Thorngoth. Estan wore his golden hair long, like his father, and it flew behind him as rode hard for the ramp leading into the fortress.
The pressure on Janar’s hordes slackened. A shout went up. The Ergothians had flanked the bakali line. They were nearly to the mound. For the first time the lizard-men wavered.
Moments later, the same hesitation struck the bakali fighting among the Ergothian center. Their usual cold- blooded prowess faltered. Anxious looks were cast back at their threatened fortress.
The emperor thrust a clenched fist into the air. “Now is the time!” he declared. “Send word to Lord Vanz to bring his men forward. He will strike the enemy on our left, as we contain them here!”
Six couriers carried the message, to ensure it would reach its intended recipient. Only two made it through the confusion and carnage. The first courier found Lord Vanz sitting on horseback in the shade of an alder tree.
Only twenty, Vanz Hellman was already an imposing figure. A descendant of northern seafarers, he was dark-skinned and very tall. When his hair had begun to thin two years earlier, he shaved his head and kept it so. He wore no mail beneath his cuirass, so his bare arms, impressively muscled, showed clearly under his turned-back mantle.
The courier galloped up to him, gasping out his message: “My lord! His Majesty commands you to advance!”
“Thank you,” Hellman replied. His voice was low and very deep. He remained motionless on his white horse, giving no orders.
As the puzzled courier prepared to repeat his message, the second messenger arrived, face bloody, right arm hanging limply at his side. He relayed the emperor’s order and received the same calm acknowledgment.
Lord Vanz called for a draft of wine.
More than a league away, the Thorngoth Sabers gained the foot of the enemy’s ramp. The thick walls of the bakali mound were heavily plastered with mud and leaves. The ramp spiraled upward, growing narrower as it rose. Scores of round openings dotted the walls next to the ramp. None were defended.
The Sabers sensed a trap, but urged their horses onto the ramp anyway. When they tried to turn the animals toward the first of the yawning holes, the horses balked. Ergothian war mounts did not shy from the clash of iron or the smell of human blood, but none could be made to push through the vile, throat-clogging odor emanating from the entrance to the bakali stronghold. Their riders were forced to dismount and proceed on foot, sabers drawn.
Within was a winding gallery fitfully lit by the streams of sunlight coming through the entry holes in the walls. As more Riders arrived, they followed their comrades inside, leaving the lowest-ranking among them outside to guard the horses.
There were only two choices, head up or down. As the stronghold was broader at the base than the summit, it made sense to seek the enemy below. Armor jangling, Captain Tremond and his men descended the curved gallery. The interior ramp was wide enough for them to walk five abreast.
A single guard appeared, wielding an axe in each clawed fist. He held them off for some time, skillfully dodging saber thrusts and whirling his twin blades with such force that a single hit severed heads or limbs. They finally overwhelmed him by sheer weight of numbers. After severing his hissing, spitting head from his torso, they continued downward.
The evil stench grew stronger as they descended. So did the enervating heat and humidity. Some warriors, veterans of many battles, became so nauseated they collapsed. Comrades with stronger stomachs kept going.
The curving gallery ended in an open chamber. Pine and cedar knots burned fitfully in the gloom, casting just enough smoky light to reveal the room’s vastness. It was forty or fifty paces across, its domed ceiling supported by trees ripped from the ground and installed with their branches and bark still on. The chamber was lined from wall to wall with thousands of oblong yellow-gray objects, each about the size of a small wine cask.
Tremond poked the nearest of the objects with his sword. The leathery skin yielded. Instantly he realized what they had found.
“Corij preserve us!” he breathed. “It’s a hatchery!”
The bakali eggs were layered four or five deep. There were easily a hundred thousand of them in this single room. They accounted for the terrible smell, as well as the heat and drenching humidity.
An Ergothian slashed the nearest egg. Its pliant shell split and thick green fluid gushed out, as did an amorphous-looking dark mass-an immature bakali. Several soldiers gagged at the sight, but most, following their comrade’s example, began slashing at the eggs. Soon the soldiers were ankle-deep in yellow-green slime.
Tremond halted his men’s frenzied retribution. At this rate they would drown before a thousand eggs were destroyed. Something stronger was needed.
Torches burned in the curving gallery behind them, but the eggs were soft and moist, and the air heavy with damp. It would be impossible to get a blaze going without copious amounts of oil or some other fuel.
“The trees!”
The cry had come from a warrior who carried one of the axes taken from the bakali guard. He stepped out onto the uneven surface of the egg trove and picked his way toward the center of the chamber. There, he drew back the iron axe and began to hack at a tree trunk. Wood chips flew.
Chest working to take in the humid, harsh air, Captain Tremond thought briefly of home, of the fresh breezes that blew off the bay in the mornings. Then he shouted, “Everyone! Cut down those posts! All of them! Right now!”
A soldier with gray in his beard caught his young captain’s arm. “You know what will happen when we cut through those supports, don’t you?”
“Yes,” Tremond said evenly, “we’ll save the empire.”
The imperial reserve shifted restlessly, ten thousand warriors on ten thousand horses waiting for their commander to obey the emperor’s order to advance. So far Vanz Hellman had drunk a cup of wine, watched the injured courier carried away, talked idly with his officers, and removed his mantle in the heat of the day.
After his mantle was carefully stowed in a saddle bag, Hellman sat up straight and wrapped the reins around his hands.
“The hordes will advance by columns, to the left,” he said quietly.
Heralds relayed the order as trumpets blared. At a trot, the left wing of the imperial army moved up on the west side of the bakali position. The leading elements of Hellman’s hordes found numerous concealed traps-pits, ditches, deadfalls of huge logs. Each was marked and circumvented. Had the hordes galloped straight ahead, they would have suffered grievously from the traps.
“My lord, how did you know the obstacles were there?” asked Hellman’s second-in-command.
“Because I would have put them there, if I were a cunning lizard.”
Their approach was so deliberate and calm they surprised a phalanx of bakali formed behind a screen of trees. The lizard-men were standing in neatly ordered rows, axes and billhooks resting on their shoulders. Hellman’s Riders appeared beside them as if by magic. Reptilian faces were not expressive by human standards, but the bakali’s astonishment was plain.
Vanz Hellman’s powerful voice burst forth. “Give them iron!”
The Ergothians sabered hundreds of the enemy before they could shift formation and raise their shields. Lord Hellman, in the front rank, put down a bakali with every stroke. Because of his unusual height, he wielded a specially-made saber, its blade a span longer than any other sword on the battlefield.
Although surprised, the bakali did not break. They fought, isolated into bands of six, eight, or ten, until all were slain.
None attempted to surrender. The Ergothians were not taking prisoners anyway.
Hellman’s hordes cut their way to within sight of Ackal V’s position in the center of the battle. One of the emperor’s aides pointed out the towering ebon warrior to the emperor.
Ackal V, still clutching his son to his chest, wheeled his horse about. “About bloody time! Did he come by way of Ropunt Forest?”
The emperor’s ire could not dilute Hellman’s accomplishment. His warriors, fresh and eager for battle, were cleaving the enemy in twain. Ackal V, breathing hard, allowed his bloody sword to hang idle from his hand for the first time in ages.
A tremendous crack split the air. Heads whipped around, wondering if the sound heralded some new bakali
