open, he strode into a vaulted chamber, the centerpiece of a splendid suite of rooms.
A man sat alone at a vast table, scribbling notes on a great sheet of parchment-a map. Hoarst silently came up from behind.
“Captain Blackgaard,” the Thorn Knight said softly, allowing his spell of invisibility to fall away like a cloak shrugged off. “I was hoping I would find you here.”
The seated man sprang to his feet, knocking his chair over and pulling a stiletto from his belt as he spun to face the intruder. Even startled, Blackgaard had the presence of mind to pull a blank sheet of scrip over the map, the Thorn Knight was amused to see, trying to conceal it from view. For a full breath, the knight’s knife hand trembled, the tip of the blade pushed up against the wizard’s heart.
“Gray Hoarst?” the captain finally gasped, lowering the knife and clapping a hand to his chest in astonishment. “You might have gotten yourself killed-or killed me from the surprise!”
Even so, the accusation was more surprised than angry. Hoarst chuckled. “If a mere shock is enough to slay you, good captain, then perhaps you are not the man that I need to see.”
“Figure of speech,” Blackgaard said gruffly, sheathing his knife. With a quick glance at the concealed map, he shrugged and crossed to a cupboard and opened the door. “Can I offer you a drink, old friend?” He was already removing a crystal decanter containing a dark brown liquid, so Hoarst replied in the affirmative and took a chair at the large table, a respectful distance away from where Blackgaard had been working.
The captain handed the drink to his visitor and they clinked glasses.
“I’m happy to see you escaped the foothills alive,” Hoarst allowed, taking a sip of what proved to be a splendid whiskey.
Blackgaard chuckled grimly. “No thanks to our mutual boss. Last I saw, he was heading for the southern horizon. I rode away with four hundred men, with the Solamnics too worn out to chase us.”
“It seems you have collected considerably more than four hundred men, in the meantime.”
The captain, a former Dark Knight who had progressed naturally into the role of mercenary, nodded. “I have five thousand here, and an equal number can be mustered in a few days.”
“This is an interesting choice of location,” the wizard noted. “The north Vingaard Range? You’re situated rather close to the Solamnics, aren’t you?”
“It’s close, true, but perfectly safe,” Blackgaard replied. “This valley was part of the landscape that Khellendros devastated back in the day. All the people were killed or driven out, and it’s been pretty well written off since then. No travelers pass this way. As you saw, we’ve managed to make a tidy little fortress here for our purposes.”
“Ah, yes. But I wonder, are you and your men feeling suited for life as farmers and herdsmen? Or do you miss the beat of the martial drum? Are you still warriors, in your hearts?”
“That always depends,” the captain replied cautiously, “on choosing the right fight, the right war.”
“The right war? Or the right prize?”
“Same difference.”
“Then you might be willing to wage war again, for the biggest prize of all?” Hoarst watched the other man carefully, already sensing the answer. He knew because he had glimpsed the map that Blackgaard had been studying before the mercenary had time to cover it.
“You mean, do I think of reconquering Palanthas?” asked the military man. He looked toward the concealed map, winked, and nodded. “I think we have much to talk about,” he added.
“Est Sudanus oth Nikkas.”
My power is my Truth. Ankhar savored the irony of his personal credo. He had allowed himself to idle and cower for too long, had nearly forgotten the lesson that his mother-and his mother’s unforgiving god-had taught him so many years ago.
“Est Sudanus oth Nikkas,” he repeated, well satisfied. It was a phrase that had been taught to him by one of his old lieutenants, a former Dark Knight-turned-mercenary named Captain Blackgaard.
“What do you mean by that phrase you keep muttering?” Pond-Lily asked cautiously. She had just served the half-giant his morning porridge and stood to the side as he slurped noisily from the great bowl. Ankhar had been acting strange for the past few days, and strange for him was really strange, the ogress thought.
“It means, ‘My power is my Truth,’ ” came the reply.
“Oh.”
“I am intended for great things,” the half-giant expounded. “I was once a great lord-”
“You still are a great lord!” she blurted with wide-eyed sincerity.
He patted her cheek so gently that, though he knocked her down, he didn’t really hurt her very much. “Don’t interrupt.” As she picked herself up and sat meekly beside him again, he gathered his racing thoughts.
“I am a chosen one of the gods,” he said, trying to recall the eloquent words that Laka had beaten into his head with her skull-capped totem staff over the past few days. “And it is a waste for me to live here, in the Lemish Forest. I am to be master of a great city!”
“A city! What city?”
He scratched his head, for the details were a little sketchy, in spite of his mother’s yammering. “A city of the knights,” he remembered. He growled, unconsciously. “I hate the knights,” he added.
So it was that, just a few days after the auspicious visit of the Nightmaster, Ankhar, the chosen one, marched out of his safe village. He was accompanied by some henchmen from his previous campaigns-Bloodgutter the ogre, and Rib Chewer the goblin, among them. His goal was to assemble another horde and launch another war and conquer a certain city of the knights.
He bore his emerald-tipped spear in his right hand and wore a gem-encrusted gold crown, one of the few treasures he had brought from Solamnia after his defeat. With his henchmen dressed in great bearskins, each captain crowned with a feathered headdress, he led his entourage through the woods to the nearest ogre settlement.
It was the stronghold of Vis Gorger, a hill town, in a valley peppered with cave mouths. Inside of each was a house, an inn, or a shop. There he met with the ogre lord Vis Gorger, who was still resentful over the Pond-Lily affair, and refused to join the expedition or acknowledge that Ankhar was the Truth.
So the half-giant broke the ogre’s neck, quickly and without warning or hesitation. The town’s vice chieftain, a strapping male named Bullhorn, didn’t seem to mind and proved more amenable to Ankhar’s needs-especially after Ankhar appointed him the new overseer of the town. Then Ankhar collected more than a hundred ogre warriors, young bulls eager for mayhem and plunder.
Next he went to the town of Heart Eater, the other chief who had claimed Pond-Lily’s affections.
Apparently, word of Vis Gorger’s fate preceded Ankhar’s arrival. In any event, Heart Eater organized two hundred ogre warriors, with twice that number of goblin spear carriers, and was ready and waiting to join the half- giant when Ankhar and his growing force arrived.
And so it went. The villages and towns of Lemish gave up their young warriors, willingly and with great expectations. They all joined the army of Ankhar the Truth. His force swelled by the day as he marched up and down and back and forth through the breadth of the land.
Until finally, he had amassed his horde of warriors and there was no place left in Lemish for him to go.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Blayne Kerrigan didn’t stay to witness the outcome of the battle in the orchard. Instead, he took two hundred skilled archers and the wizard Red Wallace, and speedily rode east to Vingaard Keep. They crossed the Stonebridge near the bank of the Vingaard-the bridge Jaymes had ordered Dayr not to guard in order to draw more of the Vingaard defenders into battle outside the keep walls.
The riders crossed the span just upstream of the confluence of Apple Creek and the much larger river. South of the creek, they raced westward along the road toward the advancing forces of the emperor. Soon they came up behind the position established by Lord Kerrigan before he had gone to parley with the emperor.
