city, but they haven’t pressed my outposts.”
Jaymes turned to another nobleman, a high lord of Solanthus who had joined his force the previous day. Lord Martin had been a stalwart commander in the city’s defense, and he had led a brave company during the Battle of the Foothills. The emperor couldn’t help but think Martin merely looked old and tired. His hair had thinned, and what remained of it had turned white. His pale blue eyes were watery and didn’t seem to focus clearly.
But Lord Martin had always been a reliable man, and he was his best bet there and then. Jaymes spoke bluntly.
“Your garrison is at full strength. Would it help to send a few regiments of infantry to reinforce?”
“I don’t think so, Excellency,” Martin replied. His voice was as strong as ever, Jaymes was pleased to note. He recalled, too, Martin had lost a son in the battle that broke the siege. In the immediate aftermath, the nobleman had been fully engaged and his help was vital in winning the conclusive actions of the war. But afterward, surely the personal tragedy had taken its toll on him.
“We have enough to man the city walls with the complement of troops already in Solanthus,” the lord reported. “And those walls are as high and as strong as ever. The breach at the Westgate has been fully repaired-in fact, the gate is taller and thicker than it was before Ankhar’s monster smashed it down. There’s plenty of food in the granaries. Even so, I don’t think there’s anything to be gained by bringing more hungry mouths behind the walls.”
“I agree,” Jaymes said. He glanced at Franz again and was startled to see the naked hostility there. The emperor’s eyes narrowed. “Captain?” he said curtly.
“Yes, Excellency?” A mask fell across the young officer’s face. But Jaymes made a note to remember his hidden feelings.
“Is there any chance Ankhar has moved farther east, into Throtl, or the Gap?”
“No, Excellency. I’ve sent three platoons of lancers all the way to the northern edge of the Darkwoods, and there has been no sign of anything that way.”
“So he’s back there somewhere, behind Solanthus?” General Dayr speculated. “I suggest we find him and attack, Excellency. We have the Crown Army here, with your legion, and the Sword Army gathered at Solanthus. United we’d have more than enough strength to collapse his pickets, and destroy him once and for all.”
“We could do that, if indeed he’s over there,” the emperor replied. “But I’m not ready to take the chance.”
“What chance?” Captain Franz blurted out, his face flushing. He blinked in the face of Jaymes’s glare but didn’t back down. “We know where he isn’t, just like you said! So he has to be down there, east of the city.”
“No, there’s one more possibility,” the emperor replied. “What if he took his army into the mountains?”
“But why?” Franz objected. “He’d be trapped in some box canyon or dead-end valley. There’s no place an army could cross over the crest of the range!”
“Not an army of knights, perhaps,” Jaymes replied. The young man’s outburst forgotten, he spoke thoughtfully. “But Ankhar doesn’t march with wagons and war machines. He doesn’t even have horses. And he knows those mountains well-they’re his home, after all.”
“Do you think he’d go there now?” General Dayr asked. “Because if he did…”
“He could outflank us all and make for any part of the southern plains. He’d be far ahead of us and we couldn’t do a damned thing about it,” Jaymes concluded. “And the more I think about it, the more I’m certain he’s not anywhere on these plains at all.”
“If that’s true, what can we do about it?”
“I’ll leave the Sword Army near Solanthus for the time being; General Rankin can keep an eye on things around here. General Dayr, you will march eastward with the Crowns for thirty miles and set up a temporary camp. I want you to be ready to move in either direction at a moment’s notice.”
“Yes, Excellency. Of course. And the Palanthian Legion?”
“I’ll lead them myself. We’ll march toward the mountains. The legion isn’t big enough to stop Ankhar by itself, but if he does try to come through the high country, we’ll be waiting to give him a nasty surprise. I expect we’ll be able to hold up his progress until you arrive to help finish the job-hopefully once and for all.”
“May all the gods hear you,” Dayr replied sincerely.
Blayne woke up suddenly, sensing that someone was in the room with him. It was night, and the cramped little boarding house cubby that had been his home in Palanthas was utterly dark. It should have been utterly silent, as well. But Blayne had heard something, a soft sound that had interrupted his sleep. And when he listened, he plainly discerned the sound of breathing.
“Who’s there?” he demanded, sitting up, reaching for his matches. With a scratch against the striking board, he smelled sulfur and heard the wooden chip burst into flame. He even felt the heat of the little fire on the fingertips holding the match.
But his room was as dark as ever.
Magic!
The skin on the back of his neck prickled, and he thought about his short sword-suspended from a hook on the back of the door, way across the room. “Who’s there?” he asked again before cursing and shaking out the unseen match as the flame seared his fingertips. “Why can’t I see?”
“It is important that my identity remain secret.”
The cool voice startled him, brought him bolt upright on his grimy mattress. Blayne discerned no threat in the voice, rather more a tone of almost paternal affection, as though his visitor were a revered counselor-even though he had never heard the voice before.
“What do you want?” he asked.
“I bring you news-good news, from your friend in the gray robe.”
“Finally!” Blayne cried involuntarily. He blushed over his outburst-and because he had just inadvertently confirmed to the unseen visitor his connection with Hoarst the Gray. “I mean… I have done what he asked when he sent me here. But I feared he had forgotten me.”
“Not at all,” said the other man with an avuncular chuckle. “And he will be pleased to hear of your success-as I am pleased.”
“So… you also know about my mission in Palanthas?”
“Yes. The Legion of Steel is an important component in our plans, as the nation moves beyond the reign of the emperor. I take it that you have made the necessary contact with them, then?”
Blayne considered for a few moments, wondering how much of his secret mission he should be divulging to the mysterious stranger. It seemed the man was a confidant of Hoarst’s and that he already knew a great deal about Blayne. After all, the young lord had taken his room in a shabby inn with the clear intention of remaining incognito. Yet somehow, the stranger found and knew him.
“Why this peculiar darkness?” Blayne asked bluntly. “I sense that you’ve cast a spell to block any light in my room.”
“It is very important no one know who I am,” replied the man, his easy tone indicating he took no offense at Blayne’s question. “That is all. You can trust me; I am a friend.”
And, in truth, Blayne felt he did trust the man. Of course, he didn’t know about the charm spell his visitor had cast, the subtle magic that made pleasing the powerful cleric’s every word. Nor could he see the black mask the Nightmaster wore across his face.
So Blayne told him all he had learned during several meetings with the secret order of knights known as the Legion of Steel.
“There are about a hundred of them in the city, organized into six cells,” he reported eagerly. “I’ve only been to visit one of the cells, of course-that’s deliberate on my part. But they have been preparing for their day ever since the emperor passed his new edicts.”
“Excellent. One hundred knights is a few more than I had expect-that is, hoped — to find here,” the other man said.
“But you said you brought news for me! From Hoarst,” Blayne remembered suddenly. “What is the news?”
“Ah yes, that. Good news, indeed. The Black Army has taken over the High Clerist’s Tower, and even now our mutual friend sits in control of the pass,” the stranger explained.
“They took the tower?” Somehow, the truth of that seemed rather daunting to Blayne. It was good news
