by Cam Banks
“It turns out Wulfgar has a huge chariot race and gladiator battle every year,” said the Balladeer. “Which, this year, is today.”
A brief, ominous silence reigned.
“But Rivven Cairn is a pretty powerful wizard herself,” said Vanderjack. “Won’t she sense him in her city and then give us all a display of her magic-fueled wrath?”
“If we are fortunate,” said Theodenes. “But what about Gredchen and the painting?”
“We need a plan,” said Vanderjack aloud. “That’s an understatement,” he added to himself.
Somehow the ghosts must have heard him because they all nodded sagely.
The city of Wulfgar was founded only a hundred and fifty years earlier. Before that, the land on which Wulfgar stood was a campsite for the native Huitzitlic tribesmen during the winter months. Solamnic Knights garrisoned at the nearby fortress of Qwes warred with those natives, but once peace had been established, they drew up plans for a major settlement. In less than two years, natives and settlers working together erected the mighty walls and sturdy buildings. Initially designed to repel ogres from the south, they proved to be no match for something they had no concept of defending against: an airborne attack by the dragonarmies.
Ten years earlier, when the Red Wing swung out of Neraka and into Nordmaar, the city of Wulfgar was taken completely by surprise. The Solamnic Knights had already lost Qwes to Highlord Phair Caron, and those survivors who limped back to Wulfgar found it occupied by Highmaster Rivven Cairn and the Twelfth Red Dragonarmy, most of whom were kapak draconians and mercenaries from Neraka.
Wulfgar was a mile in diameter, constructed as an almost perfect circle. The palace was in the center, on a raised plateau at least twenty feet above the wide paved streets that surrounded it. Also upon that plateau, accessible to the residents of the city by enormous ramps closed off by gates when not in use, was the Horseman’s Arena. Its proximity to the palace and its central position spoke volumes of its importance to the city’s population before the war. After the occupation, its importance had become twisted into an obsession, and simple horse races and mock battles had become bloody reenactments.
Getting into the city was not going to be the difficult part. Theodenes had a cousin in the Guild of Sewers, Waterways, Reservoirs, and Wells who had liked to talk about his job when they were younger. They’d go underground, even though it meant leaving the dragonne behind. They instructed Star to stay in a cluster of lightly wooded hills a half mile north of the city while they crossed overland to the city walls.
Vanderjack’s cracked ribs slowed their pace. For once, Theodenes’ short legs could easily keep up with the limping sellsword. Yet they reached the walls before the half-light of dawn. Vanderjack heard the sounding of horns and the clatter of horse hooves along the main roads leading into the city, out of sight as they crouched beside the century-old stone.
“I hadn’t counted on this,” said Theodenes, looking down the curving length of the outside wall.
Vanderjack was catching his breath. “Hadn’t counted on what?”
“No outside sewer grates, no reservoirs, nothing.”
“It’s a city; there’s always a sewer grate.”
Theodenes shook his head. “I believe all of the city’s effluent, all of the sewer works and so forth, are inside the walls, directed underneath the city proper.”
“Clever Solamnics,” muttered Vanderjack.
“So either we try the front gates,” said Theo, “or we go over the wall.”
“We’ll be a little conspicuous, won’t we? Mercenary and gnome.”
Theodenes stroked his beard. “Then we do both.”
Vanderjack looked at him. “We split up?”
Theodenes nodded. “I scale the walls. It will be a simple matter for me, especially with my mountaineering skills and well-honed physical prowess. You go around to one of the gates and find a way in. I suggest the west gate because it leads straight into the merchants’ quarter.”
“Sure. Nobody will notice a tall black bloody-nosed guy in an arming doublet tripping over himself.” He paused. “And we’re meeting where? And you know all of this local geography how?”
Theodenes sniffed. “Because I make it my business to know about my areas of operation. Now let’s see. We want to attend the chariot race because that’s where Cazuvel is most likely to reveal himself. Correct?”
“That’s right. Hopefully, he’ll reveal himself, Gredchen, the painting, my sword, and anything else worth revealing.”
“Then we should meet at the Alochtlixan Fields.” Vanderjack gingerly pressed around his nose with a cloth to make sure he hadn’t just started bleeding again.
“The where?”
“All of the equine specialists, representatives from the stabling yards, practice tracks, chariot builders, and those trained in animal husbandry frequent the Alochtlixan Fields, which are in the southeastern quarter of Wulfgar. Famous place.”
“Carrying a copy of Bertrem’s Guide, are you?”
“I most certainly am not. Bertrem’s Guide is notoriously unreliable. Might as well have a kender map. How does midday sound to you? When the sun is overhead?”
“How long is it until the games in the arena?”
“They begin midafternoon. We shall have more than enough time, assuming you are not caught or captured.”
Vanderjack grinned. “Now how often does that happen?”
Theodenes gave him an icy stare, and the sellsword laughed and sauntered off, not feeling as confident as he acted. The ground seemed to lurch beneath him; he was still feeling wobbly and weak. He was on an important rescue mission, he reminded himself. Lives and riches hung in the balance. Somehow he would have to get the job done.
Theodenes dropped to the ground on the other side of the city walls and looked around for a long stick.
Losing his multifunction polearm had been a blow, but he should be able to construct a new one. All he required was a little time and some materials, most of which he’d be able to scrounge together in any large and well-stocked city. He suspected Wulfgar was just a little too backwater for that, and there was not time for tinkering there anyway. It was a shame, he thought, so he would have to improvise.
In place of the polearm, Theo settled on a pitchfork. He pulled it free from a bale of hay, one of hundreds of hay bales stacked against the inside of the walls of the city. Theodenes also thought to snatch up a wide-brimmed hat from atop a sleeping local. With that and a poncho he tugged down from a nearby drying rack, he had the makings of a disguise. Of course, he was half the height of any other Nordmmaaran peasant, but he supposed if he hid his face and walked about as if he belonged, nobody would be the wiser.
The part of the city he was in was something of a residential district. It wasn’t the famed Solamnic Quarter, at that time almost completely turned over to the dragonarmies, and it wasn’t the Warriors’ Quarter, where the legendary Plumed Jaguars of Wulfgar would be carousing if the highmaster hadn’t driven them all from the city. The dilapidated single-story dwellings around him were more common in the city, which had been almost burned to the ground at the opening of the war.
He rounded a corner and saw, at the end of a wide street crusted with muddy clay, horse droppings, and straw, the wooden fences that divided the Alochtlixan Fields off from the city. Good. He was close to his destination, but glancing up at the sun, he saw that he had at least an hour in which to investigate the city further, so he made a mental note of his surroundings and headed due west.
The palace of the khan rose majestically above the streets; between it and Theo was the high-walled Horseman’s Arena itself. Theodenes crossed over the paved avenue leading directly from the south gate to the foot of the arena’s entrance ramp. Dragonarmy soldiers lined the street, most of them looking as though they needed only slight provocation to take a swing with their weapons. Here and there, Theo saw pairs of kapak and baaz draconians. As he recalled, they were expensive for the highmaster to keep stati
oned there. Where once she would have boasted whole brigades of kapaks, baaz, and even bozaks, nowadays she was scraping the bottom of the coffers.
His thoughts were interrupted by the commands of a heavily armored dragonarmy officer who shouted out to the pint-sized peasant from the opposite side of the street. The officer was accompanied by two thugs, Theo noted.
“Well, well, what have we here,” said the officer. His accent was strongly Nordmaaran, not uncommon in those days among the dragonarmies. “Is this one of those dread kender, boys?”
“I am but a simple gnome farmer,” said Theo, trying for honesty, hoping his voice sounded even and humble.
“A gnome?” said the officer, incredulous. “You’re a long way from home, aren’t you? A gnome away from home. Ha, ha, ha.”
The thugs joined the officer in laughing at his jest but showed no sign of actual merriment on their blunt and heavy features. Theo’s neck became hot and prickled.
“Surely your honors have heard of the gnomes of …” Theo’s mind raced. “… the Great Moors?”
The Great Moors was an enormous, swampy region in the southeastern corner of Nordmaar, a trackless waste of humid marsh and bog that nobody in his right mind would ever enter lest he be eaten by predatory lizards or devoured by swarms of giant, blood-sucking stirges. Theo hoped the gazetteer he’d read as a young gnome about the Great Moors was right and that it was still largely a mystery to even the most widely traveled of Nordmaarans.
“A gnome from the Great Moors?” the officer said, scratching at a loathsome boil behind his ear. “Are your hands and feet webbed, like they say the tribesmen from there are?”
Theodenes swallowed. Best not to make any boldfaced claims. “By the Abyss, no,” he laughed. “We Moorish gnomes are but simple folk, like thee and thou, sure enough.”
The soldiers squinted.
Theo added, “In service to the Queen of Darkness, of course.”
“Dark gnomes, then!” The officer beamed.
“Yes, of course,” said Theo, who was beginning to wonder where the conversation was going and how he was going to derail it. “Dark, savage gnomes. But without webbed hands or feet.”
“Just evil.” The officer nodded.
“Very,” said the gnome.
“All right, then. That’s good enough for me. What do you say, boys? Shall we let the evil gnome go about his business?”
The two thugs shrugged and grunted something incomprehensible to their officer, and the officer nodded. “All right. On your way, little gnome! And watch where you’re swinging that pitchfork.”
Theo breathed a huge sigh of relief. He touched his hand to the brim of his hat and turned to walk away. He’d gone no more than three steps when a new voice, deep and sibilant with a Nerakan accent, said, “What in the name of the Dragonqueen is a dark gnome?”
He froze. Thinking it a bad idea to scurry away suspiciously, he leaned his pitchfork against an adobe wall and crouched down idly, as if to lace up his boots.
“From the Great Moors,” said the officer’s voice.
A snort greeted his intelligence.
Heavy footsteps pounded on the paving stones, coming toward Theo. It was a one-armed sivak draconian, wearing the markings of the Red Watch. Theo turned to run just as the sivak reached out with his one good arm and lifted him off the ground by his collar.
“Dark gnome, is it?” barked Commander Aggurat.
“I demand to be taken to your leader!” said Theodenes feebly.
“With pleasure,” said the sivak, and flew off toward the khan’s palace.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Vanderjack leaned against a post, arms folded, watching the column of arrivals enter the city by the west gate.
Leaning against the post and folding his arms wasn’t just for appearances. He badly needed a breather, and when his arms were folded across his chest, it kept his rib cage in one place too. He was trying to appear confident, calm, and in control of his life-all part of the illusion.
Vanderjack took note of who was arriving in the city for the games. Many of them were Nordmaaran natives, both the rugged horse barbarians of the grassy plains to the west and tribal folk from the Sahket Jungle. There were a handful of banners from mercenary companies, war bands, and minor nobles who had benefited from the dragonarmy occupation.
In addition to the spectators, Vanderjack observed a few groups of large and intimidating men who he identified as gladiators. In occupied Nordmaar, as with other regions of Ansalon still under the control of the highlords, slavery and gladiatorial combat were rife. Many gladiators were free men, used to the lifestyle and capable of making more of a living killing others for glory than killing others for a cause. Vanderjack had known a few. He realized as he watched them move along, some sitting on wagons and others talking among themselves on foot, that he could probably join up with them.
As soon as the next group passed him by, he flagged the man in front. He was tall, tanned and skinny, but had muscles like steel ropes and sharp features. He was probably the lanista for the men with him, a combination of trainer, manager, and representative. They weren’t slaves because they weren’t in chains. That meant they might be amenable to a recruit.
“I’m looking for work,” Vanderjack told the lanista, who was staring at him, up and down. “I’m a freeman from Ergoth. Fought in the pits in Gwynned, and I know my way around a chariot, horse, meredrake, whatever you like.”
The lanista nodded appreciatively. “From Ergoth, huh? My last Ergothian got himself killed in the round in Jelek. Been looking for a replacement. Chariots, huh?”
Vanderjack shrugged. “You know how it is. Can’t ride a chariot in Ergoth, may as well just kill yourself.”
“Thought you were all sailors and pirates!” exclaimed the lanista.
“On my mother’s side.” Vanderjack grinned.
The lanista scratched his chin. “All right,” he said, cracking a smile. “My name’s Broyer. Jump on the wagon. You look like you could use some patching up, though.”
Vanderjack shook the man’s hand and headed to the wagon, where four other gladiators reclined, sharing a skin of wine. He pulled himself up onto the back and groaned as the movement shifted his ribs. One of the swarthier gladiators, an Estwilder by the looks of him, leaned over, helped him on, and said, “Need bandage? Got bandage.”
Vanderjack nodded. The Estwilder reached into a box at the front of the wagon and pulled out a thick wad of linen soaked in liniment. It looked dirty and well used, but the liniment smelled strong, so Vanderjack pulled his arming doublet over his head, tossed it to the floor of the wagon, and wrapped his ribs. He oiled his other cuts and bruises as the wagon passed through the gates of Wulfgar and into the Merchants’ District.
“So, Ergothian,” said Broyer as the wagon came to a halt in front of a scorched tavern or alehouse about a hundred yards inside the gate. “Got a name?”
Vanderjack thought about it for a moment. “Cordaric,” he said. He figured the Cook wouldn’t mind Vanderjack borrowing his last name.
“Nice name,” Broyer said. “You get an hour to sleep, then we’re in line to go to the Horseman’s Arena for the opening races. We’ll get you a chariot, don’t you worry. But you don’t get paid until after the games. If you stay alive.”
Vanderjack nodded. Then he went to sleep for an hour on a lumpy, straw-stuffed mattress inside the tavern, in a dormitory alongside the other gladiators. As he rested, he dreamed of the Sword Chorus, murmuring their advice to him over and over: “Look to the left!”
“Hold your breath!”
“That wizard is trying to set off a bolt of lightning!”
“Wizard! Bolt of lightning!” echoed Vanderjack, opening his eyes with a start.
The gladiator who had woken him frowned. “Cordaric?”
Vanderjack swallowed, blinked a couple of times, then sat up. “Sorry about that. Dreaming. What hour is it?”
“They rang the bells for Seventh Watch a little w
hile ago.” That was an hour after midday. He’d completely missed his meeting with Theodenes. “We’re heading over to the arena soon.”
Vanderjack rose and dressed. He met with the other gladiators in the common room, sharing their food and listening to their banter. The liniment and the sleep had revived him somewhat, and the food tasted good. When the conversation between the gladiators turned to the highmaster, he began to pay strict attention.
“Every year it the same, yah. Rivven Cairn stop what she doing and attend the games, yah.”
“Cairn used to be a gladiator herself. Oh, yes. So the rumor goes.”
Vanderjack leaned in, helping himself to a chunk of bread on the table. “She fought in the round? Where?”
The first gladiator shrugged. “Some say Lemish. Before she learned magic. Anybody who has seen her fight knows what I’m talking about.”
“She have a good fighting style, does she?”
Another gladiator nodded. “Oh, sure. You seen that sword on her back? It’s an elven sword, so sharp it could cut you in half and you wouldn’t know it until the top half fell to the ground and you saw your legs just standing there.”
One of the other fighters shrugged. “Yeah. You know, she’s half-elf, see. She can pull it off.”
Broyer the lanista stepped in through the door of the tavern and clapped his hands. “All right, boys. Time to go. We kit up in the arena dungeons, as usual. When it’s showtime, we’ll take the elevators up to the track.”
Outside, it had begun to rain again. That suited Vanderjack fine because it meant he had an excuse to throw a cloak over his head and shoulders as he walked through the city. He couldn’t believe his luck; if what Broyer said was the case, he would be right underneath the arena. His only concern at that point was how to hook up with Theo.
“So, Cordaric,” said Broyer as they approached the center of the city. “If at any point you want to grab a charioteer and pull him off the thing and commandeer one of those chariots, the crowd would love it. Extra pay too.”
