some of the elders up a narrow side valley, the only other easy route away from New Compound. It was a dead end, leading to a box canyon where a number of mines had been excavated, but they should be safe there.
The children would take shelter in one of the deepest mines. If the dwarves were driven from the field, the survivors would seal off the entrances and hide in the mines along with the young ones. Enough food had been stored there for a month or more of siege.
By the time they had spent a month in the mines, Dram firmly believed, the emperor’s armies would have arrived to free New Compound, and Mikey-and all the other kids of the town-could come out to play under the sun and breathe the air of freedom.
Either that or by that time, they would all be dead.
The Nightmaster moved invisibly through the streets of Palanthas. He departed from his temple, a secret shrine beneath the ground near the center of the city, and rose up through a grate in the street. As stealthy as the wind, he flowed above the ground, unseen, unheard, not even sensed. The gate in the city wall was nothing to him; he simply drifted up and over the wall as a cloud of gas and continued toward his destination beyond the old city.
Approaching the palace of the lord regent, the high priest of Hiddukel disdained the gates and stairways and courtyards. He rose through the air like a bird-or a bat-coming to rest on a lofty balcony. Though the night was warm, the doors leading into the palace were closed and barred. No matter: the Nightmaster dissolved into a pool of vapor on the paving stones of the balcony.
Still soundless and unseen, he flowed through the narrow gap underneath the door. Within the chamber, he took a moment to coalesce, watching the man who was poring over a scroll, working sums and subtractions with a scritch scritch scritch of pen on parchment.
Lord Regent Bakkard du Chagne had not weathered his change in status very well, reflected the Nightmaster. The lord, who had been the unchallenged master of Palanthas until the emperor had come to power, had grown overweight and round-shouldered. His hair, always thin, was nearly gone, the few remaining strands were pale and pathetically stringy. Though three bright lanterns were arrayed on his table, he still leaned low, his face near his writing, squinting as he studied his figures.
Abruptly he looked up at the place where the Nightmaster was hovering invisibly. “I thought I felt you!” he snapped. “What do you want?”
The high priest of Hiddukel sighed and materialized to stand on the floor, his features-as ever-concealed by his black mask.
“Trying to squeeze the last drop of blood out of each coin?” he asked drolly, enjoying du Chagne’s flash of anger as the regent stiffened and turned his face toward his visitor.
“How dare you speak to me like that!” he spat.
“A mere joke between old friends,” replied the cleric. “I meant no disrespect.”
“You forget yourself, my old ally,” said the lord regent. “I know the truth about you, and for that knowledge I will demand respect and obedience!”
“Very well, my lord. I apologize.” Even as he spoke, the priest felt a tingle, his pleasure kindled by his companion’s anger. Ever it was with the minions of darkness: they thrived on conflict, violence, and fury.
Du Chagne sat, glowering, and the priest pulled out a chair and sat across the table from him. “As a matter of fact,” the black-masked man went on, “my visit should please you as well.”
The lord’s eyes narrowed, and he looked at his visitor shrewdly. “Oh?” he inquired noncommittally.
“You should know that all the pieces of our plan have been put into place. The time has come to act, and if we are decisive, the emperor’s reign may come to an end within the next few days.”
“What do you mean, exactly?” asked du Chagne.
“I mean the emperor is gone from the city. The High Clerist’s Pass is closed to him, so he will not return in any timely fashion. I have troops coming to the city and will see that they enter.”
“Troops? You mean Dark Knights?” asked the lord.
“Yes, in fact. But they will encounter no real resistance. The city garrison is not only toothless, but riddled with spies.”
“Do you forget the foe that vexed us through our previous reign? The Legion of Steel! They have agents everywhere, and as much as they hate the emperor, they will surely rise up against a coup of Dark Knights. Don’t underestimate the Legion of Steel!”
“Good news there, too, my lord. Of course I know the legion to be a formidable enemy. But now I have, after years of trying, figured out a way to neutralize them. An unwitting pawn has been placed in their midst. As soon as the Black Brigade reaches the city gates, you must be prepared to reclaim your seat as lord regent of Palanthas. And the new Solamnic nation will be no more.”
“Can you hold this place with only five hundred men?” Blackgaard asked Hoarst skeptically. The Thorn Knight and the captain stood in the Nest of the Kingfisher, the little parapet that jutted above the High Lookout at the pinnacle of the High Clerist’s Tower.
The troops of the Black Army were assembled in the many courtyards that surrounded the broad base of the great spire. But there were not as many soldiers as either man would have liked to see: the fanatical defense of the Solamnics had claimed the lives of more than a third of the army’s three thousand men.
The Thorn Knight shook his head. “I don’t think so. Do you?”
“No,” the mercenary captain replied. “We would be subject to the same kind of attack that we ourselves employed against the garrison. I should say we need more than a thousand swords to do an adequate job.”
“Which leaves less than eight hundred for the march on Palanthas,” Hoarst replied. “Rather too few, I think.”
“Damn those traps!” snapped Blackgaard. “Three hundred good men, burned alive! And how many more drowned, crushed, or mangled?”
Hoarst shrugged; the past was past. “Well, there is one way I could bring more troops here,” Hoarst said thoughtfully. “It would require an unusually powerful spell, but I believe I could make it happen.”
“You could?” the captain asked hopefully. “How? From where?”
“I could borrow them from our former master,” Hoarst said in a tone dripping with irony, “and his army on the plains.”
“But they’re hundreds of miles away!”
“That, of course,” the Thorn Knight replied mysteriously, “is where the magic must come into play.”
“Surely you can’t teleport an entire army?” Blackgaard probed, very intrigued.
Hoarst shook his head. “No, the teleport spell works only for one person at a time. Perhaps I could cast it over and over, but that would be inefficient.”
“Then how will you do it? And how confident are you that you can pull it off?”
“Confident enough to suggest you take all but two hundred of your men with you to Palanthas. I will depart for my own castle and make the preparations there. Within a few days-certainly before the Solamnics can react-I will have a full garrison here.
“I rather look forward to facing the emperor here,” Hoarst added. “Ogres throwing rocks from these walls will cost him half his men. And the other half will die trying to scale the ramparts.”
“What about his cannon?”
Hoarst shrugged. “He only had one left when he marched across the plains. Even if it survives his campaign against Ankhar, it won’t be enough to bring down this great fortress. This tower is ten times larger than those spires of Vingaard, after all. And if you recall, I destroyed half of his battery at the foothills battle with but a single fireball.”
“I do remember,” Blackgaard said, nodding. “It was the high point of the battle, from my point of view. Things turned sour on us not too long after that.”
“This time,” the Thorn Knight said confidently, “the outcome will be sweet, not sour.”
“Very well,” said the captain. “Then I will take the rest of the brigade and march on Palanthas.”
“Where the gates will open before you and the Solamnic Knights will fall.”
Hoarst looked to the east and wondered how many days it would be-weeks, more likely-before Jaymes Markham brought his army up that road. It did not matter.
Whenever he came, Hoarst would be ready.
True to Dram’s estimate, the ogre army came around the bend in the road just over an hour later. The dwarf
