Lord of the Rose

by Doug Niles

  The aurak bristled, his great wings flaring from his shoulders. His taloned forepaws, clutching the sharpened timbers at the top of the wall, dug into the wood. He was anxious to fight, but with a conscious effort he considered Ankhar’s words.

  “We can always fight later, if that what your master want,” prodded the half-giant Ankhar cheerfully. “We kill you by night or all day—whichever you want. Right now, we talk. Go tell lord.”

  “Very well,” the big draconian said, finally. His wings buzzed audibly, but he nodded his head in a token, albeit a minimal gesture, of respect. “I will go and inform Cornellus.”

  An hour later, the hulking half-giant and the obese ogre were seated together in the great hall. The place was charred and smelled of soot, and several holes were burned through its thatched roof, but it was still a large chamber swirling with the motion of many attendants.

  “Belated warm greetings, Goblin-Master,” began Cornellus, as slaves poured them huge mugs of mulled wine. The half-ogre swelled across his huge chair, his short, golden tusks gleaming in the torchlight. Sweat glistened on his round head, and slaves blotted at his smelly wetness with cloth towels. He was a huge creature, but even seated on his grand throne he found himself looking up at this half-giant called the Speaker of the Truth.

  “I fear I do not have lodgings for all the guests you bring to my lodge,” said the bandit-lord, waving a pudgy hand toward the unseen horde that, as yet, waited outside the walls of his stronghold.

  Ankhar chuckled, deeply amused. “Goblins say you got room for ears of their cousins to stay here. They say you pay for those ears.”

  The grotesque ogre flushed and choked, spilling some of his wine across his massive belly. He shook his head, heavy lids slamming down over his eyes in a practiced expression of boredom that attempted—without much success—to mask his fear.

  Ankhar could see that his opening shot had struck home.

  “I am afraid my esteemed guest has been misinformed,” Cornellus declared sanctimoniously, his voice rising. “I make bounty hunters pay for their killings! I do not pay them!”

  “Of course,” Ankhar replied, his deep voice genial. He paused, slurping at length of the sweet, spicy wine. “Not important, anyway. Gobs can be pests. Filthy little runts. They like trapped furies when got good leaders.”

  “So I hear,” the bandit lord allowed.

  “Oh?” The half-giant raised a bushy eyebrow. “You hear about us defeat Thelgaard? Drove whole army of knights into river. Killed hundreds, drowned hundreds? Got whole baggage train?”

  “Yes, word of that battle reached us even here, high in the mountains. I did not know if the stories were exaggerated, or not,” Cornellus said carefully.

  “Of course, Thelgaard not such a wealthy duke. Not like in Solanthus! In Solanthus they got vaults filled to ceilings with treasures. But, Thelgaard not poor man. At least, not poor at start of day!”

  Ankhar reached into his spacious belt pouch and pulled out a long strand of dazzling silver links, pouring the gleaming metal from one massive hand into the other. Laying the treasure on the table, his blunt fingers gently stretching the links apart, the half-giant revealed a chain holding a large disk emblazoned with diamonds and rubies.

  The bandit lord’s eyes grew wide.

  “This one of many tokens carried by Solamnic duke into battle,” the half-giant chieftain said with a belly-rumbling chuckle. “Don’t know why. Maybe he try to bribe us.”

  “It is quite splendid,” Cornellus allowed, all but drooling as he leaned forward, probing at the gleaming necklace with one of his sausage-sized fingers. “May I hoist it?” he asked hesitantly.

  Ankhar looked astonished. “You may have it! I bring it as gift for you. You like this stuff?”

  “My honored guest, I am humbled by your generosity!” exclaimed the half-ogre, snatching up the chain, pouring the links between his massive hands. “It is truly a splendid gift.”

  The grotesque Cornellus looked at Ankhar with an expression of almost tragic regret. “Would that I could offer something even a fraction as valuable in return. Alas….”

  Ankhar waved away the offer, a magnanimous gesture of one massive paw. “I knew you like trinket,” he said. “Besides, I got no use for such treasures. I want other stuff. Not gold. Not gem. Not precious metal …”

  Cornellus, ever the alert merchant, smelled a deal. “Tell me, O mighty war chief, what is it that you most wish for?”

  “Ah,” Ankhar said, with another chuckle. “Maybe dusky giantess with big breasts—that rare treasure! Or maybe palace in the sky, on top of clouds. Of course, can’t have these …”

  “No,” Cornellus agreed, with some relief. “Though I can inquire as to the matter of a giantess.…”

  “I tell you what make me happy right now, you know?”

  The half ogre raised an eyebrow, listening.

  “I want regiment of draconions. Back up my goblins. Then I take what I want, burn rest!”

  “A regiment of draconions? With that, yours would be a force of raiders such as the plain has not seen in many years,” Cornellus agreed, thinking it over, imagining the plunder.

  “Raiders?” scoffed the half-giant. “They more than raiders—they an army!”

  “What would you do with such an army, may I ask?”

  “With army like that, Ogre, I tear down walls of Solanthus itself. Open up vaults, where treasures piled to sky.”

  “I wonder … is it possible? Would the draconians fight their best under your command?” The bandit lord’s eyes flashed.

  “Est Sudanus oth Nikkas,” murmured the half-giant, watching his counterpart carefully.

  “Eh? What does that mean?”

  “They follow me, friend, and city, any city, can be taken. My power is my Truth.”

  “Do you mean to say that you had him in chains? That you brought him all the way from the southern plains? And that he escaped on the very doorstep of the High Clerist’s Tower?”

  Bakkard du Chagne’s voice was strangely hushed, almost a hoarse whisper, as he spoke to the captain of his guards. Even so, Selinda, who was off to the side of her father and Captain Powell, was certain that she had never heard him so bottled up with fury.

  “Yes, Excellency. That is exactly what happened. It was a monumental failure, and the fault is naught but my own. My men acted bravely and competently throughout the long journey. I can only offer up my sword and my epaulets as penance.”

  “You can offer more than that!” The Lord Regent’s voice rose, becoming shrill. “You can offer your blood, your life!”

  “Father!” Selinda declared, stepping forward and raising her own voice.

  “You stay out of this!” du Chagne snarled, turning to glare at her. His expression blazed, almost causing her to falter, but she raised her chin and met his fury with her own fierce determination.

  “I won’t! Captain Powell’s behavior and his leadership were exemplary. The fault, such as it is, lies with me and with that wretched Assassin. The captain would have executed the prisoner at once, and I now see—too late—that this would have been in accordance with the situation. Instead, I insisted he be brought here to stand trial. I overruled the captain’s strenuous objections, invoking my own rank in imposing my will. I see that this was a mistake, and as a result of my mistake, not only has the fugitive escaped once more, but a good, brave knight has perished.”

  Her father’s face turned a most disquieting shade of purple. His mouth moved wordlessly. Captain Powell broke the awkward silence.

  “No, I cannot allow your daughter to accept fault in this matter, Excellency,” the knight said stiffly. “Though ’tis an expression of her noble nature that she does.” He softened slightly as he looked at Selinda, and she saw the gratitude in his eyes.

  He abruptly snapped to attention, looking at some place on the windowed wall beyond the lord regent’s shoulder. “If your Excellency wishes some miserable portion of my unworthy flesh as just retribution, I offer
myself willingly. Though it would not make amend for my failing, it is only justice I should suffer such fate.”

  “Bah—get away from here, both of you!” snapped du Chagne. “This bastard has already cost me too many men—I cannot afford to lose even an incompetent, Captain! Go and supervise the stabling of the horses—I shall send for you at some point in the future.”

  “Aye, Excellency.” Powell turned on his heel and with as much dignity as he could muster marched out of the vast chamber.

  Selinda, steeling herself in the face of the lord regent’s anger, spoke softly. “Father …?”

  “What is it now?” he snapped, then softened his voice. “What now?”

  “The man who died … Sir Dupuy. Did he have a family? I should like to offer what comfort and recompense I could to his widow, see to the future of his children. It is only fair.”

  Du Chagne’s eyes narrowed, boring into her. “I have problems of my own!” he declared. “You know nothing about my problems—about a room that looks like it’s full of nothing! Coal and fuel and the rising price of everything! And you dare to bother me with trivial questions about some fool of a knight?”

  She was taken aback—he looked positively cruel!

  “Such concerns are preposterous!” he continued. “He was a knight—he knew the risks he took, as do all knights. He didn’t have a family. He leaves no one who cares for him. Now go!”

  Selinda turned and departed the great room, nodding absently to the guard who held open the door. What did her father mean: “A room that looks like it’s full of nothing”? He had been in a foul state from the moment of their arrival a few hours earlier, and at first she thought he was upset about the prisoner’s escape. She had noticed, with surprise, the treasure room atop the Golden Spire was closed and shuttered—something she had never seen before—and now wondered if that had something to do with her father’s mood.

  Her mind was awhirl with questions and guilty awareness and a sense that things were even more troubling than previously imagined.

  The duke knelt at the altar of his immortal lord. The dread scale teetered before him, the balance hanging in peril, until once again his blood was added to the measure. Finally the crimson fluid drained from the lord’s veins equaled the weight of a great pile of golden coins, and Hiddukel, the Prince of Lies, was pleased.

  Now the Nightmaster stood over the nobleman. The priest’s mask was as black as the surrounding night, his words even darker. They were in the temple beneath the city, in the dampness and the dark.

  “The young woman, the princess of all Solamnia, has returned safely to her home. She awaits the pleasure of the gods and the man who will claim her. She is the key, for the one who claims her will claim all Solamnia.”

  “Aye, Master.”

  “That man must make her his wife. He must take her as his bride. That man must be you, my lord duke.”

  The kneeling duke looked up in confusion mingled with fear. “But Master—I already have a wife! How can I take another?”

  “You cannot. Not so long as your present wife lives.” The Nightmaster leaned forward, holding out a piece of gauzy cloth to the kneeling duke. “Take this,” commanded the cleric.

  The nobleman did. “What is it?” he asked nervously.

  “It is a shroud of silence. You can drape it above your bed. When the curtains hang down, nothing that happens beneath it will make any sound. It is the will of Hiddukel that some things remain secret.”

  “But …” The duke’s face grew pale, and he slumped, his knees buckling until his hands came to rest upon the floor. He had given so much blood to this dark god, so much trust and devotion, and now this.

  “There are reports the Assassin escaped from the knights who captured him on the plains … that he is once again at large.”

  “Aye, Master … I know these reports.”

  “He could be anywhere … he could strike in the north … or the east. He could strike here.”

  “He is a menace to all Solamnia!” the noble agreed.

  “A menace … or an alibi. Think, my lord duke. Do you understand what must be done?” asked the Nightmaster. “Sometimes a lie can be seen as the Truth.”

  For long moments the nobleman held his face to the floor, trembling. Only after considerable reflection did he gasp, raise his eyes in an expression of comprehension—and of horror.

  “Yes. Yes, I understand … I know what you command,” he replied.

  “Tell me!” insisted the dark cleric, his voice bubbling like lava.

  “That my own dear wife must die at my hand—but that my people must believe the Assassin has killed her.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  THE BRACKENS

  From the lip of the escarpment, looking down into the wide, flat river valley formed by the junction of the Upper Vingaard and Kaolyn Rivers, the Brackens presented a depressing vista. The forested swamp sprawled across the sodden lowlands in a tangle of hummocks, marshes, fetid ponds and sluggish streams, all broken by dense copses of moss-draped trees that rose from the mist like gaunt guardians. The hum of mosquitoes was omnipresent, an audible drone across the whole territory. Eerie birdcalls echoed.

  The four travelers stood on the rim of the grassy bluff some fifty feet above the swamp and swatted at a few of the buzzing insects who rose to greet them, knowing that the pests would be far more numerous once they climbed down the steep hillside.

  The Brackens extended as far as they could see in either direction. The shiny open water marking the main channel of the Upper Vingaard was just barely visible, three or four miles away. The escarpment extended along the entire length of the river valley, and the tangled, forbidding swamp was a constant barrier between the base of the bluff and the river. The distant trail of the plains road and the ford the gnomes—and many travelers—had used was far away, below the place where the two rivers merged.

  “Do we have to go in there?” Dram asked, scowling.

  “We came this far,” Jaymes drawled, scratching his chin. “Why not see things through to the main event?”

  “The white lady said Salty Pete might still be alive in there?” Carbo asked dubiously. “How can she know such things? We saw him get dragged off by the big black draco!”

  “The White Lady told me she’d heard of a gnome held captive in there,” the dwarf said bluntly. “She didn’t know his name—but thought it might be your brother. Said he’s been there for a couple of years. The timing is about right.”

  “Yeah. We lost Pete two years ago,” Sulfie said hopefully.

  “I’ve learned to trust her,” Jaymes said with a shrug. “She’s surprised me more than once.” He glanced at the sun, which had cleared the eastern horizon. “We should get moving—if we’re fast, and lucky, we might be in and out of there before sunset.”

  By now, the four travelers were fit, well fed, and reasonably well-rested. After leaving the Vingaard Range, they had spent a few weeks evading the patrols of knights that rode vigilantly across the plains. Traveling by darkness and finding hiding places—a herdsman’s hut, a clump of brambles, streamside caves—before each dawn, they made their way eastward and south from the Vingaard Mountains down to the river of the same name. Then they had followed the flow south until they reached this broad convergence.

  The two gnomes remembered the route they had followed when they departed Dungarden, and now they found themselves in the same fateful area. Their goal lay before them, in all its unappetizing sprawl and decay. Even the smells were daunting—the stench was more than just the miasma of rot and stagnancy. There was a metallic, smoky overlay to the odor that bespoke of something more sinister than death.

  “The ford we crossed is over there, to the left,” Carbo noted. “We didn’t go into this swampy stuff when we came from Dungarden. The wagon would have sunk right down, without a decent track, you know, but the road goes past the swamp, not into it.” He mopped his bald pate with a grimy rag, shaking his head at the ugly memories.

&nb
sp; “Tell us about the attack,” the warrior said.

  “Well, there’s the road. You see it coming down from the far bank? We trundled down that hill, twenty gnomes on two wagons, each pulled by two oxen. We came to where the road goes into the river there, then we crossed. It’s a good ford, shallow with a gravel bottom. Then the road comes into the woods along the edge of the swamp down there—it’s kind of built up with a stone bed, so the wagon was doing all right. That is, until the dracos attacked.”

  “You keep calling them that. You mean draconians?” Dram pressed.

  “Well, they made me think of draconians, but they were bigger—not dragons, but sort of like a composite of dragons and draconians. They spat acid, though, and killed the two oxen hauling the first wagon. We all raced to get into the second wagon and ran away, but Pete didn’t make it out.”

  As he recounted the tale, tears glimmered in his eyes, and listening nearby, Sulfie shivered.

  “Dragon spawn?” Dram guessed, shaking his head, looking at Jaymes.

  “Likely,” the warrior agreed. He looked at Carbo. “Were they all black?”

  “Yep,” the gnome recalled with a shudder. “They were the blackest, scariest things I ever saw! They hissed and roared, and that spit—it burned the fur and the skin right off the poor old oxen.”

  “But your brother—you didn’t see him get killed?”

  “No. One big draco—you called it a dragon spawn?—grabbed him up by the neck and ran off. He cried out just one time. The others came after us, and we had to flee. As soon as we got out of the trees they stopped chasing us, but Pete wasn’t making any more noise, so we concluded that he was killed.”

  Sulfie spoke up, finally. “If they have Pete, then we have to go get him out of there. I’m not afraid of any big lizard!”

  “Yeah, let’s go,” Carbo agreed. He went over to his sister, looked at her seriously. “Don’t be getting all hopeful. Remember what we saw.”