Gerard nodded and clapped his deputy on the shoulder. 'You have your instructions,' he said, still speaking in a firm but gentle tone. 'I'll meet you here this afternoon.'
Vercleese put a foot back into his horse's stirrup, then hesitated, looking imploringly at Gerard.
'Don't worry. I'll be all right,' Gerard said.
Vercleese hoisted himself into the saddle again and rode off slowly, muttering to himself and not looking back. With a grim smile, Gerard watched his loyal deputy go. Then he shuddered at finding himself alone in Darken Wood, feeling much less brave than he had tried to act a moment before. With a resolute breath, he started off on foot in the direction Vercleese had indicated.
The land climbed, becoming rocky and hilly. Underbrush snagged at his clothes and tore at his skin. Gnats and mosquitoes whined around him, sometimes half blinding him in thick clouds. He bled from a dozen tiny marks, a combination of mosquito bites and thorn-bush scratches. Sweat poured off him. And still the hair-raising presence of magic caused shivers to run up and down his flesh.
He came at last to the top of a bluff, where he stood on a rock outcrop looking out over a clearing some distance beyond. In the midst of the clearing stood the fortress Baron Samuval was erecting in the clearing. The nearly completed wooden stockade was made of thick poles set into the earth, their sharpened ends pointing to the sky. In the open field surrounding the wooden fortress, soldiers and dark knights drilled, churning to dust a ground long dried from the rains. Gerard counted half a dozen dark knights and maybe three times that number of men at arms. The latter made for a motley army, consisting mostly of rough-looking humans, but also a sprinkling of draconians, goblins, ogres, dwarves, and even one or two renegade elves. But what the force lacked in the niceties of appearance, they more than made up for in martial skills, for Gerard noted with professional approval (and personal distaste) the precision and confidence with which they handled themselves. This would be a formidable force for any enemy to face.
That meant that Kirrit Bitterleaf's elves must amount to an equally impressive force if they were resisting Samuval's occupation of their realm; otherwise Samuval wouldn't be wasting the resources to erect this fortress and station so many of his soldiers here on the Qualinesti border.
Gerard took a white scarf from where he had looped it over his belt and proceeded down the bluff, waving the scarf overhead. Within moments, the gate of the fortress had boomed open and a squad of soldiers hurried out, marching straight toward Gerard. He stopped and waited, doing his best to look unconcerned as the half dozen heavily armed, burly soldiers clustered around him. He nodded to them as if there were nothing unusual about their meeting, striving to conceal the loathing he had for these men who occupied the elven realm.
The leader of the squad gave him a fierce once-over, looking as though all he really preferred to do was to kick Gerard halfway to Qualinost. Instead, he cleared his throat, looked to his companions for support, then formally addressed Gerard. 'My lord Baron Samuval sends his greetings and requests your presence with him in the compound,' he said in a gravelly voice that nevertheless managed to sound almost sissified delivering so composed a message.
A couple of the soldiers snickered, but the leader shot them a glare that quickly brought silence.
'That means you're to come with us,' the leader added in a more menacing tone, drawing closer, in case Gerard had failed to comprehend that he was now a de facto prisoner.
'As you wish.' Before Gerard could start toward the fortress again, however, the leader of the soldiers grabbed the belt that held Gerard's dagger and unbuckled it.
'You won't be needing this,' the leader snarled, tucking dagger and belt under his arm.
Gerard shrugged indifferently and made his way quickly down the bluff, leaving the soldiers falling all over themselves in an effort to catch up and flank him as a proper military escort. Gerard whistled unconcernedly, all the while studying the fortress as he drew nearer. Kirrit Bitterleaf had his work cut out for him if he intended to go up against this kind of defense. But of course the wily elf wouldn't make a direct attack; he would harass Samuval's supply lines and whittle away at patrols that dared to venture beyond the fortress's protection.
At the gate, Gerard had to wait a few minutes to be admitted, giving his captors time to catch up. They huffed and sweated, being burdened with armor, and before the gate opened, the leader approached Gerard with a dirty, folded scarf. Gerard cocked an eyebrow. 'What's this for?'
'Baron's orders,' the leader snapped. Gerard allowed the scarf to be wrapped around his eyes and tied securely behind his head, all the while wondering why Samuval felt the need for it. Was Samuval concerned Gerard would learn the exact number of soldiers quartered at the fortress and communicate that intelligence to Kirrit Bitterleaf? Had Sheriff Joyner been received on his visits here with similar distrust?
Once the blindfold was in place, Gerard heard the gate creak open, admitting the noise of construction, for inside carpenters were hammering, sawing, hewing, and planing, trying to complete the fortress. The cacophony was reminiscent of the temple construction, Gerard reflected wryly. And, just as at the temple grounds, the air here was redolent with the tang of freshly cut wood. But here too was the noise of soldiers marching in cadence with heavy, booted feet, of officers barking out orders, and of smiths pounding metal in their forges.
One of the soldiers prodded Gerard sharply in the back, propelling him into the midst of the din. He stumbled along, shoved periodically to indicate where he should go. He tried to sort out the sources of sounds, but it was an impossible task. There was too much to take in. Besides, his purpose here, he reminded himself, wasn't to learn the number and disposition of Samuval's forces; it was to learn all he could that might help him solve Sheriff Joyner's murder. Much as Gerard would have liked to lead a troop of knights in here and clear out the riffraff, that wasn't the sheriff's obligation. His job now was to parley with the man he detested.
Abruptly, a rough hand on Gerard's chest brought him to a halt, and he heard a door open. One of the guards announced him and pushed him inside. The door closed and the blindfold was whipped away from his eyes. A quick glance around revealed a crude but efficient wooden room that apparently served as Samuval's headquarters. There were windows on two of the walls, with closed curtains leaving the room gloomy despite the hour of the day. The noise from outside could still be dimly heard through the thick wooden walls. A couple of candles flickered on a large worktable, on which a rolled map had been spread. A middle-aged man of medium height with the powerful arras of an archer was bent over the map. He paused, ran his hand through his short salt-and-pepper hair, then rolled up the map and turned at last to Gerard. A ripple of recognition washed over his initial expression of cool composure. 'So it
Gerard gave a mock half-bow. 'At your service,
'They told me it was you. But what is a Knight of Neraka doing as sheriff of Solace?'
'I am a former knight, but of Solamnia, I hasten to emphasize, not Neraka,' Gerard explained.
'But when I saw you once before, in the siege outside Solanthus, you wore the armor of Neraka. And you had a prisoner, a young woman who was a Knight of Solamnia.'
'So I did, and that armor enabled me and my 'prisoner' to escape.'
'So you were a spy,' Samuval said, his lip curling in a sneer. 'Yes.'
'Well, now I have you again. But this time, no disguises.'
Gerard nodded. 'No disguises.' Samuval laughed. 'Well, that war is over. Now we must come to terms with the present.' He accepted Gerard's dagger from the leader of the squad that had brought him in, then made a gesture to an aide who had been standing at mute attention at the back of the room. The aide approached Gerard and patted him down thoroughly, finding and confiscating a couple of other knives he had strapped to his arm and shin. The aide tossed the weapons onto the table.
'Fools!' Samuval hissed to the soldiers who had brought Gerard in. 'Didn't you check him for hidden weapons first?' The leader of the squad cringed. 'I'll deal with you later,' Samuval said angrily and dismissed the soldiers with a sharp gesture. The soldiers spilled from the room in rapid disorder, so anxious were they to escape their leader's wrath.
Samuval sighed, waving to one of the crude wooden camp stools around the table. 'Sit,' he told Gerard. 'Let's have tea together and discuss whatever you came here for like the two gentlemen we are.'
Gerard refrained from saying what he thought of the outlaw leader's claim to gentility.
'And while we are enjoying our tea,' Samuval went on, 'perhaps like your predecessor you will join me in a game of Regal. We are, after all, two civilized people.' He shot Gerard a glance as if struck by sudden doubt. 'You do play Regal, don't you? I mean, you are civilized?'
'I play a fair game,' Gerard acknowledged, sitting. 'I was the Southern Ergoth champion in my age category for a time,' he added, noting Samuval's amused reaction.
