The War of the Lance t2-3

by Margaret Weis

  This last, of course, was not precisely true, and Jastom knew it. He and Grimm were charlatans. Fakes. Swindlers. The potion in the purple bottle couldn't so much as heal a rabbit of the sniffles let alone any of the dire ills he was claiming. Mosswine wasn't even Jastom's real name. It was Jastom Mosswallow. However, by the time folk in any one place realized the truth of things, Jastom and Grimm would always be long gone, headed for the next town or city to ply their trade.

  It wasn't at all a bad business as Jastom reckoned things. He and Grimm got a purse full of coins for their efforts, and in return the folk they duped got something to believe in, at least for a little while. And these days even a brief hope was a rare thing of worth.

  It was just six short months ago, in the dead of winter, that all of Krynn had suffered under the cold, hard claws of the dragonarmies. The War of the Lance had ended with the coming of spring, but the scars it had left upon the land — and the people — had not faded so easily as the winter snows. The folk of Ansalon were desperate for anything that might help them believe they could leave the dark days of the war behind, that they could heal themselves and make their lives whole once again. That was exactly what Jastom and Grimm gave them.

  Of course, there were true clerics in the land now, since the War. Some were disciples of the goddess Mishakal — called Light Bringer — and they could heal with the touch of a hand. Or at least so Jastom had heard, for true clerics were still a rarity. However, he and Grimm did their best to avoid towns and cities where there were rumored to be clerics. Folk wouldn't be so willing to buy false healing potions when there was one among them with the power of true healing.

  Abruptly, there was a loud, surprising clunk! as the wagon's side panel flipped downward, revealing a polished wooden counter and, behind it, a row of shelves lined with glimmering purple bottles. Grimm's glowering eyes barely managed to peer over the countertop, but the crowd hardly noticed the taciturn dwarf. All were gazing at the display of sparkling elixirs.

  Jastom gestured expansively to the wagon. "Indeed, my good gentlefolk, just one of these elixirs, and all that troubles you will be cured. And all it costs is a mere ten coins of steel. A small price to pay for a miracle, wouldn't you say?"

  There was a single moment of silence, and then as one the crowd gave a cry of excitement as they rushed forward, jingling purses in hand.

  All morning and all afternoon the townsfolk crowded about the black varnished wagon, listening to Jastom extol the wondrous properties of the potions and then setting down their cold steel on the counter in trade for the small purple bottles.

  There was only one minor crisis, this around midday, when the supply of potions ran out. Grimm was busily scurrying about inside the cramped wagon, measuring this and pouring that as he hurriedly tried to mix a new batch of elixirs. However, a few burly, red-necked farmers grew impatient and began shaking the wagon. Jars and bottles and pots went flying wildly inside, spilling their contents and covering Grimm with a sticky, medicinal-smelling mess. Luckily, the dwarf had managed to finish a handful of potions by then, and Jastom used these to placate the belligerent farmers, selling them the bottles for half price. Losing steel was not something Jastom much cared for, but losing the wagon — and Grimm — would have been disastrous.

  After that interruption, Grimm was able to finish filling empty bottles with the thick, pungent elixir, and business proceeded more smoothly. However, the dwarf's eyes were still smoldering like hot iron.

  "Fine way to make a living," he grumbled to himself as he tried to pick sticky clumps of herbs from his thick black beard. "I suppose we'll swindle ourselves right out of our own necks one of these days."

  "What did that glum-looking little fellow say?" a blacksmith demanded, hesitating as he started to lay down his ten coins of steel on the wooden counter. "Something about swindle?"

  Jastom shot a murderous look at Grimm and then turned his most radiant smile to the smith. "You'll have to forgive my friend's mumblings," he said in a conspiratorial whisper. "He hasn't been quite the same ever since one of the ponies kicked him in the head."

  The blacksmith nodded in sympathetic understanding. He left the wagon, small purple bottle in hand. Jastom's bulging purse was ten coins heavier. And Grimm kept his mouth shut.

  It was midafternoon when Jastom sold the last of the potions. The corpulent merchant who bought it gripped the purple bottle tightly in his chubby fingers and scurried off through the streets, a gleam in his eye. The fellow hadn't seemed to want to discuss the exact nature of his malady, but Jastom suspected it had something to do with the equally corpulent young maiden who was waiting for him in the door of a nearby inn, smiling and batting her eyelids in a dreadful imitation of demureness. Jastom shook his head, chuckling.

  Abruptly there was a loud whoop! Jastom turned to see an old woman throw down her crooked cane and begin dancing a spry jig to a piper's merry tune. Other folk quickly joined the dance, heedless of the aches and cares that had burdened them only a short while ago. One shabbily-dressed fellow, finding himself without a partner, settled for a spotted pig that had the misfortune to be wandering through the town square. The pig squealed in surprise as the man whirled it about, and Jastom couldn't help but laugh aloud at the spectacle.

  This was the work of the elixirs, of course. Jastom wasn't altogether certain what Grimm put in the small purple bottles, but he knew the important ingredient was something called dwarf spirits. And while dwarf spirits were not known to possess any curative powers, they did have certain potent and intoxicating effects.

  Jastom had no idea how the dwarves brewed the stuff. From what little he had managed to get out of Grimm, it was all terribly secret, the recipe passed down from generation to generation with ancient ceremony and solemn oaths to guard the formula. But whatever was in it, it certainly worked. Laborers threw down their shovels, goodwives their brooms, and all joined what was rapidly becoming an impromptu festival. Respected city elders turned cartwheels about the square, and parents leapt into piles of straw hand-in-hand with their laughing children. For now, all thoughts of the war, of worry and of sickness, were altogether missing from the town of Faxfail.

  But it couldn't last.

  "They won't feel so terribly well tomorrow, once the dwarf spirits wear off," Grimm observed dourly.

  "But today they do, and by tomorrow we'll be somewhere else," Jastom said, patting the nearly-bursting purse at his belt.

  He slammed shut the wagon's side panel and leapt up onto the high bench. Grimm clambered up after him. At a flick of the reins, the ponies started forward, and the wagon rattled slowly out of the rollicking town square.

  Jastom did not notice as three men — one with a sword at his hip and the other two clad in heavy black robes despite the day's warmth — stepped from a dim alleyway and began to thread their way through the spontaneous celebration, following in the wagon's wake.

  Jastom whistled a cheerful, tuneless melody as the wagon jounced down the red dirt road, leaving the town of Faxfail far behind.

  The road wound its way across a broad vale. To the north and south hulked two slate-gray peaks that looked like ancient fortresses built by long-vanished giants. The sky above was clear as a sapphire, and a fair wind, clean with the hint of mountain heights, hissed through the rippling fields of green-gold grass. Sunflowers nodded like old goodwives to each other, and larks darted by upon the air, trilling their glad melodies.

  "You seem to be in an awfully fine mood, considering," Grimm noted in his rumbling voice.

  "Considering what, Grimm?" Jastom asked gaily, resuming his whistling.

  "Considering that cloud of dust that's following on the road behind us," the dwarf replied.

  Jastom's whistling died.

  "What?"

  He cast a hurried look over his shoulder. Sure enough, a thick plume of ruddy dust was rising from the road perhaps a half mile back. Even as Jastom watched, he saw the shapes of three dark horsemen appear amidst the blood-colored cloud.
No… one horseman and two figures running along on either side. The sound of pounding hoofbeats rumbled faintly on the air like the sound of a distant storm.

  Jastom swore loudly. "This is impossible," he said incredulously. "The townsfolk couldn't have sobered up this soon. They can't have figured out that we've swindled them. Not yet."

  "Is that so?" Grimm grunted. "Well, they're riding mighty fast and hard for drunken men."

  "Maybe they're not after us," Jastom snapped. But an uncomfortable image of a noose slipping over his neck went through his mind. Swearing again, he slapped the reins, urging the ponies into a canter. The boxshaped wagon was heavy, and they had just begun to ascend a low hill. The ponies couldn't go much faster. Jastom glanced wildly over his shoulder again. The horseman had closed the gap to half of what it had been only a few moments before. He saw now that two of them — the ones running — wore heavy black robes. Sunlight glinted dully from the sword that the third rider had drawn.

  Jastom considered jumping from the wagon but promptly discarded the idea. If the fall didn't kill them, the strangers would simply cut him and the dwarf down like a mismatched pair of weeds. Besides, everything Jastom and Grimm owned was in the wagon. Their entire livelihood de pended upon it. Jastom couldn't abandon it, no matter the consequences. He flicked the reins harder. The ponies strained valiantly against their harnesses, their nostrils flaring with effort.

  It wasn't enough.

  With a sound like a breaking storm, the horseman rode up alongside the wagon. One of the dark-robed men dashed up close to the ponies. With incredible strength, he grabbed the bridle of the nearest and then pulled back hard, his feet digging into the gravel of the road. The dapples reared, whinnying in fear as the wagon shuddered to a sudden stop.

  "Away with you, dogs!" Grimm growled fiercely, reaching under the seat for the heavy axe he kept there. The dwarf never managed to get a hand on the weapon. With almost comic ease, the second dark-robed man grabbed the dwarf by the collar of his tunic and lifted him from the bench. The dwarf kicked his feet and waved his arms futilely, suspended in midair, his face red with rage and lack of air.

  Jastom could pay scant attention to the spluttering dwarf. He had worries of his own. A glittering steel sword was leveled directly at his heart.

  Whoever these three were, Jastom was quite certain that they weren't townsfolk from Faxfail, but this did little to comfort him. The man before him looked to be a soldier of some sort. He was clad in black leather armor sewn with plates of bronze, and a cloak of lightning blue was thrown back over his stiff, square shoulders.

  Suddenly, Jastom was painfully aware of the fat leather purse at his belt. He cursed himself inwardly. He should have known better than to go riding off, boldly flaunting his newly-gained wealth. The roads were thick with bandits and brigands these days, now that the war was over. Most likely these men were deserters from the Solamnic army, desperate and looking for foolish travelers like himself to waylay.

  Jastom forced his best grin across his face. "Good day, friend," he said to the man who held the sword at his chest.

  The man was tall and stern-faced, his blond, close-cropped hair and hawklike nose enhancing the granite severity of his visage. Most disturbing about him, however, were his eyes. They were pale and colorless, like his hair, but as hard as stones. They were eyes that had watched men die and not cared a whit one way or another.

  The man inclined his head politely, as though he wasn't also holding a sword in his hand. "I am Lieutenant Durm, of the Blue Dragonarmy," he said in a voice that was steel-made — polished and smooth, yet cold and so very hard. "My master, the Lord Commander Shaahzak, is in need of one with healing skills." He gestured with the sword to the picture of the bottle painted on the side of the wagon. "I see that you are a healer." The sword point swung once again in Jastom's direction. "You will accompany me to attend my commander."

  The blue dragonarmy? Jastom thought in disbelief. But the war was over! The dragonarmies had been defeated by the Whitestone forces. At least, that was what the stories said. Jastom shot a quick look at Grimm, but the dwarf was still dangling in midair from the darkrobed man's fist, cursing in a tight, squeaky voice. Jastom turned his attention back to the man who called himself Durm.

  "I fear that I have an appointment elsewhere," Jastom said pleasantly, his grin growing broader yet. He reached for his heavy leather purse. "I am certain, lieutenant, that you can easily find another who is not so pressed for — " — time, Jastom was going to finish, but before he could, Durm reached out in a fluid, almost casual gesture and struck him.

  Jastom's head erupted into a burst of white-hot fire. He tumbled from the wagon's bench to the hard ground, a rushing noise filling his ears. For a dizzying moment he thought he was going to be sick. After a few seconds the flashing pain subsided to a low throbbing. He blinked his eyes and looked up. Durm had dismounted and stood over him now, his visage as emotionless as before.

  "I recommend that you not speak falsehood to me again," Durm said in a polite, chilling voice, his tone that of a host admonishing a guest for spilling wine on an expensive carpet. "Do you understand, healer?"

  Jastom nodded jerkily. This man could kill me with his bare hands and not even blink, Jastom thought with a shudder.

  "Excellent," Durm said. He reached down and helped Jastom to his feet — the same hand that had struck him a moment before. Durm gestured sharply, and the darkrobed man who had been holding Grimm let the dwarf fall heavily back to the wagon's bench, gasping for air.

  "If you lie to me again, healer," Durm went on smoothly, "I will instruct my servants to deal with you. And I fear you will not find them so lenient as myself."

  Durm's dark-robed followers pushed back the heavy cowls of their robes.

  They were not human.

  The two looked more akin to lizards than men, but they were not truly either. The two of them gazed at Jastom and Grimm with unblinking yellow eyes. Dull, green-black scales — not skin or fur — covered the monsters' faces. They had doglike snouts. Short, jagged spikes sprouted from their low, flat brows, and where each should have had ears there were only small indentations in their scaly hides. The monster nearest Jastom grinned evilly, revealing row upon row of jagged, yellow teeth, as if it enjoyed the idea of having Jastom to do with as it wished. A thin forked tongue flickered in and out of the thing's mouth.

  Draconian. Jastom had never seen such a beast in his life, but he had heard enough tales of the War of the Lance to put a name to it. The draconians were the servants of the Dragon Highlords, and they had marched across the land to lay scourge to the face of Krynn even as the evil dragons themselves had descended from the skies.

  "You might as well save everyone the trouble and let the lizards have us now," Grimm shouted hotly. "We're only — "

  Jastom elbowed the dwarf hard in the ribs.

  "Apprentice healers. New at this. Very new." Grimm mumbled, saying something about "necks," but fortunately only Jastom heard him.

  Jastom drew upon all his theatrical skills to pull his facade back together. "Very well, my good lieutenant, we shall journey with you," he said, tipping his cap. As if we had a choice in the matter, he added inwardly.

  "That is well," Durm said simply.

  The lieutenant mounted and spurred his horse viciously into a canter. Jastom realized there was nothing to do but follow. He climbed back onto the wagon and flicked the ponies' reins. The craft lurched into motion. The two draconians ran along either side, hands on the hilts of their wicked-looking sabres. Jastom cast a quick look at Grimm. The dwarf eyed his friend, then shook his head gloomily.

  For the first time he could ever remember, Jastom found himself wishing his elixirs could truly work the wonders he claimed.

  Dawn was blossoming on the horizon, like a pale rose unfurling its petals, when the wagon rattled into the dragonarmy encampment.

  They had traveled all through the night, making their way down treacherous mountain roads guided only by the
dim light of the crimson moon, Lunitari. More than once Jastom had thought that wagon, ponies, and all were going to plummet off the side of a precipice into the deep shadows far below. Yet he had not dared to slow the wagon's hurtling pace as they careened down the twisting passes. Jastom feared tumbling over a cliff a good bit less than he did facing Durm's displeasure.

  Now, in the pale silvery light of dawn, they had left the mountains behind them somewhere in the gloom of night. The dragonarmy encampment sat in a hollow at the edge of the rolling foothills. Stretching into the distance eastward was a vast gray-green plain, its flowing lines broken only here and there by the silhouette of a cottonwood tree, sinking its roots deep for water.

  The encampment was not large — perhaps fifty tents in all, clustered on the banks of a small river. But Jastom had not realized that there were still any dragonanny forces at all so close to Solamnia, or anywhere for that matter. From the stories, he thought they had all been driven clean off the face of Krynn. Obviously that was not so.

  Most of the soldiers in the encampment were human, with deep-set eyes and cruel mouths. There were a number of draconians as well, dressed in leather armor similar to that of the human soldiers. Short, stubby wings sprouted from the draconians' backs, as leathery as a bat's, but they seemed to flutter uselessly as the draconians stalked across the ground on clawed, unbooted feet.

  "This doesn't look like one of the friendlier audiences you've ever had to hawk potions to," Grimm noted as the wagon rolled into the center of the encampment.

  Jastom had played to dangerous audiences before, unruly crowds of ruffians who were more interested in breaking bones than in buying magical potions. But he had won even these over in the end.

  A gleam touched Jastom's blue eyes. "No, but they ARE an audience all the same, aren't they?" he said softly, glad for the dwarf's reminder. "Let's not forget that, Grimm. They think we're healers. And as long as they keep thinking that, we'll keep our heads attached to our necks." There was only one rule to remember when hawking to a nasty crowd: never show fear.