by David Cook
Teldin burst into laughter at the thought of his old friend trying to tend a field. “Hah!” he declared through snorts. “I can see you ordering chickens into the henhouse! Move, you lazy birds,” the farmer bellowed, imitating his old friend. Teldin’s impersonation brought a self-mocking smile to the captain’s face. Soon the quiet night echoed with their laughter.
At last Vandoorm rose, shaking out his stiff legs. “You do not change, Tel. I am glad I found you in Kalaman. Enjoy your sleep. Tomorrow we’ll talk more about old times.” Vandoorm shook hands with his old friend, then went back on his rounds.
After all the precautions taken in the camp, the night was peaceful. Awakening at dawn, Teldin saw Gomja’s dark shape huddled near the fire. The giff was asleep, still sitting upright, as if on guard. The farmer stirred up the coals of the fire and made breakfast. Only them did he wake his companion. Not too much later, the war band broke camp, the men glad to leave the region of Dargaard Keep.
Once on the road, the ride quickly fell into the same simple routine of the day before. True to his word, Vandoorm rode with Teldin. Having given his orders yesterday, there was little more the captain needed to do. On occasion, he had Teldin check a load or clean a horse’s hoof, but the rider was generally quiet.
Their conversation drifted to many things. Vandoorm told of how he had drifted around since the war. It seemed that with groups of draconians still on the loose, there was sometimes work for mercenaries. Over the years Vandoorm had gone from just another hired sword to the leader of a small band. He’d made a fair share of money and, like a good soldier, had managed to squander most of it away.
For his part, Teldin described what had happened to his farm both over the years and recently, though he made no mention of flying ships, neogi, or his strange cloak. It was raiders, the farmer claimed, that had destroyed the farm, and now he was going to Palanthas to seek funds from distant cousins.
Talk wandered back to the old days. Vandoorm took delight in relating to Gomja embarrassing tales of Teldin’s youth. “I had to talk him out of joining the lead troops,” Vandoorm incredulously explained. “When he came to Palanthas, Teldin was ready to fight draconians all alone.” The captain smirked at the thought. “To keep him alive, I saw that he became a mule skinner. Is it not true, Tel?”
The giff looked up at Teldin to check the veracity of the mercenary’s words. The yeoman nodded, his head bobbing in rhythm with the plodding of the horse. “It’s true enough, but I hated him for it. He told the commander I was a farmer and skilled with mules.”
“That man was a fool, easy to trick – but I did it for you. He was too young to be killed in the war – and had no stomach for soldiering,” Vandoorm proudly cut in. “It was for the best. You see, you’re alive today, eh?”
Teldin hated to admit that the captain was right, but he was. The mercenary was a good judge of character, even then. Teldin had come to Palanthas full of ideals but not much on realities. Vandoorm knew it and had arranged for the farm boy to learn. “Why did you do it, anyway? It’s something I’ve always wanted to know.”
Vandoorm swayed in the saddle for a time before answering. “I think maybe you reminded me of my sister’s son,” he eventually answered, flashing a wicked grin. “I liked you, didn’t want to see you die, eh?”
Teldin did not argue. Their friendship was one of the things he had never really understood. True, they got along well enough, but, then or now, the farmer could not guess why Vandoorm had taken him under his wing.
Still, the friendship between Vandoorm and Teldin seemed to have little effect on the other men. It did not bother Teldin. As a rule, he found mercenaries to be an unpleasant and unlikable crew. Teldin remembered their sort of war, men who, upon seeing blood, first learned not to fear it, then grew to like it. They fought not because the cause was just, but because they enjoyed it. For the mercenaries, money settled all moral issues. More than once in the war, Teldin had met men who had fought on both sides, picking whichever side paid the best or was most expedient. They never understood or cared for which side was right. Revenge was their idea of justice.
The wild-maned, eye-patched rider, Brun One-Eye seemed particularly suspicious of Teldin and his companion. Three – maybe four – times an hour, Teldin would catch the man staring in their direction. Brun was never hostile and, indeed, was even friendly. Sometimes he rode alongside, asking questions about the giff, their destination, where they’d been, and what they had seen. But Teldin’s answers were guarded; the one-eyed mercenary did not inspire a feeling of trust.
At night, when Vardoorm was busy, Teldin spent his time pointing out the constellations to Gomja. The trooper worked at memorizing their positions, names, and histories; the Balance, Paladine, and the Queen of Darkness were among the few that Teldin could identify.
For his part, the giff tried to explain to the farmer the wonders of space: how the stars burned, how strange creatures walked other worlds, and how ships flew between the spheres. Words failed Gomja too often, leaving Teldin more confused than he had been to start with. Still, the giff’s tales were full of wonders and adventures that Teldin had never heard before.
The company traveled without change for several days, pressing hard by day, camping at the edge of fields by night. They seldom stopped at the inns along the route. Vandoorm kept a strict discipline, and the tavern rooms were too great a temptation for drunkenness. In that much, the captain had changed quite a bit, Teldin reflected. Some of the men grumbled, but most were professionals, used to Vandoorm’s ways.
Seven days from Kalaman, and six from their camp near Dargaard Keep, the mercenaries reached the walls of the High Cleric’s Tower. The massive fortification, site of the first great victory in the War of the Lance, sat astride Westgate Pass, blocking the narrow canyon that eventually led to distant Palanthas. The road pierced the walls of the keep and passed through a smaller section known as the Knight’s Spur. To one side of the spur rose the keep’s distinctive structures: a cluster of towers grouped around a single main spire, the sanctuary of the High Clerist, that soared to dizzying heights over the rest. Teldin had been told once by a knight that from the top you could see as far as Throtyl Gap, sixty leagues away. Discounting the obvious exaggeration, the tower was tall enough to reach above the canyon walls that marked the edge of the plain. These cliffs cast flanking shadows on the road as it neared the gate.
Throughout the keep, years of neglect and war were slowly being undone. Fresh masonry stood out plainly against the old, dark stone. Nearly deserted at one time, its walls now held many men, who stood bored but watchful. The memories of two wars were still fresh in the minds of most of the garrison, wars during which the keep had been undermanned and ill-led. The soldiers of the fortress now seemed determined to prevent that from happening again.
Where the guards of Kalaman were cautious, their fellows at the High Clerist’s Tower were outright suspicious. The attitudes of those in Palanthas were slowly changing and these guards reflected those new feelings, carefully checking all who sought to pass through the portcullises. The line of traffic slowly wound through the gates as each vehicle, each traveler, was stopped, then cleared for entry into Westgate Pass. Finally, Vandoorm went forward, representing his men. Returning, he waved the troop forward as the guards idly watched. When Teldin and the giff approached, Vandoorm pulled them aside.
“It takes much persuasion to get your friend through the gates. The knights are no longer the most trusting and foolish of warriors. Even some of my own men tell me to leave your friend behind. If the guards challenge him, make sure he does nothing rash.” Vandoorm nodded significantly toward the giff and then reined his horse away. Teldin also looked at his companion, trying to read the alien’s expression, but Gomja’s broad face was an impassive mask. Quelling any feelings of doom and misgiving, Teldin followed Vandoorm through the tower gate.
Once they were finally past the portcullises, over the bridge, through the walls, and had entered the narrow
canyon beyond, Teldin looked to Gomja with relief. The giff had not done anything rash, which was a small blessing.
His troops reunited and his authority restored, Vandoorm easily swung onto his horse, a sturdy chestnut mare. At his bawled command, the troops mounted and began the long descent toward Palanthas.
After leaving the keep, the road plunged into a narrow gorge that cut between two knife-edged mountain ridges. The track shared the canyon floor with a swift-flowing stream fed by the rains and snows that. tumbled down the gully-creased inclines. Few trees could find a foothold on the steep and rock-bound slopes, so the waters flowed red-brown from the minerals carried off by erosion. The road followed the stream where it could, winding in and out of the shadows. The canyon floor was seldom in full daylight.
Where before they had ridden at a hard pace, Vandoorm now ordered a complete change, slowing the column to a gentle walk. Teldin, tired and saddle-sore from days of jolting trots, had no complaints, while Gomja found it easier to keep pace with the riders. The big giff marched alongside the mounted human.
As he gently swayed in the saddle, Teldin spoke with the giff, raising his voice to be heard above the clacking hooves of the column. “Well, Gomja, this cut leads straight to Palanthas. In a few days, we’ll be there.”
“You know this road, sir?” Somehow the giff had managed to find some food and was eating again.
“During the war – the first one – I served at Palanthas. I was in the first relief column to reach the High Clerist’s Tower after Lord MarKenin’s victory over the dragonarmies.
Gomja looked up, his small eyes wide with interest. War stories were never boring and it sounded as if Teldin was about to begin one. “That must have been a magnificent thing, sir!” he said eagerly.
Teldin closed his eyes and repressed a shudder as he remembered the trek. “No, it wasn’t,” he finally responded. In his mind, Teldin could see the canyon as it had been back then. “It was wintertime and the pass was closed by snow. Our column marched just as the thaw began, and we had to break through the melting crust to reach the tower. The water was running high and the road was washed out more than once. Three men were swept away by that —” Teldin opened his eyes and pointed to the stream alongside them – and their bodies weren’t found until the spring. Half the men in my company were frostbitten by the time we reached the tower. And that’s where things got even worse.
“The Knights of Solamnia had just ‘won’ the battle of Westgate Pass a few days before. But they were knights, not soldiers.” There was no mistaking the scorn in Teldin’s voice as he remembered the past. Gomja listened intently, forgetting even to chew. “The knights were too few – and too important – to take the field and claim it. All that time, while we were bashing through the drifts to reach the tower, the Knights of Solamnia stayed inside the keep and honored their fallen commanders. They left the rest of the dead for us to bury. Three days – they let them lie out there for three days.”
Teldin closed his eyes, trying to control his rising temper. The memories were painful, even now. When he opened them again, he noticed that Vandoorm had fallen in beside them. How long the captain had been listening, Teldin did not know. “It took us two days of solid work to bury them all. Some men stood guard while the rest of us dug in the freezing wind. We couldn’t burn the bodies – there wasn’t enough wood and pitch to do the job – so we had to use picks to dig out the frozen ground for graves. We stacked twenty or thirty bodies in a single pit. When we finished that, there were still the dragons in the keep.”
“Dragons, sir?” Gomja asked, suddenly perking up. “And dragonlances?” In his mind, the giff was trophy collecting.
“Three dragons,” Teldin answered, continuing his story while ignoring Gomja’s curiosity. “The knights had lured them in somehow, killed the lot, and then left them there. When we got to the tower, the bodies were still in the courtyards. We couldn’t bury the dragons – they were way too big, even too big to drag out through the gates – so we had to butcher them on the spot. Then we carried the slabs of frozen meat out onto the plain and burned them with the little firewood we had.” Teldin stopped his tale, waiting for the images to fade from his mind.
“That’s what war was like,” Teldin finished, looking down at the giff.
On the other side of Teldin, Vandoorm nodded in agreement. “That and waiting,” he added. “Go places and wait. Tel, you learn well.”
Gomja said nothing, at first, just looked back at Teldin. Then, with a grotesquely cheerful smile and a touch of braggadocio, he said, “It is a good thing giff are known as good soldiers. My people are always put in the forefront of the battle.”
“That’s a great place to die,” Vandoorm observed. He spat on the ground, then wiped his beard on his sleeve.
Gomja stood stiffly upright. “It is the only place to gain honor,” he insisted.
“There’s not much honor in being dead, Gomja,” Teldin said. With a flick of the reins, he brushed a fly away from his mount’s golden mane.
“A bold death does great honor to the platoon.” Gomja double-timed his step to keep pace with Teldin’s horse. “When Commander Finlei lost half his command at Burgg’s Rock, his platoon became one of the most feared – and highest paid – in five spheres. Everyone wanted to join his command. They always had work.”
Vandoorm laughed a snorting chuckle. “Creature, you speak like a true mercenary!” He picked at something in his beard, then spurred his horse forward, trotting to the head of the column, where Brun One-Eye rode.
His old friend gone, Teldin dropped off his saddle to walk beside Gomja. “So those in this platoon died because someone paid them to?” Teldin couldn’t imagine anyone volunteering for such a deed.
“To defend the Rock was an honor, sir. Isn’t that why everyone fights?” Gomja looked down at Teldin, now alongside him. “After all, why did you join the army, sir?”
Teldin tried to remember his motives while he steered around a puddle. “When the war broke out, I was young,” he answered slowly. “I heard stories about the cruelties of the dragonarmies. I was going to go out and right those wrongs, protect the world from their injustice.” The farmer looked to see if Gomja was paying attention to his meanings, not just listening to the words. The giffs ears were turned slightly his way, so Teldin continued. “The war showed me that things weren’t quite that way, weren’t that simple. Like Vandoorm said, I was ready to save Estwilde and wipe the draconians from the face of Ansalon all by myself. By the end of it, I was happy that we made a truce – even if there were still lands in draconian hands. I just wanted to go home.” Teldin abruptly stopped and looked to the top of the canyon walls. “Defeating injustice just wasn’t all that simple, Gomja.”
The giff, a little ahead, turned and looked back. “If you say so, sir,” he murmured. His ears lay flat as he spoke. Gomja waited for Teldin to join him, and the two walked on in silence.
Late that afternoon, Vandoorm called a halt for the day. A side canyon, somewhat broader at the bottom than their own valley, looked like a good site for their camp. The company turned off the main road and picked its way around the rubble field of an old landslide. Leading men and horses, the captain let his scouts find a good section of level, sheltered ground. There the troop pitched their bed-rolls under the boughs of the mountain pines.
In the deep cuts of the canyons, the darkness of shadowed night flowed swiftly over the bottom. The peaks and ridges shone in golden pinks and browns while the valleys were filled with deepening gloom. A peacefulness settled over the group, quieting their normally boisterous evening meal.
The days of hard riding were finally catching up with Teldin, especially since the pace had at last slowed down. He was too tired to supervise Gomja’s cooking, something he had carefully done up to now. The gift’s tastes were different, to say it nicely. While the giff fussed over the stew pot on the fire, Teldin watched the stars slowly emerge through the fading twilight. When dinner came, Teldin regrette
d his inattention; looking at a bowl of green shreds swimming in a yellow broth, Teldin couldn’t help but be suspicious. “What is this?” he asked.
“Yaneesh,” Gomja answered, proudly setting the pot back on the fire. “You will like it, sir.” He waited for Teldin’s approval.
Again, without knowing how, Teldin mentally translated yaneesh to mean something roughly equal to boiled, spiced grass. With a sigh of resignation, the human sipped a little of the stew. The broth was tolerable, though heavily flavored with pepper. The grass, however, was grass – stringy and unchewable. He tried gnawing at a piece while the giff looked expectantly on. “It is – unique. I’ve never had, uh, yaneesh so good,” Teldin said, chewing slowly. Smiling, the giff turned back to the fire. Teldin quickly spat wads of pulp into the weeds. Diligently, Teldin worked through the bowl, disposing of the grass whenever Gomja wasn’t looking.
The meal finished, Teldin hit the sack. Gomja, as was his habit, huddled near the fire and kept watch. Eventually the giff would trade shifts with Teldin, but the farmer suspected Gomja always let the human sleep a few hours longer than was arranged. Still, the mountain nights were cold and Teldin was more than happy to wrap himself in blankets. When Gomja wasn’t watching, Teldin dug into his pack for a strip of jerky. In the darkness, he gratefully gnawed on the tough, salty chunks of dried meat. A vegetarian he was not.
Chapter Nine
Teldin woke to the sound of hoofbeats drumming away into the distance. Spitting out an oath under his breath, the farmer struggled up out of his blankets, certain that he had overslept. It would be just like Vandoorm to take off and force Teldin to hurry and catch up, the captain’s idea of a great joke. “Gomja!” he cried, not shouting but loud enough for the giff to hear.
“Quiet, sir!” a bass voice answered, vibrating with urgency. Suddenly Teldin realized it was still dark. It was not morning and Vandoorm had not broken camp yet. It’s me – Gomja, sir,” the giff explained in a whisper. His huge form loomed up out of the blackness.
