Measure and the Truth

by Doug Niles

  “Yes, Excellency. Of course. And the Palanthian Legion?”

  “I’ll lead them myself. We’ll march toward the mountains. The legion isn’t big enough to stop Ankhar by itself, but if he does try to come through the high country, we’ll be waiting to give him a nasty surprise. I expect we’ll be able to hold up his progress until you arrive to help finish the job—hopefully once and for all.”

  “May all the gods hear you,” Dayr replied sincerely.

  Blayne woke up suddenly, sensing that someone was in the room with him. It was night, and the cramped little boarding house cubby that had been his home in Palanthas was utterly dark. It should have been utterly silent, as well. But Blayne had heard something, a soft sound that had interrupted his sleep. And when he listened, he plainly discerned the sound of breathing.

  “Who’s there?” he demanded, sitting up, reaching for his matches. With a scratch against the striking board, he smelled sulfur and heard the wooden chip burst into flame. He even felt the heat of the little fire on the fingertips holding the match.

  But his room was as dark as ever.

  Magic!

  The skin on the back of his neck prickled, and he thought about his short sword—suspended from a hook on the back of the door, way across the room. “Who’s there?” he asked again before cursing and shaking out the unseen match as the flame seared his fingertips. “Why can’t I see?”

  “It is important that my identity remain secret.”

  The cool voice startled him, brought him bolt upright on his grimy mattress. Blayne discerned no threat in the voice, rather more a tone of almost paternal affection, as though his visitor were a revered counselor—even though he had never heard the voice before.

  “What do you want?” he asked.

  “I bring you news—good news, from your friend in the gray robe.”

  “Finally!” Blayne cried involuntarily. He blushed over his outburst—and because he had just inadvertently confirmed to the unseen visitor his connection with Hoarst the Gray. “I mean … I have done what he asked when he sent me here. But I feared he had forgotten me.”

  “Not at all,” said the other man with an avuncular chuckle. “And he will be pleased to hear of your success—as I am pleased.”

  “So … you also know about my mission in Palanthas?”

  “Yes. The Legion of Steel is an important component in our plans, as the nation moves beyond the reign of the emperor. I take it that you have made the necessary contact with them, then?”

  Blayne considered for a few moments, wondering how much of his secret mission he should be divulging to the mysterious stranger. It seemed the man was a confidant of Hoarst’s and that he already knew a great deal about Blayne. After all, the young lord had taken his room in a shabby inn with the clear intention of remaining incognito. Yet somehow, the stranger found and knew him.

  “Why this peculiar darkness?” Blayne asked bluntly. “I sense that you’ve cast a spell to block any light in my room.”

  “It is very important no one know who I am,” replied the man, his easy tone indicating he took no offense at Blayne’s question. “That is all. You can trust me; I am a friend.”

  And, in truth, Blayne felt he did trust the man. Of course, he didn’t know about the charm spell his visitor had cast, the subtle magic that made pleasing the powerful cleric’s every word. Nor could he see the black mask the Nightmaster wore across his face.

  So Blayne told him all he had learned during several meetings with the secret order of knights known as the Legion of Steel.

  “There are about a hundred of them in the city, organized into six cells,” he reported eagerly. “I’ve only been to visit one of the cells, of course—that’s deliberate on my part. But they have been preparing for their day ever since the emperor passed his new edicts.”

  “Excellent. One hundred knights is a few more than I had expect—that is, hoped—to find here,” the other man said.

  “But you said you brought news for me! From Hoarst,” Blayne remembered suddenly. “What is the news?”

  “Ah yes, that. Good news, indeed. The Black Army has taken over the High Clerist’s Tower, and even now our mutual friend sits in control of the pass,” the stranger explained.

  “They took the tower?” Somehow, the truth of that seemed rather daunting to Blayne. It was good news certainly, but still … suddenly, rebellion did not seem like an ideal thing to support. Actual conflict was being waged. The thought—the reality—was unsettling.

  “Did the garrison fight? Were there many killed?” he asked anxiously. “On either side?” he added quickly.

  “There was no bloodshed, none whatsoever,” said the kindly visitor. “It seems that disgust with the emperor is growing like a well-watered crop, all across the land.”

  That was a surprise; Blayne would not have expected the duty-conscious General Markus, one of the emperor’s most loyal adherents, to surrender so easily. But it made the good news better.

  “That crop has been watered with my father’s blood,” Blayne remembered bitterly, wondering if he was trying to remind his visitor or himself. “It is time the emperor reaps his violent harvest.”

  Selinda tried to scream, but her throat was so dry that no sound emerged. She struggled to move, to break free from some kind of cloaking net that inhibited her movement, but felt as though her whole body were encased in heavy mud. The tiniest effort, such as wiggling a finger, was a great challenge. Actually running away, she discovered, was quite out of the question.

  Where was she? How did she get there? Her eyes were open, but she saw only a vague, almost black grayness. Had she been blinded?

  She had the vague sense that a lot of time had passed since she had last been aware of her surroundings. Some memories returned, slowly … the smoke-filled inn, the exotic music … people were laughing—Selinda was laughing—overcome by hysteria. She recalled her dance of wild enjoyment, the boisterous cheers of the other patrons. That drink! A lotus … something …

  And Lame Hale.

  “Hale!” she called angrily—or rather, tried to call. But still her mouth seemed to be filled with cotton; her tongue, her lips were unresponsive to mental commands. She tried to move again and failed—and for the first time realized that she was physically restrained. Her vision was clearing slightly. She made out a growing illumination, a spot that might have been a window, and the shapes of worn planking on the ceiling over her head.

  She was lying on her back, on some sort of mattress. Her hands were over her head, each bound by the wrist to some sort of thick restraint. With a shudder of relief, she realized that at least she was still dressed; indeed, she was wearing her own clothes—she could feel the familiar, rare silk nestled against her skin. But what was happening to her? How had she come to such a pretty pass?

  “Ah, my dear. How nice to see that you are awake.”

  The voice came from very close beside her head, and she started in panic.

  “Hale?” she asked, recognizing the voice. “What did you do to me?”

  “Nothing … yet.” The smirk was evident in his voice. “You are worth far more to me intact than damaged.”

  “My worth? What in the world are you talking about? Are you planning to sell me?”

  “Very astute!” said the man. She could make out more details finally, and when she twisted her head slightly, she saw him out of the corner of her eye, sitting smugly against the wall of the room. Selinda tried to think, to clear the fog from her mind and hatch some sort of plan. But all she felt was a headache. “A splendid-looking creature such as yourself will fetch a fine price in the east.”

  “But—how dare you!” she spat. “Why, they’ll be looking for me!”

  “I haven’t failed to note that you invariably visit us alone, my dear. I am guessing, with a fair degree of certainty, that you haven’t told anybody where you are. So let them look for you—within a few days, you could be hundreds of miles away from here. I have only to give the orde
r, to make the deal.”

  Selinda fought against the tears that threatened to blind her. She would not give him the satisfaction! Instead, she cast about for some idea, anything, that might give her cause for hope.

  “Of course, it may be that there are buyers closer to home who would be interested in possessing one such as yourself … a woman as beautiful as a princess, if truth be told.”

  Cold terror shot through her. Did he know who she was? Could he use that information to hurt her or the emperor?

  Or the city of her birth?

  And then, with a glimmer of optimism, she remembered her ring. She couldn’t see her finger, but surely the ring was still there—it must be there. If she could just touch one hand with the other, twist the ring on her finger three times, she would be able to teleport out of there, back to her palace room, that former prison that suddenly seemed so inviting and secure, a safe refuge against the many dangers of the world. She wasted no time in regretting her actions but tried to imagine a way to get the man to ease his guard.

  She let go a deep, unhappy breath and slumped back on the bed, motionless. Her despair was not an act, but her loss of strength was. Stretching her legs, she realized her feet were bound too. The room was shabby and plain, and she guessed it was probably somewhere in the back of the inn she had visited so many times.

  But nobody at the inn knew who she was, and nobody at the palace knew where she was!

  “That’s better. It will go easier for you if you don’t struggle so much. Those ropes can chafe terribly, I have learned.”

  “I understand,” she said meekly. “But I am terribly thirsty, and my shoulder is sore. Could you loosen those ropes, just a little? My feet are bound; you know I’m not going anywhere.”

  “I suppose a little slack wouldn’t hurt, so long as you promise to behave,” Lame Hale said with a sneer that made her skin crawl.

  “I promise,” she replied as sweetly as she could through gritted teeth.

  He leaned forward and pulled on the rope. Her right hand came free, and in the same instant she pulled it around to her left, groped with her fingers, felt for the metal band, her magical tool of escape. But she couldn’t feel the ring, couldn’t feel anything but her cold, clammy skin!

  “Oh?” said Hale calmly, reaching out to grasp her hand again, bringing it back to the post where he secured it tightly again. He showed her the glimmering circlet of silver, shining in his hand, and looked at her with mock innocence. “Were you looking for this little bauble?” he asked.

  Ankhar’s route took him and his column of ogres and hobgoblins right past a broken-down cabin near the upper reach of the mountain valley.

  “Do you remember this place?” he asked his stepmother, pausing to look at the wreckage, feeling an unfamiliar lump of emotion in his throat.

  “Yes,” she said in a muted voice. “Here I save you from Bonechisel. You were just baby.”

  He chuckled, touched. “Yes. Then I grew up. Nobody saved Bonechisel from me.”

  Proudly he showed the place to Pond-Lily. “I was born here! My first home!”

  The ogress was delighted and wanted to stop and ooh and ahh over the place, but Ankhar couldn’t spare the time for such trivialities. “We march now,” he said. “Come back later, after war.”

  They moved on up the valley toward the crest of the snow-covered mountain range. The ogres, draconians, gobs, and hobs of his army all followed behind, unquestioning of their lord’s intentions, strategies, and plans.

  “Even then, I saw greatness in you,” Laka said proudly. She put a withered claw of a hand in Ankhar’s, her bony grip barely wrapping around his smallest finger. “Now, you carry greatness for the Prince of Lies.”

  Ankhar proudly carried that greatness right up to the crest of the Garnet Range. The valley terminated in a couloir that was surrounded by looming mountain faces that were very steep but not quite precipitous. The half-giant himself led the way on a remembered goat path, kicking through a steep, melting snowfield for the last thousand feet of the climb. He came through a narrow pass between two great peaks and immediately started downward.

  The column of ogres and hobs trailed out behind him, moving single file over the lofty ground, snaking into a line more than two miles long. Ankhar was already out of the snow, picking his way around a clear, blue pond, while the tail end of his army was still waiting to begin its ascent.

  But the half-giant was in no great hurry. He paused at the pond’s outlet and, with a few deft stabs of his emerald-tipped spear, pulled a half dozen plump trout out of the water. Pond-Lily set about making a fire, while more ogres, as they arrived, spread out along both sides of the stream and tried to duplicate their chieftain’s success.

  By the time some two hundred drooling, snapping monsters loomed over the water, every one of the fish had been spooked, and the ogres of the advance entourage had to settle for watching Ankhar, his ogress, and his stepmother share the tasty morsels from the stream. That they did with remarkable patience, as the rest of the army continued to slowly make its way over the high saddle.

  The procession continued far into the night, and several hobgoblins fell to their deaths as cooling temperatures turned the slushy snow to ice. But the rest of the troops made it before dawn, and Ankhar woke well rested and ready to lead his army to lower elevations.

  “Move out!” he ordered cheerfully after a repast of leftover trout. He ignored the grumbles and complaints of those warriors who had just finished the previous day’s march an hour or two before.

  “Easy walk today,” he encouraged. “This is a wild place—deer and trout for all, if you keep eyes open. We go through woods all the way down to the plains, and there we can make war. No people until we come to the cities on the plains—and then we kill, and we feast, and we drink!”

  Heartened by that prospect, the army marched along easily, emerging into a larger valley, where the half-giant was startled to discover a smooth, paved road—a feature that had not been there in his childhood, nor when he had campaigned through there some four years earlier.

  Still, the road made for good walking, and the army fell into a semblance of a military formation, advancing three or four ogres abreast, lumbering freely down toward the plains. The half-giant did not waste any brain power wondering why anyone would build a paved highway through the wild valley …

  Until they came to a curve in the road and Ankhar stopped, utterly astounded by what he saw lying before him.

  “Huh?” he said to Laka. “Someone put a town here.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  EMBATTLED COMPOUND

  The town of New Compound occupied the flat shore of a long lake resting in a steep-sided valley. Geography had defined how the town was designed. The precipitous mountain ridge to the west, which plummeted directly into the deep, clear lake, was too steep for building. The stream flowing out of the lake was deep and rapid, and curled back and forth through the valley leading from the town down to the plains. The stream cut across the entire valley, surging up against the cliffs on the east side of the valley. Consequently, the dwarves had built a sturdy bridge across the stream right at the edge of town. That bridge allowed easy travel from the town down to the plains, along a smooth, paved road.

  The bridge also provided easy access to the town for any invader coming from the plains, so it had to be defended. Dram’s dwarves had built two towers within the town that overlooked the bridge, while preparing trenches and a palisade on the far side of the span. As a last resort, the mountain dwarf had mined the bridge with many kegs of black power, rigged to fuses that could be ignited from either tower. If dwarves had to retreat across the bridge, then the stone structure would be exploded—they hoped while a hundred ogres were trying to cross!

  It was a good plan, except it didn’t take into account one variable.

  “You mean they’re coming down the valley? From the high mountains?” Dram asked Rogard Smashfinger in disbelief. The dwarf from Kayolin had just arrived w
ith several hundred doughty warriors and bore that sobering piece of news.

  “ ’Fraid so,” grunted the forger-turned-steel-merchant. “We had to move out on the double just to get here before them.”

  Dram looked up the valley in dismay. They had erected no defensive positions in that direction. The stream flowing into the lake meandered there, but it was shallow and broad, with a gravel bottom. A four-foot-tall dwarf could ford it in any one of a hundred places; it certainly wouldn’t deter a charging band of ogres.

  Dram turned to his father-in-law as Swig Frostmead came up to the pair of mountain dwarves.

  “How many fighters do you have on the other side of the bridge?” he asked Swig.

  Dram was trying hard to remain calm, summoning the steadiness that had preserved him through dozens of battles in his life. But in those days, there wasn’t any threat to Sally or little Mikey—and worrying about them was making all the difference in the world. Dram Feldspar was shocked to realize his knees were shaking.

  “Steady there, son,” said the hill dwarf. “We need you now.”

  “Yes. Yes, of course,” Dram snapped, drawing a deep breath. “Now—answer my question!” he demanded with his customary bravado.

  “That’s more like it,” Swig declared, clapping him on the shoulder. “And we got about four hundred, to answer your question. What do we know about them brutes up the valley?”

  “One of our scouts spotted them yesterday, watched them come over the crest of the range,” Rogard explained. “He couldn’t get a count, but there’s thousands of ’em. Mainly ogres, it looked like.”

  “Great Reorx’s nose!” cursed Swig. “That’s a fair lot of muscle against our little town.”

  “And they’re coming down the valley,” Dram muttered grimly. He looked at the towers, the hastily erected wall, and the mined bridge ready to be demolished. Ankhar had stolen more than a march on him; he had rendered Dram’s entire defensive strategy obsolete.

  “Curse that stubborn daughter of mine!” Swig muttered grimly. “And what kind of husband are you—that you didn’t make her leave?”