The Crown and the Sword

by Doug Niles

  The human troops closer to the adamites backed away to make room for the great, swelling block of troops, already numbering several hundred. Swordsmen muttered curses and exclamations, and archers raised their bows—holding their arrows—as more and more of these lifelike, but clearly stone, beings sprouted from the narrow cave. The adamites marched quickly, forming up in single-file ranks in an ever-expanding front around the concealed aperture at the foot of the cliff. There were hundreds of them now gathered and more still marching out of the tunnel. The front was a hundred paces long by now, and every yard of it was preceded by the wicked, spade-shaped spear points.

  “They hate that elemental,” Moptop explained, looking curiously up at the looming monster. “I think they want to catch it and take it back where it belongs.”

  Already the adamites were marching forward, ignoring the human warriors who scrambled and stumbled to get out of the way. The spears never wavered; the line did not bend, even as the magical warriors flowed around trees and rocks, splashed through the shallow stream that meandered through the valley floor. Moving away from the cliff, spears held level at shoulder height, they tromped steadily toward the massive elemental king.

  “How will they … oh, never mind,” Jaymes said. Spinning around, he barked at General Weaver. “Open your line all the way! Let them through without trouble!” he ordered.

  The soldiers of the Palanthian Legion pulled back hastily, more than willing to allow these weirdly unnatural warriors to pass without hindrance. The adamites continued their advance in a tightly packed formation bristling with spears, their feet stepping in cadence as they marched smoothly past the Palanthian troops and on toward the horrific giant. Marching with steady, exacting precision, their feet crunched over the ground in an increasingly audible rhythm.

  Stony spears extended, the adamites, numbering at least a thousand strong by this time, stretched across the valley floor. Lines from the rear marched to the sides, faced front again, and expanded the ranks with perfect discipline and formation. They continued to march forward, long spears extended, closing rapidly on the king of the elementals.

  As yet that awe-inspiring monster showed no fear of the new arrivals. Instead, the twin cyclones of its great legs kicked faster, and the monster waded heavily into the first rank of the adamites, uttering another bellow with enough force to break three or four shelves of rock loose from the overhanging wall of cliff.

  “It will crush them there; they can retreat no farther!” gloated Ankhar the half-giant as he and Hoarst hurried around the shoulder of the valley wall. The army commander gazed almost rapturously at the gigantic being as it closed on the trapped Solamnic army. The sheer wall with its lofty overhang formed the perfect trap. The milling humans, trapped against the steep, precipitous barrier, had lost all formation, showed none of the cohesion and discipline he had come to expect from the knights.

  “The whole army will die here!” he crowed.

  The half-giant and the Thorn Knight had hastened after the monster as it pursued the fleeing Solamnics, the pair moving far ahead of most of the army. Most of Ankhar’s troops were behind them, still reeling from the chaos of the battle, though several hundred of his goblin warg-riders had formed up and escorted the pair in their pursuit. Ankhar had insisted upon rushing ahead of the bulk of his troops, leaving even Laka, so he could see all that was going to transpire and revel in his ultimate triumph.

  “Hurry up!” he exhorted the wizard. “We will be witness to a great victory!”

  Only then did Ankhar notice that Hoarst, his face oddly impassive, wasn’t looking at the monster. His staring eyes were directed elsewhere.

  “What are those things?” asked the Thorn Knight, his voice unusually urgent and concerned.

  “What things? What are you talking about?”

  Hoarst seemed agitated, and this irritated Ankhar. Why could he not just relish this great moment, this historic success? But the human, ignoring his commander’s frown of displeasure, turned and rushed to climb some rocks that had tumbled to the foot of the nearby valley wall.

  “Get up here; we can see better from a higher vantage,” urged the Thorn Knight in a peremptory tone.

  Ankhar scowled but followed the irritating man up the loose shelf of rocks. He stumbled and scuffed his hands trying to find solid purchase, and he wrenched his knee when one of the rocks yielded to his weight to tumble loosely down to the ground. Cursing, the half-giant hoisted himself to the ledge where Hoarst stood then turned around to look.

  He could clearly see the mass of enemy troops, fractured lines and broken companies huddled against the cliff that barred their progress up the valley. Some of the riders had dismounted and were holding their panic-stricken horses by the reins. It was clear they could find no escape, no route out of the valley save the one they had taken in retreat, and that path was now held by the massive presence of the king of the elementals.

  But there was another source of movement down in the valley, something Ankhar had to squint to see. It was like the rocky floor of the valley was slinking forward like a living carpet, a flood of ghostly gray stone spreading out to confront the king of the elementals, to block its path toward its human quarry. Squinting, the half-giant made out an array of spear tips—many hundreds of them—and, with a start, realized these new stone-colored arrivals bore the shapes of men.

  “What are they?” he demanded, annoyed by the postponement of slaughter, though still not overly worried about the outcome of the fight.

  “I don’t know,” the Thorn Knight replied curtly.

  “Strange warriors … and look, they attack the king,” the half giant grunted, amused. This would be good entertainment. He would watch these mysterious newcomers die.

  “Whatever they are, they don’t lack for courage,” the man noted.

  “Let them die bravely instead of cravenly, then,” snorted Ankhar. But his bravado had an element of bluster to it. After all, what were those things?

  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 see
m 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: