wrote to Jaymes and matter-of-factly described the meeting in New Compound. He finished the letter, dusted it with sand to dry the ink, and was sealing the scroll when his son came up to his study in Thelgaard Keep.
“There’s a courier just arrived from Palanthas,” Franz reported. “He says he brings an important message from the emperor.”
“I’ll see him at once,” said the general.
A short time later, he was unrolling a hefty pack of scrolls, five sheets all rolled together and placed in one tube. The courier had been dismissed to get a meal and some well-deserved rest-he had made the ride in less than ten days-and only the general’s son was present as Dayr read the first scroll. He put it aside without comment, but his heart was sinking as Franz picked it up and started to read. Before he was halfway through the second scroll, Dayr heard Franz’s snort of outrage.
“That’s enough!” snapped the older man. “These are direct orders from the leader of the nation!”
“Orders to gag the mouths of his own people!” Franz snapped back. “Whoever heard of passing laws that prohibit talking! Maybe next he will ban eating? Or having babies?”
“I told you-that’s enough,” declared Dayr, standing and confronting his glaring son. The general had not progressed even halfway through the several scrolls, but he had seen enough to realize that Jaymes was presenting him with a whole new set of laws, legislation that would create criminal activity out of a number of simple things the people of Solamnia, of all Krynn, had long taken for granted. How the people would react to those laws, he couldn’t predict, but he was determined to bring his own son to heel before Franz said, or did, something that could be construed as treasonous.
“Are you really going to post these laws, Father?” demanded the captain. “As if what happened to Vingaard Keep wasn’t enough-now he tries to control the conversations that go on in the marketplaces, in the taverns?”
“I don’t know what I’m going to do about it!” Dayr retorted, drawing a look of surprise from his son. “But I will not tolerate treason in my own household. You will watch your tongue, or you will leave. Now!”
“Maybe you don’t know what to do about it,” Franz said, his tone contemptuous, “but my own decision is easy.” He stalked to the door, pulled it open, and pivoted to glare at his father.
“Goodbye,” he said, walking away.
The Nightmaster had provided Ankhar with a detailed map, and with a little help from Laka, the half-giant had studied the map until he was pretty sure he understood what all the pictures, symbols, colors, and lines depicted. He thought of employing some of the flying draconians to get a more firsthand report, but in the end he decided not to risk allowing them to be seen.
Besides, the enemy layout was actually rather basic. The knights had established a series of picket forts along the borderlands with Lemish. They were garrisoned by only a company or two apiece and were meant to serve as tripwires to alert their comrades if anything untoward happened from the wilderness to the south. The map, and the dark priest’s counsel, showed Ankhar that a very large force of Solamnic Knights, including cavalry, archers, and infantry numbering in the thousands, was posted in a permanent camp some ten miles north of the border. That force was expected to mobilize and come to the rescue of any of the garrison posts in the event of a cross-border incursion.
Based on that knowledge, and his long experience fighting the knights, Ankhar had formed a plan to surprise and confound them. He gathered his captains together at the edge of the Lemish forest and explained the plan to them. The big ogres were there, and Rib Chewer the warg rider was there, as well as the chief of the draconians, Guilder. The latter’s slender, reptilian body seemed to spark and pulse with its own kind of internal lights, and as a consequence, even the biggest ogres gave him a wide berth.
The headstrong ogres, knowing that the enemy lay in camps just over the horizon, were all in favor of bursting from the woods, charging north at full speed, and overrunning any outpost of Solamnics that they encountered on the way. Bullhorn and Heart Eater both advocated that tactic, but the half-giant was grateful that the veteran Bloodgutter-his new general-persuaded his fellow ogres to at least listen to Ankhar’s strategy.
“You see fort out there?” the half-giant demanded, silencing the others with a glare, barely holding his exasperation in check.
They were clustered behind a curtain of foliage, vines and creepers and swamp flowers that blocked them from view as they gazed out over the open ground to the north. Less than a mile away, they could spy the knights’ outpost-a small, square compound protected by a wall of logs. Several men rode horses in a lazy patrol outside the wall, and a lofty tower, also erected out of logs, allowed a handful of lookouts to get a commanding view.
“Yes,” growled Heart Eater sullenly. “My axers could rush out and destroy it before humans have time to turn around!”
“My clubs could smash it to pieces!” Bullhorn added. “Kill everyone!”
“I know that!” Ankhar retorted. “But there are ten forts like that. All along here, by Lemish woods. Not strong forts, but strong enough.”
“If not strong, why we not kill them right away?” pressed Bullhorn.
“Because men in those forts want us to attack them. That’s why they are there! Sure, we wipe out fort, but not before men in fort light signal fire, put up big smoke cloud. Horses ride away, tell everyone we attack.”
“Smoke cloud not scare me!” declared Heart Eater.
“Smoke not to scare you-smoke is to call knights from big camp. They see smoke, they ride out and attack us.”
“Then we kill them!” Bullhorn concluded. “After we smash fort.”
“Listen! Just listen!” Ankhar drew a deep breath. He looked at Laka, and she raised her talisman, rattling the skull with the glowing emerald eyes, and that produced a general silence. “Lots and lots of knights are in big camp. Many soldiers sleep; they live there. They not watch for us because these forts are here. But tonight, there is no moon. We go-all of us go-between two forts, very quiet. We march all night, and come to big camp. We attack there, when the sun comes up, and kill many, many knights.”
He exhaled, finally sensing that he had their attention. “Then we come back and smash all the forts,” he concluded.
“All right. We try your plan,” Heart Eater said, nodding and scratching his bulging chin.
“And what about my flyers?” Guilder, the aurak, wondered gutturally.
“I have a plan for them: they fly over knights’ camp and land on other side, where horses are. Scare all the horses, and the knights cannot ride.”
Guilder nodded, hissing his approval. Bullhorn, too, agreed with the plan, and at last the scheme was set. The great column gathered at the edge of the woods, still concealed by the dense foliage. With some difficulty, the captains persuaded their troops to wait for the signal to move out.
“You two will wait here,” Ankhar told Laka and Pond-Lily seriously. “I send for you when fight is over.”
Pond-Lily nodded vacantly, staring at him with the limpid puddles of her small, deep-set eyes. Even Laka, to the half-giant’s mild surprise, accepted her role of waiting, perhaps understanding that she was no longer capable of keeping up with a night-long march.
Darkness was complete a few hours later, and Ankhar led the great column, thousands of ogres marching on foot, between two of the border outposts, the forts with the towers and horsemen that could be seen from the woods and were spaced about every five miles along the line. Moving quietly, with many whispered admonitions to avoid making any noise, the band somehow escaped notice as it swept toward the great garrison camp, the place where the real defensive force awaited, all unaware.
Dawn turned the eastern sky blue as the ogres came into sight of the vast wall around the fortified camp. Made from sharpened birch stakes driven into the ground to form a palisade, the barrier would have been a formidable obstacle to goblins, hobgoblins, even some ogres. But Ankhar had taken note of the weaponry preferred by Heart Eater’s warriors, and his plan was shrewd.
“You lead the way,” he said to the strapping bull. “Use your axes and break down wall-make many holes. The rest of us come after you, charge through holes, and kill the knights.”
Naturally, Bullhorn raised some objections-“Why Heart Eater go first?”-but was mollified by the argument that the axe-wielders had a special job in the attack. Guilder, concealed by a spell of invisibility, quickly ventured out for a look and was pleased to report the vast horse corrals on the north side of the camp were very lightly guarded.
“We can stampede the herd,” he reported with confidence.
The ground was still shrouded in shadow, though the sky grew steadily lighter as the ogres spread out into a
