Tol’s band had died in the fight, and they would be buried more traditionally, as befitted Ergothian warriors.
Tol sat on a log while this activity whirled around him. He had a quiet word with Narren and Egrin and they herded Mandes over to him.
“Tell us your tale, wizard,” Tol said, poking a small fire on the ground in front of him. “Who are you, and how did you get here?”
Mandes drew a deep breath, throwing out his chest and striking a pose. “I am from Tarsis, as my manner of speech no doubt told you,” he began. “I was once a respected exponent of the theurgical arts in the city of my birth. That changed, however, as the guilds took over, forcing independent practitioners like myself to conform or face summary punishment.”
“Guilds? You mean the White and Red Robes?” said Tol.
“Yes! May they stew forever in the belly of Chaos! I, Mandes the skillful, Mandes the learned, was hounded to join the Order of the Red Robes. I refused.”
“So they ran you out of town?”
Mandes’s proud posture deflated, the firelight playing over his dejected expression. “Aias, yes. I fled one step ahead of their ghostly enforcers, vile wraiths raised to steal my wits as punishment for defying their orders!” He stamped his foot, grimacing when his heel struck a sharp stone. “The guilds would reduce the noble art of magic to a trade, with apprentices, journeymen, and masters who decide who can practice and where. Mandes the proud, Mandes the free, will not submit to such coercion!”
“Hmm.” Tol flexed his fingers, nicked and scarred from the day’s battles. “What happened after you left Tarsis?”
“My self-imposed exile was precipitous,” Mandes said, face flushing. “I departed without food or proper clothing. I wandered the countryside for many, many days, coming at last to the shores of the sea. There I chanced upon a Kharland trader stranded on a bar. In exchange for my help freeing their vessel, they conveyed me to their destination.”
“Ergoth?”
The sorcerer shook his head. “The Gulf of Hylo. Specifically, a kender town on the eastern shore called Free Point. There I remained for half a year, selling my services to those magically deprived folk. It was a miserable place, I must say. No culture, no real stimulation for a man of intellect like myself.” He grimaced. “That, and the kender stole back almost every fee I collected. I resolved to leave, but the bakali descended on the port before I could do so.”
Mandes described how a fleet of six ships, disguised as merchant vessels, landed bakali warriors on the Free Point waterfront. Before the day was out, the town was theirs. All non-kender were rounded up. Some were killed immediately and eaten by the lizard-men. Others were made to work as slaves. Mandes would have suffered one or the other fate had he not demonstrated his magical talents to the bakali commander.
“What happened to the kender of the town?” asked Tol.
“Oh, a few were caught and killed,” said Manes. “But most got away. Kender have a way of making themselves scarce.”
“Why didn’t you use your spells to escape?” Egrin said.
“I was preparing a conjuration that would have transformed the entire scaly mob into pillars of sawdust, but one of them hit me on the head before I could finish the third incantation-”
“Why did you create the stupefying mist for them?” Tol asked, rising to his feet.
Mandes blinked once, slowly. “If I had not, they would’ve killed me.”
“And the plague that goes with it?”
“The illness is not my doing. I know nothing about it!” the wizard proclaimed, throwing out his chest.
“Can you cure the sickness?”
“I shall do my best for your gallant men,” Mandes said. “After all, you saved me from those awful lizards, and for that I am deeply grateful.”
Tol did not readily trust the mage. He might be nothing more than an innocent prisoner, or he might have been in league with the bakali. Regardless, if he could cure the plague, Tol would use him, trustworthy or not. He appointed four men to watch over Mandes while he prepared a cure for the Red Wrack. Once his men were well, Tol would take the wizard to Lord Urakan, so he could work his cure on the imperial army. After that, Mandes’s fate would lie in Urakan’s hands.
Using an old brass cauldron salvaged from the bakali camp, Mandes made a decoction of roots, bark, and herbs, gathered skillfully despite the dark night. Two sips of the hot potion, and the sick men could immediately breathe freely. In short order their red splotches faded, and their coughs ceased.
The wizard’s swift success only made Tol more suspicious. How would Mandes know exactly how to cure the illness unless he’d created it in the first place? It was enough to make Tol extremely wary of the wayward sorcerer.
Tol had doses of the cure sent back to the blockhouse for the woodcutters and their families. The same two riders were charged with carrying to Daltigoth Tol’s report on the bakali and the plague, as well as another missive to Valaran.
When they were ready to move, Tol had Mandes placed on a horse and led the animal himself, so he could keep an eye on the strange fellow. Lord Urakan was camped above the headwaters of the West Caer River, twenty-two leagues away. Tol tried not think of how many Ergothian soldiers might die of the Red Wrack in the five days it would take for them to reach the camp.
Chapter 18
The sprawling imperial army camp looked more like a shanty town than a military encampment. The pall of smoke which hung over the site was visible five leagues away. Twenty thousand men, plus at least as many traders, sutlers, and camp followers, had carved out a blight on the once-pristine grassland. Intermittent bouts of heavy rain had drenched the great army of Ergoth, which was now sinking ignobly into a lake of mud. The camp was too large to protect with the usual stockade, so the hodge-podge of tents and shacks were surrounded by a deep, muddy trench. An appalling odor permeated the scene-the combined stench of disease, death, and the manure of horses, cattle, and chickens.
Afraid to expose his men to Urakan’s tainted hordes, Tol left them outside the vast, ill-favored camp and rode in with only Egrin, Narren, and Mandes. Kegs of the sorcerer’s curative potion were slung on the backs of four sturdy horses.
On the journey from Ropunt, Mandes had proved an entertaining, garrulous fellow. There was no doubt he was clever, and when he wasn’t being blindingly arrogant, he was fascinating company. He knew all the gossip of Tarsis (at least up to the time he fled), and he entertained Tol and his comrades with colorful accounts of life in the wealthy port city.
The sentries they encountered were listless and gray-faced. More than the Red Wrack was plaguing Urakan’s army, the men reported. Ague and flux were rampant. The sentries themselves were so weak they could barely stand.
Outside Lord Urakan’s tent, Tol and Egrin dismounted, leaving Narren to watch Mandes and the kegs. They entered and found Urakan at his table, alone, with his head in his hands.
“My lord?”
Urakan looked up. The arrogant, iron-limbed general Tol had known in Daltigoth was gone. In his place sat a tired, dispirited man, his beard starting to go white.
“Lord Tolandruth! And Egrin, Raemel’s son, isn’t it?” he said hoarsely. He stood, propped up by his hands on the table. “By the gods, I never thought to see you here!”
They clasped arms all around. “I had word from Prince Amaltar you were on your way north, but he didn’t say you were coming to see me,” Urakan added, somewhat plaintively.
“This wasn’t part of my original mission,” Tol replied. He described their encounter with the bakali and the
