by Dragon Lance
What outrages! What madness!
In the night, the company of Terras Ditrivus slew the sleeping men of three other companies before they were, to a man, killed. The other five colonels stabbed Terras to death, and cast lots for his belongings. All of this killing happened as though in the heat of battle, justice meted out upon the moment. I stumbled on the scene only with the tumble of the dice, as the five divided the madman’s possessions. I would not let them profit from such evil dealings, and took all the items to be locked away as evidence.
There is one item among them, though, too precious to be entrusted to a vault of steel and stone – a pendant, set with a ruby the size of a child’s heart. I donned it even as I marched out to the two remaining companies and ordered them to bury or bum the dead.
Argon, 1199
They are all traitors. I know that now. I found among the articles of Colonel Desidras’s captain, Octavias, a letter from the empress. She charged Octavias to find the rebels among the villagers, and said the enclosed enchanted pendant – the very pendant I now wear – would aid his search. The pendant, the size and color of a child’s heart, lets its wearer see the true heart of every man. It would show the heart of traitors as utter blackness.
That is why Octavias slew the villagers, to a man. Every last one fomented rebellion in their hearts.
It seems, though, the peasant treasons have infected the soldiers. Once Octavias was slain, the pendant was pillaged by Terras Ditrivus, who ordered his men to slay three hundred sleepers. Why cruel fate made him miss the five colonels, I cannot guess, but the black-hearted villains killed Terras, and almost gained the pendant.
I wear it now. I saw the evil in the final fifty men. Yes, one hundred fifty of the conspirators fled during the night, no doubt believing I would hunt them out. They won’t escape.
Neither did the fifty. I myself slew those who slept, then walked the stockade and stuck a knife in every throat there. The last seventeen I ordered to bring their five commanders to the gallows, if they wished their own lives spared. Then, even as the gibbet fell, I slew five more men by knife, ten by sword. The last two I hunted down through the fortress and strangled with my own fingers.
The account ended there. We found Fineas Tragarus wearing the pendant and clutching a crossbow to his chest, a bolt through his brain. I can deduce only that in writing the account yesterday morning, he had cause to glance down at his own heart, blacker than all the others.
It’s all the work of Phrygia. The ruby was rose-cut, rose-red. It was set in tarnished silver worked to look like thorny rose branches and woven into a crown – Phrygia’s crown. It’s her rose heart gone to thorns and evil.
A thousand men dead, and for what?
If such continues, Phrygia will have defeated me before I even reach Vingaard. How many foes am I to face in this campaign? When emperor and empress themselves want me to fail, whom am I fighting for?
The pendant is undone. The moment I puzzled all this out, I hunted up a warhammer, ripped the stone from Tragarus’s neck, and shattered the gem. A queer black smoke hissed from the shattered thing and rose, curdling, in the air. My men took that as a bad sign. I did not forbid them to mention it.
With all these losses, I hate to do without even two of my men. But the emperor must know what his wife has wrought. The two I sent, seasoned scouts, have orders to deliver my missive anonymously. I do not want two worthy warriors slain as the bearers of bad – perhaps even treasonous – tidings. The communication will bear my signet stamp. Let whatever transpires fall on my neck, and mine alone.
VII
One Day Hence, 11 Argon, 1199 Age of Light
They marched. There was nothing better for spooked and bedeviled soldiers to do than march. Resting would only make the phantasms come to terrifying life. Discussion would only spread the fears of one man, feverlike, among the others. Inaction would be worst of all. No, fighting was the best salve for any soldier’s soul, and when that was not possible, marching would do.
The men had slept little the night before, but they certainly would tonight, after fifty miles of forced marching upon the rutted dirt track that led from Caergoth to Thelgaard. The horrors of spinning minds would be blotted out by the red haze of bone-bruised heels and aching backs and flesh as hot and loose as roast beef. Tonight they would sleep, and wake up only two days from Thelgaard.
It wasn’t that Commander Solamnus thought his army and its train of provisions could march with enough speed to beat Phrygia’s agents to Thelgaard. Her plotting would race four days ahead of him, but four was better than eight. If the empress planned further attacks on Vinas and his men, her troops would have less time to dig in. If she schemed up another slaughterhouse, there would be less time for maggots and vultures.
Vinas himself led the march on foot. Courage was reined to Gaias’s mount. The commander set the grueling pace. Each hour he paused momentarily to fall back among the lines and shout commands and encouragements to the soldiers. The march had changed their haunted faces. Now they were red, and dotted with sweat and exertion.
Luccia, meanwhile, led her griffon cavalry in a sweep of the lands ahead and behind. Scouts filled the woods, running with short-nocked bows and slaying anything that might raise a hand or claw against the army. There would be no ambushes this day, nor any day before they arrived at Thelgaard.
Nor would there be surprises waiting there. This very night, once the sentries watched and the soldiers slept, Luccia and Commander Solamnus would ride her griffon northeast to Thelgaard.
*
The old war wizard bunched up the sleeves of his red robe, baring thin, hairy arms. From his fingertips, flashes of magic whirled. White jolts of energy struck the coin bag, lifting it from the camp table. The small leather satchel glistened with power. Tracers of magic shot through the sack, outlining each of the silver pieces within.
Eyes glowing, Vinas Solamnus watched the sorcerer do his work.
Titus stood beside the commander. Despite the flares of sorcerous power, the chancellor’s features were dark. “To win them over, Commander, you must do more than delude them,” he admonished.
Vinas’s look was equally dark. “I’m not the one deluding them. Phrygia has already done that. These coins will only deepen their delusions – push them past the point of opposing us to the point of fearing us.”
Titus shook his head. “You’re playing her game. You’ve already lost if you play her game.”
Vinas’s smile disappeared. The final threads of magic spun themselves into the floating bag and sank into the metal. The commander snatched the bag from the air and tied the string to his belt.
He turned for a moment to Titus and growled, “I will defeat that monster, even if I must become a monster myself.”
*
Lunitari shone upon the weary griffon’s wings. Its moonlight painted them all red – the wings, the young woman who held the beast’s reins, and the brawny man who rode behind her. Luccia perched comfortably on the saddle, now and then whispering encouragements in the creature’s ear slits. Vinas glanced down at the pine trees glowing red, like row upon row of bloody fangs.
“I’ve been marching too long,” Vinas said to himself.
“What?” Luccia asked, turning toward him.
He felt her warmth, her back arched and taut above the straining wings of Terraton.
“Nothing,” he replied. “I think I see Thelgaard up ahead.”
In the distance, a pale glow lit the underbelly of a low cloud. The light came from a small break in the trees. As Terraton neared the spot, torchlight glowed from palisades and stockades.
“That’s it,” said Luccia. She nudged Terraton. Squawking, he banked down to fly just above the treetops. “We’ll stay low, keep out of sight until the last moment.”
“Whatever you think,” Vinas replied, his trust sounding like disinterest. He knew that if anyone could fly a griffon into an armed fortification in the middle of the night, it would be Luccia. As to what
exactly to say and do after they touched down – that would be Vinas’s job. His mind sifted through the possibilities.
Thelgaard was commanded by Colonel Maslas Quisling, the emperor’s underachieving third cousin. Because Maslas was a Quisling, he would have to be treated well, and would not tolerate accusations against the empress. He would not tolerate the truth. That was the whole reason Vinas had brought along the enchanted bribe money.
His ruminations ceased as the last bloody teeth of forest dropped away. Terraton swooped into the dark midden between forest and palisade. Vinas caught a reflection of Terraton in a stagnant moat as they passed over. The griffon’s wings jabbed outward into air and launched the three of them up toward the top of the wall.
A humming twang announced the hasty flight of a bolt. Another flew, punching into a tree trunk at the verge of the forest.
Luccia stood in the stirrups and drove heels home. Wings dug in. A flash of white feather and gold fur... With massive grace, Terraton set claws to ground.
The two guards who had gotten off shots were already whooping their warnings, and other soldiers had come running. Soldiers gathered around, bringing out blades and crossbows.
Deeming it better to fight on his own two feet, Vinas leapt down beside the mount and drew his sword. “Hold! I come in the name of Emperor Quisling. I am Commander Vinas Solamnus.”
A door flew open. From it emerged smoke and a massive man. His silks streamed with gray tendrils, and his eyes fairly glowed. He belligerently descended the stairs.
“Commander Solamnus,” the man said with heavy emphasis. “Where is your slaying army?”
“My slaying army, Maslas?” answered Vinas without pause.
The man’s face darkened. Just outside of sword range, he halted his approach. “I know what you did in Caergoth. You will not do the same here.”
“Perhaps not,” Vinas admitted casually. He looked around with a shrug. “Then again, the night is young. At the moment, your men are still alive.”
“Don’t toy with me, Commander. The empress’s own envoy brought word that, just yesterday, you slaughtered everyone in Caergoth.”
Vinas hissed a humorless laugh. “Envoys are paid messengers. To them, truth is the message that carries the most money.” He sheathed his sword and puffed his chest, as though daring Maslas or one of his men to attack him. “But I, too, can speak that language.
“Let’s say that these envoys spoke the truth. Let us say I have the power to single-handedly destroy a fortress. Perhaps I am spell-trapped so that if a single arrow or blade strikes me, you will begin to burn from the insides out, your stomachs catching fire and burning long and hot, despite the buckets of water you pour down your throats, and your fat lighting like tallow as your very hearts cook while they are still beating.”
Vinas paused. Sword tips edged back from him. A single bead of sweat traced a gray line from Maslas’s temple to his jawline.
In the silence, Vinas continued. “Perhaps I am in truth no man at all, but a red dragon. Perhaps I am toying with you now, waiting for one of you to volunteer to be my first meal.” He had spoken to the whole fortress, but now cast an aside toward Maslas. “In fact, I am famished.”
He reached down to the leather money bag tied to his waist and loosed it from his belt. “Or, perhaps it has all been blown out of proportion. Perhaps this money – bonus money I brought to pay the brave soldiers of Ergoth – was thought to be a bribe by Colonel Hellas. Perhaps, when he absconded with it, his soldiers rebelled, and to a man, they wiped themselves out. Perhaps...” He extended the bag to Maslas. “Here is a bonus for your payroll. That bag holds a platinum piece for every one of your soldiers.”
Reluctantly, Maslas received the bag. He cast a wary glare at his troops. Their weapons were still trained on the commander, but their eyes were fixed on the colonel and the bag. Gingerly, Maslas pulled open the drawstring and gazed down at the coins.
“These are silver pieces, not platinum,” he said suspiciously.
“Oh, no,” said Vinas. “They’re platinum. Bring one into the light.”
Maslas stared levelly at him.
“Colonel, the men want their bonus,” warned Vinas. “Don’t think about keeping those platinum pieces for yourself. Remember what happened at Caergoth.”
The man’s face creased. His eyes sparkled with hatred. Even so, he reached into the bag to draw forth a coin. The moment his hand touched one of the silver pieces, his expression changed. Distrust deepened to dread. Resistance became revulsion. Suspicion gave way to horrible certainty.
“See? Platinum,” Vinas said lightly. Hand the bag around. Let each soldier have his due.”
Hand trembling, Maslas passed the bag to his lieutenant. The soldier’s drawn sword dipped for a moment as he fished a coin from the bag. When the blade rose again, it wavered nervously. Sweat drenched the second’s face.
“Keep it going, keep it going,” Vinas urged, an edge of irritation in his voice. “You don’t want your soldiers to die of starvation before they get their bonuses!”
The bag moved more quickly, hand to hand. As it went, the silence deepened. The air bristled. The sense of terror and doom hung heavily over all the warriors.
Even Luccia shifted uneasily. She watched the bag make its circuit, her eyes twitching as the magic transformed each soldier. One by one, their suspicions unmanned them. Not a one would dare oppose Vinas now.
He was the only one at ease in the fortress. He seemed in fact to be enjoying the terror of the men.
It was none too soon, then, when Vinas motioned her to fly back to camp, leaving him among his new friends. She would guide the rest of his army to Thelgaard the next day.
As Luccia mounted up, Vinas dramatically lifted her hand and kissed it, wishing her a safe journey. He did not look at her as he did so, instead gazing with satisfaction at the terrified men around him.
Luccia drew her hand away and tapped Terraton’s flanks. As the beast leapt into the starry night sky, Luccia could not help noticing that Vinas’s kiss had felt ice cold.
Meus Pater
Well, Father, I have turned the tide on Phrygia tonight. I have entered her game of treachery and played it better than she.
You would not be pleased with the man I have become. I am not pleased either. The old Vinas – the young, starry-eyed boy – would have marched doggedly and predictably into every trap Phrygia laid in my path. Before, I would have sent thousands upon thousands of soldiers to their graves, and considered the deaths noble and valorous, the justifiable sacrifice of good.
The new Vinas is unimpressed by good. Good does not balance out against lost lives. If being evil means more comrades will live to share my campfire tonight, evil I shall gladly be.
We have traded roles, you and I. I have become the pragmatist and you the dreamer. I suppose that is because hope comes easier to youths and deadmen.
VIII
Five Days Hence, 16 Argon, 1199 Age of Light
The day was waning as Commander Vinas Solamnus, still afoot, led his dusty column toward the ramparts of Solanthus. The fortification had doubled in size since the time of Colonel Hellas. Wooden stockades had given way in piecemeal fashion to masonry, and the forest that had once verged a hundred strides from the fence had now been burned back to a thousand paces.
The fortification had grown, that was sure. The roadside guardpost had become barracks, then staging fortification, and at last, castle. The nearby villages, too, had grown. A shantytown of artisans and merchants and tinkers had sprung up beside the fort. The place looked prosperous and stable, bustling with soldiers, peasants, and visiting dignitaries. The atmosphere was almost cheerful.
“Standard bearers, to the front!” called Vinas. The signal was conveyed down the line.
In moments, the family crest of Solamnus – a white kingfisher on a blue field – was joined by a red dragon rampant on yellow, a green arrow on gold, and a host of other symbols. Some of Vinas’s colonels and captains would have
friends or brothers stationed here. A good three thousand of the troops within had imperial orders to join Vinas’s army. The sight of familiar standards would at least make these friends, brothers, and comrades think twice before shooting.
If the empress had not already deemed things otherwise.
Luccia and her griffon squads had reported no sign of trouble ahead. Perhaps, at last, they had outrun Phrygia’s madness.
A contingent of cavalry passed under the castle’s stone gateway. They flew the standards of Ergoth, Solanthus, and House Maximus. They rode great black beasts that shone as though they were obsidian statues. The mounts ate up the road in a fast, fierce gallop. The head of the cavalry stood in his stirrups as he approached. He reined in his eager, prancing steed, as did the others behind him. Hooves kneaded the dirt.
“Greetings, Commander Solamnus!” cried the lead rider. He had a dark mustache and goatee. “I trust you are well?”
Vinas strode forth and reached up, clasping the man’s arm in a hearty salute. “Well enough for a welcome such as this,” he said with heartfelt conviction.
The dark-bearded man smiled. “Well enough to accompany us on a salvo against rebel raiders?”
At last, countrymen who were allies instead of enemies. Vinas drew in that realization as though it were a breath of spring air. “We are too many to keep up with you. Besides, it has been fifty miles afoot today. I would have my own mutiny if I dared another fifty miles.”
“I do wish you could join us,” said the man, his eyes gleaming. “Your first taste of traitor’s blood, and all that.”
Vinas cast a capricious glance over his shoulder. Gaias sat his horse with all the weight of a statue. He, almost imperceptibly, shook his head.
Turning back, Vinas stroked his chin, as though he had an invisible goatee to match the lead horseman’s. “This wouldn’t be a salvo ordered by the empress herself, would it?”
