so dark and mysterious and utterly, completely compelling. “Very well,” she said, realizing that she had to speak very slowly to make herself understood. “But where are we going?”
“This way,” he whispered, pointing to a dark hallway at the back of the inn.
“Why?” she tried to ask. It seemed like a very long way away, but she was terribly curious. Slowly, she pushed herself to her feet, surprised at how strong his hand was as he helped her up.
“Don’t worry, and don’t wonder,” he said softly. “I promise you that it will be a magnificent surprise.”
“The knights have an army in front of the city of Cleft Spires, and another army marches this way, across the plains,” reported Rib Chewer. “Many horses in the north. With knights. And long spears.”
Ankhar nodded. He was not surprised by any of the reports, and he knew better than to ask the rather stupid goblin for precise calculations. The City of Cleft Spires, he knew, was Solanthus, thusly called because of the twin blocks of stone that loomed high above the center of the place. He knew the city was cherished by the knights and that they would move to protect it from any threat.
But he had already made a different plan, and the scout’s reports only reinforced the course of action he had chosen. Solanthus lay over the horizon, only about twenty miles away, west and a little north of his position. The Garnet range loomed directly to the west, with the tops of the peaks concealed behind a mass of dark clouds that promised heavy rains, possibly even snows, in the high country. Ankhar smiled at the thought.
He gathered his captains, as well as his stepmother, for a conference. The ogres were restive and grumpy, having marched farther and faster in the past fortnight than at any previous time in their lives. Still, they looked at him respectfully, and Ankhar took heart from the fact that they were still prepared to follow him.
“Up there!” he said, pointing into the mountains. “Knights are all before us, on plain, in city, north of city. But they are not up there.”
“We find treasure and booty in the mountains?” asked Bullhorn skeptically. “Or just cold and snow and hard rocks for beds?”
“We will not stay in the mountains,” Ankhar said. “We just go through them, and come out the other side. The knights look for us over here-and we are over there!”
He gestured in triumph to the lofty ridge, hoping that his plan was sinking in.
“Over there!” cried Laka, cackling shrilly. “Across the mountains-there we find treasures, and slaves, and war.”
For a moment the ogres looked skeptical. Finally, General Bloodgutter roared out a challenge. “We march! Who is afraid of the mountains?”
Bullhorn raised his face toward the heights, and bellowed his own challenge. “Mountains will not stop me! Go over mountains! Make war!”
“Over mountains! Make war!” The chant was soon picked up by the rest of Ankhar’s captains. A few moments later, the great horde turned from the flat plains into a valley that, Ankhar knew, would take them all the way to the summit of the range, and still remain north of the vexing mountain dwarf realm of Kayolin.
On the other side of the crest, he knew of a wide river valley that would lead them down to the plains. No one lived in that valley; he knew because he had marched through there only a few years before. No one was there to stop his plan.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Hoarst returned to the Black Army with a small keg in his bag of holding. It contained perhaps two gallons of precious liquid-very precious in so many ways, he thought a little wistfully. Would he ever find another concubine quite like Sirene? He doubted he would. But like a passing breeze-or a teleporting wizard-that regret vanished when he beheld the neat rows of tents, arrayed at the southern end of the hidden valley in the Vingaard range.
It was time to get to work.
The companies of Blackgaard’s force, ten units of three hundred men each, had moved there. They would travel light, leaving their tents and baggage behind, because, after all, soon they would all be sleeping comfortably in the High Clerist’s Tower.
Hoarst found Blackgaard sharpening his sword in the predawn mists. The Gray Robe was interested to note the commander did that mundane chore himself, but he made no mention of it.
“The bridge was finished just yesterday,” the captain reported to his mage. “Your timing is impeccable.”
“Good.” Hoarst patted the bag of holding. “I have the means of attack right here. It all went as planned.”
The bulk of the keg had vanished within the magical confines of the container, but Blackgaard understood his companion’s gesture. “Excellent,” he replied. “It’s time to move out.”
The columns of companies quickly fell into line and started up the steep road, switching back and forth to ascend the sheer wall that was the valley’s southern barrier. Their goal was only fifteen miles away, and Blackgaard intended to have them in position by nightfall, so they could have some rest before making the attack after moonset, in the darkest hour just before dawn.
The Black Army marched with the ease of a veteran formation. The soldiers were mercenaries, true, instead of men who fought for colors, state, or oath, but they were the finest, toughest mercenaries in the world. They took pride in their reputation. No untoward click of metal against metal, no cursing or grumbling or even careless stumble would mar their advance.
Within an hour the leading company reached the crest of the ridge bordering the valley and led the column out of the sheltered vale and into the windswept wilderness of the high Vingaard range. As if crossing a line of demarcation, they left the fields, pastures, and groves of their own settlement behind and entered a realm of stark gray stone, white glaciers, deep chasms, and lofty peaks. There were no trees there and few stretches of level ground.
The captain’s engineers had done a splendid job on the road. It would not suffice as a trade caravan route-it was too steep-but it was wide enough for five men to march abreast, even where it was scored along the side of a sheer cliff. After crossing the first ridge, the route cut along the precipitous side of a mountain, staying a hundred feet below the crest for the sake of concealment. Descending gradually, it curled around the shoulder of the solid massif then dropped sharply to pass between a pair of conical summits.
Beyond, the route was confronted with the obstacle of a half-mile-deep chasm-the barrier that had prevented any previous attack against the tower from the north. But the bridge that had been erected for the attack was a true work of art, slender and graceful, spanning the narrowest part of the chasm on a single arch. The stone surface thrummed to the march of the Black Army and carried the whole force safely across by midafternoon.
There was one last ridgeline to crest, and there the companies narrowed into double, and finally single, file. That part of the route, scaling the highest summit, was of necessity rough and ill-prepared. Since it was close to the fortress, the diggers had worked only very cautiously there so as not to risk discovery.
Night was falling as they approached the summit. Blackgaard had previously scouted out a shallow swale near the top, and there he put the small army into an overnight bivouac. There were a few stubby cedars growing in the little valley, but Blackgaard would allow no fires. Even though the rising ridge blocked their line of sight to the fortress, the smell of smoke had been known to thwart a surprise attack.
Lying on the hard and rocky ground, the men slept as much as they could, which was not much at all. Mostly they watched the red moon, then the white, slowly traverse the night skies. Lunitari set behind the western slopes at about midnight. Solinari, closer to full and trailing behind his red cousin, did not set until past three. Only the stars, far more of them than a man could count, brightened the vast arch of the cosmos.
Then it was time to move out.
Hoarst went first, leading a single company of three hundred handpicked men. As they crossed the summit of the ridge, their target came into view. Even in the moonless night, the alabaster walls of the High Clerist’s Tower stood out against the black mountain range. Dominated by its tall, central spire, the fortress had stood in that spot since the Age of Might, a symbol of the Solamnics’ mastery of that corner of Krynn. Lesser towers, immense walls and gates, and the secondary fortress known as the Knights’ Spur, all stood as reminders that the place had held
