belief that the upstart army commander-a man of common birth! — was an irritant that they could not continue to ignore. So long as his army was occupied fighting Ankhar’s barbarians, it was hoped that he would stay away from this great metropolis. But as soon as that campaign was resolved, there was nothing to prevent him from marching to Palanthas and offering the city his vaunted “protection.”
“His operations are very expensive,” the inquisitor observed. “Can you not cut his funding?”
“I have tried,” du Chagne said with a groan-and they all knew that he was a man who, insofar as it was possible, would clutch every coin in his treasury until it could be physically pried out of his hands. They took him at his regretful word. “But the families of the knights stay my hand. If they feel that I am not sufficiently supporting the war effort, they make things very difficult for me-very difficult indeed.”
“And how fares the campaign?” asked Moorvan, the Kingfisher.
“It is hard to tell-he shares little or no information with me,” admitted the lord regent.
“Haven’t we tried to place spies in his camp?” asked Frankish.
“Yes-and he willingly accepts any volunteers we send to him, but none of them is ever granted an ear at his councils. No, I suspect he rather enjoys sending my agents out on the front lines of battle.”
“Then what is to be done?” asked the inquisitor.
“We must keep watching and waiting,” said du Chagne. “And hope that, sooner or later, he fails miserably. Or makes a fatal mistake.”
The lord marshal’s tent was surrounded by alert pickets, who had sworn upon penalty of death to keep any intruders, potential assassins, or random nuisances from their master’s domain. Even so, no one noticed the small figure that darted stealthily from the horse corral, through the armory, past the smithy tent, and up to the very base of the army commander’s brown canvas shelter. Disdaining the entranceway, where two guards shifted their weight from foot to foot and stared vigilantly into the night, the figure lifted up the edge of the tent, pressed himself flat against the ground, and slipped inside.
He rose to his full height, about that of a human child, peering into the pitch darkness of the shelter’s interior. He crept to the low cot where Jaymes Markham lay sleeping. Extending a hand, the intruder poked sharply into the man’s face.
“Psst! Wake up!”
There was sudden movement, a flash of steel, and the marshal was awake with a dagger in his hand, the tip halting a mere fraction of an inch from the intruder’s throat.
“Hey-stop it!” protested the diminutive figure, twisting away. He was stopped by the man’s hand as it reached out to clamp down, hard, on a thin, small shoulder.
“State your business,” hissed Jaymes, his voice as cold as the blade held so steadily in his hand.
“Let me introduce myself. I’m Moptop Bristlebrow, professional guide and pathfinder!” The intruder twisted and pulled but couldn’t break the steely grip. “ She sent me; she said it was important! Hey, let me go!”
“ ‘She’?” The marshal sat up on his cot and blinked a few times; then his eyes narrowed. “The Lady Coryn?”
“Yes!”
“Why? Tell me what she told you, exactly.”
“She needs to see you in Palanthas. Right away-as soon as you can get there.”
“And you’ll take me to her?”
“That’s what she said-I’m supposed to go with you.”
“Who are you?”
“I told you, I’m a professional guide and pathfinder. And I’m an old friend of Lady Coryn. We go way back. To before she was Lady Coryn, or a white witch, or any such thing! She trusts me even more than she trusts you. Of course, I don’t know how much she trusts you. I mean, I don’t want to make any presumptions-”
“The Lady Coryn is very wise,” said the lord marshal, rising from his bunk. “Go to the corral; tell the squires that I order that my horse be saddled.”
“Oh, all right. The corral. That’s where all the horses are, right? Boy, that place really stank, you know? I rushed right past it, holding my nose. You would have thought that horses… well, they’re so pretty, that they wouldn’t smell so bad. You know what I mean?”
“Go!” said the man.
“Uh, wait-I forgot, you won’t need your horse,” the kender objected. He scratched his head. “I don’t know if we could take it even if you wanted to,” he added mysteriously.
“What do you mean?”
The kender produced two small bottles from a pouch somewhere in his tunic. “Here,” he said. “We’re each supposed to drink one of these, and hold hands, and-well, it’s a lot faster than horses and smells better too.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Ankhar, the Truth, strolled through the lines of his great army, wrestling with a sense of disquiet that loomed over him like a dark thundercloud. The half-giant’s problems seemed, on an almost daily basis, to be growing more and more insoluble.
It was not the loss of his company on the canyon wall to the explosive charges placed by his duplicitous enemy-indeed, if the Marshal of Solamnia had not tried some deadly payback scheme in spite of their truce, the half-giant would have been more surprised. The violence of the landslide had been an ingenious trap; the hulking commander admitted a grudging admiration for his enemy’s cold, calculating originality.
He even chuckled as he remembered the deadly cloud cast by the most able of his Thorn Knights, the wizard called Hoarst. That man was a frightening character, calm and unemotional even as he perpetrated mass murder. The poisonous cloud had been silent and utterly lethal, and it came as a complete surprise to the enemy. Hoarst and his companions had proven invaluable to Ankhar during the first years of his war against the Solamnics. The dark magic-user and his friends possessed many useful talents.
But there was one other adviser who was closer to Ankhar’s ear, and to his heart. Now it was to her, to Laka, the hobgoblin shaman who had rescued him as a babe from a cabin in the mountains, that the half-giant made his way. She would be in her tent, the shelter that had evolved into a kind of mobile temple during the course of the past two years. Two burly ogres stood guard outside the door, and they snapped to a semblance of attention, holding their great halberds upright as the army commander approached.
“Est Sudanus oth Nikkas,” said one, chanting the army motto.
“Aye. My power is my Truth,” the half-giant echoed, pleased.
“You are the Truth, lord,” pledged the other ogre.
Ankhar acknowledged the honorifics with a grunt. He was pleased to have his troops stand at “attention” and to offer him salutes. These innovations had been introduced to the horde by one of his most capable officers, Captain Blackgaard, formerly of Mina’s Dark Knights. Such civilized ideals of obedience and discipline could only make his fierce fighters more effective in battle.
Stepping through the open flap of the temple-tent, the half-giant blinked and allowed his eyes to adjust to the gloom. He was keenly aware of the smells-Laka’s smells, including the acrid stink of perspiration, the sweet musk of the oil she smeared through her hair, the perfumes and incense that she used in the myriad of confusing rites she performed, all of which were devoted to the greater glory of Hiddukel, Prince of Lies. Cinnamon and cloves sweetened the air, while in the background lurked an essence of something hinting at very old cheese.
Her voice, a cackling rasp, emerged from the shadows and as always, brought him comfort and hope.
“Ankhar, my bold son, you come to me with troubles weighing upon your shoulders.”
“Aye, Mother.” He could see inside the gloomy tent now and made out the twin green specks of fire that marked the eyes of Laka’s most potent talisman. She raised it high, a ghastly human skull set upon a shaft of ivory, and when she shook it, the luminous emeralds rattled around in their sockets, tumbling and blinking with power. The death’s-head was a trophy of Ankhar’s first great victory; it had formerly housed the brain of a captain of Garnet, the first city sacked by the half-giant’s war on Solamnia.
