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Dash put up his sword and considered that it would be a long time before Krondor was what it once had been. Then as he left to return to the palace, he considered the Poor Quarter was probably safer now than it had been before the war.
Dash reached the palace and was again astonished by the amount of work going on; there must have been a hundred masons at work, most of whom had been soldiers serving in Duko’s army before the war. But they were making progress in getting the palace repaired. Other workers washed soot from walls, hauling away rubbish and debris, even hanging screens and other decorative touches in some of the larger rooms on the main floor. Entering the hallway, he saw Jimmy hurrying toward him. “There you are!” said Jimmy.
“What is it?”
“We’ve got troubles,” said Jimmy, turning to walk beside Dash toward the Prince’s private office suite, now being used by Duko.
“Has Fadawah discovered what we’re up to?”
“Worse,” said Jimmy.
“What?”
“Land’s End was overrun by a Keshian company.”
“Oh, gods.”
“Yes,” said Jimmy as they turned the corner and climbed stairs up toward Duko’s offices. “And there are other reports coming in. It looks like Kesh has decided to punctuate her demands for concessions with a little show of force.”
“Just what we need,” said Dash.
Jimmy moved toward the door to Duko’s office, 52893_~1.QXD 8/30/2002 10:02 AM Page 261
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knocked once, and opened the door without waiting to be bid enter. A clerk holding a large sheaf of papers, warned by the knock, jumped nimbly out of the way as the door opened.
The two brothers entered and found a half-dozen clerks and scribes writing orders and dispatchs. They made their way through the press of court officers and entered Duko’s inner office. Dash was once again struck by the difference between his office when it was occupied by the Prince and his father, and as it was now, with Duko sitting behind the desk.
Before it was the administrative center of the Western Realm, now it was the headquarters of a military organization.
Dash and Jimmy now recognized most of Duko’s remaining Captains, and all the Kingdom officers who now served. Wendell, a cavalry captain formerly of the garrison at Hawk’s Hollow, now officially the Knight-Captain of the Royal Krondorian Horse, looked at a map and said, “I can have four hundred more men down there by the day after tomorrow, Your Grace.”
Some of Duko’s Captains glanced at one another; they were still having some problem with the protocols of the Kingdom and found the new title oddly unnerving.
Duko looked at Jimmy and Dash. “You two.
You’re familiar with this area, aren’t you?”
Jimmy said, “We’ve spent the last few years here, Your Grace.”
It suddenly struck Dash that the majority of the Krondorian garrison perished in the destruction of the city; the remaining fragments of the garrison were now serving to the east with Owen Greylock.
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Owen wasn’t due in the city for another five days, just before the time selected to launch the offensive northward.
Duko pointed at the map. “We’ve got two or three hundred soldiers assaulting our position in Land’s End. By this morning’s dispatch, they’re holding there, but hard-pressed. They may already have fallen. The five hundred foot soldiers I sent earlier this week won’t get there for another five days, even if I send a galloper to order a forced march. We also have reports of some ships sailing along the coast toward Land’s End, possibly in support of the assault.”
Jimmy said, “That makes sense. If they bring up a large force across the Jal-Pur, they have logistics problems. But if they shock us with a smaller force, holding our men inside the citadel, while they land more troops by sea, they can quickly surround and siege.”
“Who’s in charge down in Port Vykor?” asked Duko.
“Admiral Reeves,” supplied one of the Kingdom officers.
“Send him orders to intercept those ships and drive them off. I don’t care if he sinks or captures them, just keep them from landing those men.” The officer saluted and hurried to the outer office. Duko looked at Wendell. “Take your four hundred horse and leave at once. As soon as you overtake those foot soldiers, tell them to run.” Captain Wendell saluted.
Duko turned to one of his old captains and said,
“Runcor, I want you to take a hundred or so of your best mother-killers and follow the coastline down to Land’s End. If you see anyone coming ashore, kill 52893_~1.QXD 8/30/2002 10:02 AM Page 263
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them.”
The old Captain said, “Yes, Duko . . .er, Your Grace.”
Duko smiled and said, “Get out of here.”
Duko looked at Jimmy and Dash. “Until your Lord Greylock gets here, I’m assuming command.
I’ll need your help, young sirs, as I am not all that familiar with this outlying area.”
He pointed to a spot on the map. “But I’m guessing that if this Empire to the south is serious, here is where we will see their next push.” His finger was on a small hill pass halfway between Shamata and Land’s End. “It’s a long run, but it’s relatively flat land. If they only seek to put pressure on the negotiations in Darkmoor, then they’ll withdraw at the first show of strength. If they are seeking to get into a serious fight, they’ll launch a second assault through here about the time they land their ships at Land’s End.” Looking at another of his old captains, he said,
“Jallom, get scouts down to that pass as fast as possible. I don’t even know if we have any soldiers there.”
“We don’t,” said the Captain named Jallom. “We assumed the Kingdom would take care of their southern flank and we wouldn’t have to worry.”
“Well, we’re now the Kingdom, and we need to worry. And send word to Greylock about what is going on and ask him if he might consider sending troops that way if they can get there first.”
Men hurried to carry out orders, and Duko said,
“Gentlemen, we have a war on our hands. It’s just not the one we wanted, and we don’t know how big it is. It may be a little one, but if I were the Keshian General and I found out just how chaotic things were 52893_~1.QXD 8/30/2002 10:02 AM Page 264
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here, I might try to get into Krondor before Greylock, and then dare him to come dig me out with Nordan on his northern flank.” Duko shook his head.
“Let’s hope that kicking them out of Land’s End will teach them the error of their ways.”
Jimmy looked at Dash and they both shared the same thought: What else could go wrong?
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Twelve
Gamble
ARUTHA POINTED.
Captain Subai motioned and the man behind him signaled. Another man pointed and nodded. He then started searching in the indicated area. The progress over the mountains had been slow, as the men on foot could cover only between ten and fifteen miles a day. But they were now in sight of the base of the mountain atop which perched the former Abbey of Sarth.
Three scouts were moving along the difficult trail, moving up tiny gullies worn by rainwater, small game tracks, anything that might lead to the entrance. They were looking for a large extrusion of rock that overlapped the face of the mountain, yet behind which was a long narrow passage, leading to the entrance to the tunnel under the abbey. Arutha remembered his father telling him that unless you were looking right at the entrance, end-on to the extrusion, you would only see what looked like mountainside.
They had been searching for days and had twice almost come into contact with Nordan’s patrols.
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Only the fact that Arutha and Dominic were accompanied by the best woodsmen and trail scouts in the Kingdom kept them undetected. There were only six of them in this party. The one hundred and twenty Pathfinders and Crimson Eagles who were given the responsibility for taking the abbey waited miles away, in a tiny valley, just beyond the range of invader patrols.
Arutha took a drink of water from the skin he carried. The summer heat was oppressive, yet they could not tarry. His father had mentioned several other landmarks, but nothing in the area remotely looked like those features. The large oak may have burned in a fire, or been harvested for lumber. The three rocks piled one atop the other may have fallen, due to rain or an earthquake. After all, it had been over fifty years ago. Then a whistle alerted Arutha that someone had found something. He hurried to where Subai stood and saw a man below the Captain.
He had jumped down into a depression where all but his head was hidden by brush; he would be invisible from the trail. Arutha glanced around and his eyes caught sight of a large oak tree, masked by other, younger trees, but directly opposite his position. He turned and saw a large boulder, the size of a wagon, and at the base were two others—instantly he knew.
“We’ve found it!” he said quietly to Subai.
Arutha motioned to where Dominic stood and jumped down to stand behind the soldier. “There’s something on the other side of this brush, Your Grace,” said the soldier.
Without saying anything, Arutha took out his sword and started hacking away the brush. The soldier hesitated a moment, then pulled out his own. By 52893_~1.QXD 8/30/2002 10:02 AM Page 267
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the time Dominic arrived, they had cleared away a significant portion of the undergrowth. Behind the cleared brush was a passage. Arutha knew it was the place his father had described, because from end-on, it did indeed look like a hallway, between the face of the cliff and a wall of rock. To Captain Subai, he said, “Wait here until Dominic and I find the entrance.”
The cleric and the Duke entered the narrow passage, which ran a full hundred yards along the face of the mountain. At the end, to their left, a cave large enough for one man to enter could be seen. Arutha said, “If this was discovered, it is as easy to defend as the access above.”
Dominic looked into the darkness. “It is natural, but it has been ‘improved’ by the Brothers of Ishap.
Notice, it’s wide enough that a monk carrying books or pulling a hand-cart can negotiate the turn, but there’s not enough room to turn a ram to break down the door.”
“What door?”
Dominic closed his eyes, chanted almost silently, then held up his hand. A nimbus of pale yellow light grew from his hand, casting enough illumination that Arutha could see a large oak door ten feet inside the entrance of the cave. It was without latch or lock.
Across it three large iron bands showed it was heavily reinforced. Arutha said, “You’re right. You’d need a heavy ram to knock that down, and there’s no room here to swing it.”
Dominic said, “The latch—”
Arutha said, “Indulge me a moment.”
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of the door. Finally he said, “My father told me stories of his days as a thief. Often I imagined myself in his shoes, doing just this sort of thing, attempting to enter somewhere I was not welcome. I wondered if I would be equal to the task.” He knelt and inspected the ground before the door. Off to one side, a small rock lay nestled against the overhanging stone wall.
Arutha reached for the rock.
“I wouldn’t do that,” said Dominic.
Arutha’s hand hesitated. He then said, “I must concede I lack my father’s gifts.” Smiling, he stood and said, “My grandfather tells me I have more of my mother in me than my father. Perhaps he’s correct.”
“That’s a trap, almost concealed. Over there is the true release.” He moved to a small recess and put his hand inside. Feeling around he grasped a small latch, then moved it. “Now pull that rock.”
Arutha did as he was bid and discovered the rock was attached to a steel cable, by a large bolt at the back. The rock traveled only a few inches, but as soon as he pulled it a deep rumble could be heard from the other side of the door. The door moved, ponderously, but it moved. Slowly it retracted to the left, leaving a narrow dark passage leading upward into the mountain.
Arutha turned and said to Captain Subai, “It’s open. Send a messenger and bring up the men!”
He followed Dominic into the passage. The cleric pointed to a lever. “Don’t touch that. It will close the door behind us.” He continued walking up the passage. After nearly a hundred yards, the passage widened into a large gallery, where footprints and signs of recent passage could clearly be seen. Arutha 52893_~1.QXD 8/30/2002 10:02 AM Page 269
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inspected them and said, “These aren’t boot marks.
These look like sandals.”
Dominic said, “We kept books, scrolls, and other tomes stored throughout the mountain, even this close to the escape route.” He pointed upward. “But nothing was taken out that way. My brothers quit the abbey in good order, so whatever was kept here was hauled up the mountain, put aboard wagons, and taken to our new abbey, That Which Was Sarth.”
“Where is the new abbey?” asked Arutha.
Dominic smiled. “For reasons that you may understand more than most, my order has decided that the information contained within that particular abbey is too dangerous in the wrong hands.
Therefore, only those within our order know the exact location of That Which Was Sarth. All I may tell you is that while it is in Yabon, it is safe from Fadawah.”
Arutha said, “As an officer of the Royal Court, I am not pleased to hear of this. As the grandson of Pug, I understand.”
Boots upon the stone heralded the approach of the first band of Subai’s raiders. The man in the van carried a torch and behind him came others holding bundles of supplies.
The timetable was critical. Greylock would begin his approach to Krondor in a week’s time, but just before the city gates, he would wheel to the north and launch a flying attack up the road to Sarth, striking the first two defensive positions without stopping. They were relatively light positions, from Duko’s information, and would provide scant resistance. It was at the southern border of Sarth they would meet the first major resistance.
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From there the fight into the town would be difficult, but if Nordan’s forces up in the abbey were to sally forth, Greylock’s army would suddenly be caught between a stout defensive position and an army charging down a mountainside. If Greylock turned up the mountain road to attempt to seize the abbey, he would be fighting up a road that at several places narrowed so that only a single wagon or two men on horse could pass, with the town garrison at his back.
The Kingdom’s only hope was for Subai’s force inside the mountain to seize the abbey, or at least tie up the forces within long enough for Owen to take the town. Once the town was in Kingdom hands, the abbey could be isolated and its garrison starved out, or it would have already fallen to Arutha’s forces.
Arutha considered this as the men started to filter into the chamber. It was possible they would be facing odds as high as four to one. No one knew how many men were billeted within. Nordan had not seen fit to share that information with Duko. Their only advantage was surprise.
The night before Greylock’s assault from the south, the Kingdom forces below the abbey would launch their attack. Arutha knew he had the Kingdom’s best men for the job, handpicked by Subai. The Pathfinders were trained for resourcefulness. To a man they were to
ugh, resilient, and efficient. The Crimson Eagles were veterans of a series of brutal campaigns, men who would do exactly as needed and without hesitation.
At an hour past dawn in three days’ time, they must either be in control of the abbey, or creating enough trouble the garrison would be unable to 52893_~1.QXD 8/30/2002 10:02 AM Page 271
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respond to any call for help from the town below.
Arutha found a spot near the next tunnel leading up and sat down, conserving his energy until it was time to move. The balance of Subai’s forces would be hours in reaching the cave, so there was nothing to do but rest, and wait.
Erik grunted and made some notes. John Vinci said loudly, “I’ll need a larger storage room back here, and probably want to widen the gates so I can get bigger wagons in and out!”
Softly, Erik said, “Keep it down, John. We’ve been doing this for three days and no one has questioned us so far. Unless they’re starting to think you’re getting hard of hearing.”
With a pained grin, Vinci said, “Just trying to be convincing.”
“We’re done,” said Erik. “Let’s get back to your shop.”
They walked through the surprisingly bustling streets of Sarth. The town was always a fairly busy one, with many fishing villages bringing their catch to market. It was also an important secondary port between Ylith and Krondor, one which many traders and not a few smugglers from the Free Cities or Queg visited. Kingdom customs had been more lax there, and as a result the city had quite a large population of people who were enterprising, irrespective of who was governing, Kingdom or some recent invader.
Armed men were everywhere, yet the mood was relaxed. The mercenaries from Novindus who were billeted in Sarth obviously felt they were far enough behind the lines to not be taken unawares.
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Erik and John hurried back to John’s business, and moved through the front, then into the rear storage room, where a very bored Roo sat in a corner, half dozing. Without preamble, he said, “Are we leaving?”
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