of bakali formed behind a screen of trees. The lizard-men were standing in neatly ordered rows, axes and billhooks resting on their shoulders. Hellman’s Riders appeared beside them as if by magic. Reptilian faces were not expressive by human standards, but the bakali’s astonishment was plain.

  Vanz Hellman’s powerful voice burst forth. “Give them iron!”

  The Ergothians sabered hundreds of the enemy before they could shift formation and raise their shields. Lord Hellman, in the front rank, put down a bakali with every stroke. Because of his unusual height, he wielded a specially-made saber, its blade a span longer than any other sword on the battlefield.

  Although surprised, the bakali did not break. They fought, isolated into bands of six, eight, or ten, until all were slain.

  None attempted to surrender. The Ergothians were not taking prisoners anyway.

  Hellman’s hordes cut their way to within sight of Ackal V’s position in the center of the battle. One of the emperor’s aides pointed out the towering ebon warrior to the emperor.

  Ackal V, still clutching his son to his chest, wheeled his horse about. “About bloody time! Did he come by way of Ropunt Forest?”

  The emperor’s ire could not dilute Hellman’s accomplishment. His warriors, fresh and eager for battle, were cleaving the enemy in twain. Ackal V, breathing hard, allowed his bloody sword to hang idle from his hand for the first time in ages.

  A tremendous crack split the air. Heads whipped around, wondering if the sound heralded some new bakali trick. Shouts went up from the warriors fighting around the emperor, and thousands of blades, formerly engaged in killing, rose skyward, pointing at the bakali stronghold.

  The great earthen mound was collapsing. Its roughly conical peak dropped several paces. Black dust spurted from the open tunnel mouths along its sides. From the embattled lizard-men came a hair-raising, ululating cry, a sound not of anger or bloodlust, but of wrenching despair.

  The walls of the mound split apart and fell inward. The pinnacle, which had once reared so high, plummeted into the center of the stronghold. With a prolonged roar, the entire structure gave way, hurling broken logs and dried mud for hundreds of paces all around.

  Chapter 18

  A Knowing Child

  The sun was setting on a sweltering day. It dipped behind the smooth walls of Caergoth, lending to the cool white stone the sheen of old gold. Humid and heavy, the day had passed quietly. The Juramona Militia and the five hundred Riders acting as cavalry escort guarded the treasure and kept out of sight.

  Tylocost remained on the hilltop for most of the day, his face shaded by the wide brim of his gardener’s hat. He did not speak. Now and then he plucked a stem of grass and chewed it thoughtfully.

  On the other side of the hill, Zala and Casberry completed preparations for their foray into the city. The forty kender chosen by the queen had left to enter the city in whatever way they could. At the appointed time they would join up at the prison cages in the center of Caergoth. In spite of his urgent pleas to be taken into Caergoth, Helbin had never shown up. He likely had developed cold feet, Zala thought. She was glad. That was one less worry on what would probably be a dangerous night.

  Zala, with her glean, could enter the city by the gate. Casberry declared herself too old to climb high walls or wrig
gle through drain pipes. She wanted to accompany the half-elf, and pondered how she could accomplish this since the glean covered only Zala herself.

  Her solution to the problem caused Zala, in spite of her nervous excitement, to break out in laughter.

  Casberry dispatched Front and Back, her sedan chair bearers, to find her a wheelbarrow. While the men went off to search the treasure trove for such a thing, the queen and the half-elf put together their disguises.

  Zala was to be a peasant woman. The queen happily rooted through the numerous chests of her “royal luggage” to find an appropriate dress for her. A lady’s gown of green velvet was just Zala’s size, but much too fine. It would draw attention, and they certainly didn’t want that.

  The dress the kender queen finally produced was a patched and well-worn homespun garment. Zala pulled it on and put her arms into the long sleeves. She squirmed a bit, trying to accustom herself to the garment’s unfamiliar feel. Its full skirt covered her legs and the trousers she had flatly refused to remove, and transformed her into frumpy shapelessness. Her hair had grown in the weeks since she’d left Caergoth, but she tied a grimy kerchief over her head to make certain her ears remained covered.

  Casberry stripped to her white linen smallclothes, carefully folding each piece of her flamboyant attire and stowing it in her sedan chair. In moments, she completed her own transformation, and Zala was left to stare at her in open-mouthed astonishment.

  The kender was clad in a dirty green dress. Around its neck and hem were the remnants of embroidered flowers and bumblebees. A matching bonnet covered her head and cast her face into deep shadow. In one hand, she held the final piece of her disguise-a decrepit cloth doll. Casberry, who must have been at least a hundred years old, was dressed as a human child.