trick. Shouts went up from the warriors fighting around the emperor, and thousands of blades, formerly engaged in killing, rose skyward, pointing at the bakali stronghold.
The great earthen mound was collapsing. Its roughly conical peak dropped several paces. Black dust spurted from the open tunnel mouths along its sides. From the embattled lizard-men came a hair-raising, ululating cry, a sound not of anger or bloodlust, but of wrenching despair.
The walls of the mound split apart and fell inward. The pinnacle, which had once reared so high, plummeted into the center of the stronghold. With a prolonged roar, the entire structure gave way, hurling broken logs and dried mud for hundreds of paces all around.
Chapter 18
The sun was setting on a sweltering day. It dipped behind the smooth walls of Caergoth, lending to the cool white stone the sheen of old gold. Humid and heavy, the day had passed quietly. The Juramona Militia and the five hundred Riders acting as cavalry escort guarded the treasure and kept out of sight.
Tylocost remained on the hilltop for most of the day, his face shaded by the wide brim of his gardener’s hat. He did not speak. Now and then he plucked a stem of grass and chewed it thoughtfully.
On the other side of the hill, Zala and Casberry completed preparations for their foray into the city. The forty kender chosen by the queen had left to enter the city in whatever way they could. At the appointed time they would join up at the prison cages in the center of Caergoth. In spite of his urgent pleas to be taken into Caergoth, Helbin had never shown up. He likely had developed cold feet, Zala thought. She was glad. That was one less worry on what would probably be a dangerous night.
Zala, with her glean, could enter the city by the gate. Casberry declared herself too old to climb high walls or wriggle through drain pipes. She wanted to accompany the half-elf, and pondered how she could accomplish this since the glean covered only Zala herself.
Her solution to the problem caused Zala, in spite of her nervous excitement, to break out in laughter.
Casberry dispatched Front and Back, her sedan chair bearers, to find her a wheelbarrow. While the men went off to search the treasure trove for such a thing, the queen and the half-elf put together their disguises.
Zala was to be a peasant woman. The queen happily rooted through the numerous chests of her “royal luggage” to find an appropriate dress for her. A lady’s gown of green velvet was just Zala’s size, but much too fine. It would draw attention, and they certainly didn’t want that.
The dress the kender queen finally produced was a patched and well-worn homespun garment. Zala pulled it on and put her arms into the long sleeves. She squirmed a bit, trying to accustom herself to the garment’s unfamiliar feel. Its full skirt covered her legs and the trousers she had flatly refused to remove, and transformed her into frumpy shapelessness. Her hair had grown in the weeks since she’d left Caergoth, but she tied a grimy kerchief over her head to make certain her ears remained covered.
Casberry stripped to her white linen smallclothes, carefully folding each piece of her flamboyant attire and stowing it in her sedan chair. In moments, she completed her own transformation, and Zala was left to stare at her in open-mouthed astonishment.
The kender was clad in a dirty green dress. Around its neck and hem were the remnants of embroidered flowers and bumblebees. A matching bonnet covered her head and cast her face into deep shadow. In one hand, she held the final piece of her disguise-a decrepit cloth doll. Casberry, who must have been at least a hundred years old, was dressed as a human child.
She grinned widely, showing many ancient yellow teeth. “I’m your darling baby!” she declared.
Zala began to laugh. Casberry joined in, her high-pitched mirth sounding like a cat yowling in pain.
Front and Back returned at last with a two-wheeled pushcart. Zala and Casberry put their weapons in and covered them with blankets, then Casberry climbed in.
The sun was nearly gone; only an orange sliver remained above the western hills. Zala wanted to tell Tylocost they were leaving, but the elf was nowhere to be seen.
“He’s sulking,” said Casberry, arranging herself in the pushcart. She cocked a sly look up at Zala and added, “He wants something he can’t get.”
Zala frowned, but before she could say anything, Casberry began issuing orders to Front and Back. They would tell Tylocost of the rescue party’s departure.
On the way to the city, Casberry regaled Zala with ribald stories about her travels through the lands beyond the empire. Hearing these, Zala decided the kender queen was an unscrupulous old wench, but shrewd, brave, and without a doubt never, ever dull.
The paved road was empty when Zala wheeled the creaky barrow onto it. Few travelers dared move after sunset, fearing the wild animals and even wilder raiders who prowled by night. The Dermount Gate bulked large in front of them, blazing torches marking the entrance and the soldiers guarding it.
A figure appeared, instantly and without warning, on the grassy verge just beside Zala. She jumped in shock, her hand reaching for the sword she no longer wore.
It was Helbin, sweeping back the folds of the loose, dark cape that covered him from head to toes. He seemed to appear out of thin air.
“How’d you do that, Red Robe?” Casberry piped.
In reply, he drew the front of the cape up around his eyes. When the motion of the moving cloth subsided, he all but vanished. If Zala looked very closely, she could see the pale oval of his forehead.
“A cloak of invisibility, eh?” said Casberry, sitting up in the barrow. “I could’ve used one of those in Silvanost, a few years back. With garb like that, why do you need us to get you in?”
Helbin folded the cape’s edges back and stood revealed again. “It’s not a cloak of invisibility. Such garments are written of, but they’re fiendishly hard to come across. This is a lesser artifact, a Mockingbird Cloak. It mimics the colors around it, hiding the wearer. It works fine as long as you stand still, but movement, especially against a changing background, renders its mimicry useless.”
“Come along,” Zala told him. “If I can pass as a mother, you can be a father.” The queen of Hylo chuckled, but Helbin looked appalled.
Zala hung her head and slowed her footsteps. She didn’t have to feign weariness. Pushing the barrow in the smothering heat was exhausting, and the sweat was streaming down her face.
A score of paces ahead, the soldiers heard the barrow’s squeaking approach. Their desultory talk died. By the time the newcomers entered the torchlight, the guards were standing ready, swords in hand. Their vigilance made Zala sweat even more.
“Kind of late for travelin’,” said a sergeant with brass chevrons on his helmet. “What’s in the wheelbarrow?”
“Only my darling Cassie.”
Warily, the sergeant parted the blankets. The queen of Hylo pretended to be asleep, sucking her thumb and clutching the cloth doll close to her cheek.
The soldier’s eyebrows shot up, and he recoiled as if slapped.
“Sweet Mishas! That’s your child?”
“Spitting image of her father, she is,” Zala said, turning a glowing smile upon Helbin. The wizard shuffled his feet and looked at his toes. Fortunately, beneath his cloak he wore plain attire and not the robe of his Order.
The sergeant motioned a corporal over. This second soldier bent to see Zala’s passenger and guffawed.
“Someone shaved a gnome!”
Indignant, Zala presented her glean. “This night air isn’t good for Cassie. I must get her home.”
Shaking his head over the young mother’s homely offspring, the sergeant noted their entry in his log.
“You can go, once I search the wheelbarrow,” he said, handing the log to another soldier.
Zala’s breath caught. “Search? For what?”
“Contraband. Folks try to smuggle goods into the city every day, to avoid paying the merchants’ tax.”
Zala’s terror did not show on her face, but her mind was racing. If the soldier found the swords hidden in the
