The burly guard’s expression darkened and his beard bristled as he thrust out his jaw. “You’ll not be staying on my good side, lad, with talk like that.”
“Imagine my dismay,” Amric replied. “Now run along.”
The guard’s hand tightened on the sword hilt at his hip, but his eyes roved over the warriors as if seeing them for the first time, taking in their weaponry and their relaxed manner. His gaze lingered on Valkarr, who was regarding him as he would a struggling insect of no particular interest, and finally the guard relaxed his grip, drumming his fingers upon the pommel once before letting his hand fall to his side. “A signal from me,” he growled, “and those archers back there will feather you with arrows.”
Amric shook his head. “Not in time to save you, my friend. Now, as you pointed out, you and I have nothing left to discuss. Fetch your commander, and leave your friend here. Surely not every member of the city guard is so poor at making conversation.”
The barrel-chested guard glowered at his companion, and then at Amric. Muttering into his beard, he turned and stalked back toward the gate.
“Do not judge him too harshly,” said the hawk-faced guard as he watched the fellow’s retreating back. “He is a good man in a scrape, and everyone’s nerves are frayed at the moment. He is right that we do not have much time.”
“It is already forgotten,” Amric replied. “And I will not waste your commander’s time. Now, tell me all you know of the attack.”
By the time the lean, scar-faced guard had recounted the events of the previous night, a dozen soldiers on horseback were picking their way past the fortifications and riding out from the gate. The warriors shifted their mounts to facing the approaching contingent. The man in the lead, a powerfully built fellow whose irritation showed in the firm set of his square jaw, began shouting as he drew near.
“What in blazes is this idiocy? I do not have time for-”
Amric interrupted in a clear, carrying voice. “The spiked creatures are called varkhuls. They attack in swarms and cannot tolerate light, and though they have not the cunning to form strategies, they are tenacious and will flow like water around any obstacle. They can scale almost any surface and their talons secrete a mild venom that induces lethargy in their victims. You will need many more torches atop the city wall if you are going to prevent them from overrunning it. Flaming arrows in their midst will also sow chaos among them, sometimes even making them turn on one another in the confusion. Once established, varkhuls multiply like mad around any food source, and you have hordes of them infesting nearly every farmhouse and other shade-providing structure between here and the heart of the forest. The forest mines alone must contain thousands of them. You may be able to blunt the attacks at night by sending forces during the day to raze every structure and burn out every cave.”
The leader slowed his mount, his eyes narrowing as he fell silent, and his men slowed with him.
“The huge creatures that battered down your gates are known as shamblers,” Amric continued. “They seem to be primitive elementals driven somehow mad by the twisting of the land’s magic. They draw a coating of armor about themselves from nearby rock, dirt and vegetation. You must tear that shell apart and fracture it into pieces too small to operate on their own, to force the animating spirit to abandon it and flee. The serpent creatures are greels. They usually dwell deep underground in damp caverns, and no one knows what has driven them to the surface. Just as no one knows why these disparate creatures and many others, who bear no love for each other, are growing ever stronger in numbers and attacking human outposts in a blind rage.”
The commander drew his mount to a halt, and his men fanned out to form a line behind him.
Amric jerked his chin toward the eastern gate. “You have a good start on fortifications. You might consider soaking the spikes or sheathing them in iron so that the burning oil does not destroy them too quickly. Also, if you mount enough torches and spikes high along the archway wall and angle your rows of ground spikes more to funnel the varkhuls toward a center path, their own numbers will inhibit them and your archers can concentrate all their fire there. The same trick might work with torches projecting from the wall crenellations to direct the focus of the varkhuls, so that your men need not spread too thin up there.”
The commander stared at him. “Who are you?” he asked.
“I am Amric, a warmaster of the Sil’ath,” the warrior replied. “I and my party have just traversed the full length of the eastern road. When we left the city days ago, we saw scattered tracks around the abandoned farms. Today, I doubt you could enter any building out there without encountering them. They are moving in droves at night, spreading from the forest.”
The commander cleared his throat, and gave a solemn nod. “I am Captain Borric, commander of the Keldrin’s Landing city guard. You bear grim news, Amric, but I thank you for every scrap of it. At least we are forewarned.” He ran an appraising look over the warriors. “When the next attack comes, I could use every available sword in defending this city. If it is gold you are after, the wealthy here may prefer to finance their own private armies, but they are finding sudden cause to contribute more generously to funding the public defense.”
Amric laughed. “If the attack comes tonight, Captain, rest assured that we will join in the defense of the city. At the moment, however, I am after the first hot meal we have had in almost a week. And if I do not wash away all this grime soon, I may be mistaken for a shambler myself.”
Borric chuckled and waved him away. “Be on your way then, Amric, and fare you well.”
“You as well, Captain,” Amric said, wheeling his mount about. He and Valkarr rode back to the others as the sounds followed them of Borric shouting new orders to his men. The party wended its way around to the northern gate as the sun sank behind the eastern horizon.
The massive fortress of Stronghold leered down, as lifeless and empty as a grinning skull, upon the forest crowded around it. The setting sun was impaling itself upon the towering, primordial trees to the east, bathing one side of the mountain structure in deepest crimson even as the other side blackened into shadow. The place was silent, like dust settling in a crypt, and yet a distant, steady power still pulsed and thrummed somewhere far beneath its broken core.
In the sprawling courtyard within the innermost defensive wall, before the titanic main doors of the fortress, the evening air began to crackle. Light gathered there, a multitude of swirling motes drawing together to form a wavering, brilliant weal against the deepening gloom. The rift parted, torn open with a hiss, and the man in black robes stepped through. He cast a swift glance about, probing the long shadows thrown by constructs of pitted stone as the air hummed with the power gathered about him. He found nothing, and the tension eased from his tall form as he released some of that power. The rift closed behind him with a sizzling sigh, its luminance fading after it like a dying candle flame, and the man began to walk.
He had not really expected an ambush. Everything he had sensed thus far suggested a foe that was clumsy and inexperienced. Otherwise he would not have risked opening a Way directly here. It had been easy enough to orient upon the site of the event, given some time, and it was always liberating to be on a world where such travel was unknown and therefore not warded against. Tearing open a temporary Way was still a draining effort, however, and could leave one vulnerable to ready resistance on the other end. As he had surmised, there was nothing of the kind awaiting him. Still, a phenomenal amount of power had been employed here, more than enough to give him pause, and he had not survived so many years doing such dangerous work by being careless.
There were also, of course, the savage denizens of this world to consider. They should not pose too great a risk to one of his abilities, provided he employed reasonable cautions. As the Essence Gate in the ruins of Queln continued to operate, however, the magic of this world grew more and more unstable. The magical elements here, then, would swell in number and become increasingly maddened. They would do a marvelous job of keeping the more civilized occupants busy, but at the same time they would also make it more challenging for him to travel unmolested. All the more reason to complete this unpleasant business and be gone before it all began to crumble. This ripe world would descend into madness on its path to becoming a lifeless, desiccated husk, and he did not care to be present to witness any of it first-hand.