Closer than the waterfront stood the old city wall, which surrounded a cluster of houses, temples, and guildhalls. The Tower of High Sorcery-Fistandantilus’s, then Raistlin’s, then Dalamar’s Tower-once loomed on a great smear of broken ground there. The tower was gone now, destroyed thought most people. Coryn knew differently.
Even after all these years, no one dared to use that land, despite its prime location in the center of the most vibrant city on Ansalon. Doubtless, no one ever would, so long as stories of the black-robed magic-users were still recounted in the annals of the world.
The most dramatic feature, from the vantage of Coryn’s house, was the great, glass-walled enclosure of the lord mayor’s palace, dominated by the lofty needle known as the Golden Spire. The great house rested on a hilltop on the opposite side of the valley from Nobles Hill but was clearly visible from here, as from nearly every place in Palanthas.
“The lord mayor does like to be noticed,” Jaymes said, his glance appreciating the sweep of the elegant mansion, the windows that gleamed like mirrors in the setting sun, the glass-enclosed circular chamber at the top of the spire.
“Perhaps you care to know that he has taken notice of you, once again,” the white wizard said.
He merely looked at her, waiting for an explanation.
“Du Chagne made a speech at the Nobles Ball. He didn’t exactly call for your replacement but criticized the conduct of the war. He implied that the campaign to free Solanthus is taking too long because you have other priorities. He publicly speculated about your Compound, asking if anyone present knew what secret business was going on there.”
“None of them did, I trust?”
“No. But they don’t know who to be more afraid of-you or du Chagne. Everyone knows you destroyed the Kings Bridge two years ago not with magic, but with some new technology.”
“A destruction that, incidentally, made possible the survival of the Solamnic Army,” he said icily.
She shrugged. “They think their way of life is threatened by you.”
Jaymes chuckled, cold and not amused. “Well, I am a threat to their way of life,” he noted. “You and I both know that the old order, their corruption and the venality, has bled the very life out of Solamnia. These greedy bastards who think only of their own aggrandizement would destroy this land just so they could feast upon its corpse!”
“Well said,” Coryn noted, smiling in spite of herself. “But it’s no less than you predicted; du Chagne seeks to undermine you, turn the people against you.
“The solution to that is twofold, the way I see it. My army needs to win this war, and I need to set about concluding my business with the princess of Palanthas.”
“Then,” Coryn said, once again serious. “I suggest you get started with the princess.”
The three armies of Solamnia made camp after the passing of the elemental king. Clerist knights and other clerics tended to the wounded, with guards alert on the perimeter, cavalry units patrolling ahead and behind the vast formation. Terrified troops were rounded up and rallied, and the herd of cattle and spare horses that had stampeded in the face of the attack was gathered and returned to the large, military corrals.
The three generals, grim faced and shaken, met around the fire of the command camp in the center of the larger body. Each man stared wordlessly into the flames, wrapped in his own thoughts, haunted by memories of the horrible attack by the monster.
Where had it come from? Where was it headed? Would the monster be coming back? How could they ever stand against a creature like that?
And, finally, where was the lord marshal, on whom they all depended for counsel, command, and inspiration?
“We have to consider that our lord marshal might already be dead,” Dayr finally said, voicing the common thought they dreaded to hear aloud. “No one could fight it and live.”
“Aye,” Rankin agreed. He looked at his fellow generals, all former rivals back in the time when they had been captains of the ducal lords. The one thing that united them was the leadership of Jaymes. “And what does this mean for us, for the knighthood, and indeed for our world?”
“Enough children’s chatter!” Markus barked. “If he was dead, Sir Templar or one of them spell-users would have perceived that awful truth and told us. I believe he’s alive, and he’s still trying to win this fight. Monster or no monster, he’d want us to follow his orders.”
“You’re right, Sir Rose,” Dayr said, nodding thoughtfully. Rankin, too, concurred.
“That means that, tomorrow, even if we must leave our wounded behind, we will resume the march to Solanthus and be there ready when the lord marshal shows himself again.”
The mood in Palanthas was dramatically different from Jaymes’s last visit. He borrowed a horse from Coryn’s stable and rode down the winding roadway from Nobles Hill. At the city gates, the troops of the guard stood at attention as he passed.
As he rode the wide streets, people came out onto balconies to watch him or looked up from their market stalls. The citizens’ expressions were not hostile, but there was a wariness that was a change from the welcome and approval he had experienced before.
Word of his passage seemed to spread quickly, as more and more people gathered. By the time he had ridden out the other side of the city and started on the climb up to du Chagne’s residence, a crowd had collected along both sides of the road.
“When you going to finish this thing?” one old man demanded. “This war against brute savages? It’s been going on for too long!”
“My son been carrying a spear for you for four years!” said an old farmwife. “I want him back home!”
The warrior shrugged his cape off of his shoulders and let the proud hilt of Giantsmiter jut into view over his head. He had commanded the army for only the previous two years, yet he ignored the muttered taunts and insults and took little note of the rabble.
Riding steadily, he approached the manor, and the front gates flew open. A young woman sprinted out to greet him. Selinda raced down the cobblestone road, her arms flung wide. When she reached him, he leaned down and scooped her up.
She was still hugging him, sobbing quietly, as he continued into her father’s courtyard, and the massive vallenwood gates swung heavily shut behind him.
“I’ve come home,” was all he said to her.
CHAPTER TWENTY — ONE
‘How many of your ogres fell?” Ankhar the Truth asked Bloodgutter of Lemish. The half-giant had witnessed the carnage at the edge of the city and was prepared for the worst. Though the elemental king had disappeared over the horizon some hours before, he was still trembling at the memory of the rampage and at his utter inability to control his “ally.”
“Too many,” grunted the captain. “I have maybe five hundreds left but lost even more than that. The monster crushed and burned them-even drownded some!” Bloodgutter looked accusingly at his commander. The half-giant glowered back, making clear than no further comment from the ogre chief was necessary or desired.
“Even against that, not one ogre ran away,” the captain declared proudly.
Ankhar finally grunted an acknowledgement, and the ogre captain stomped away. The army commander had already heard from Spleenripper, who had lost thousands of his infantry, and Eaglebeak, whose archers, likewise, had been reduced to less than half of their original number by the violence of the elemental king and the sharp, savage counterattack of the city garrison.
On the bright side, Captain Blackgaard’s mercenaries and Rib Chewer’s warg riders reported only light losses from their resistance to the river crossing of the three great wings of the Solamnic Army. The knights in that battle had suffered heavy losses, especially when they had been showered with arrows while still in their boats. Others
