The thought of the spies brought another unpleasant thought to mind: The spy in their own midst. Where was he or she now? Had this person been killed in the Wadi? Or left behind in the slave pens? Or worse, were they taking the spy with them into the Plains?
She patted her horse’s neck and set the thought aside for now. They all would have to be vigilant in the days ahead. But for now, there was a long ride through the night and into the next day to look forward to. They had to put some distance between themselves and the Tarmaks.
With a whistle to Varia, she urged her horse into the line of riders and soon disappeared into the night and mist.
Under the assumption that the militia leaders would have learned a lesson, the Tarmaks did not attack the oasis of Sinking Wells in the cover of darkness. They kept their distance and waited until dawn. Instead of slinking in to kill the sentries and attack the soldiers in their beds, the ekwul charged the camp in a yelling, intimidating horde, swinging their swords and clashing their shields.
All they found were empty tents, dead fires, and a few graves.
Annoyed, the ekwegul sent a runner to the Akkad-Ur, who told him to wait.
A wind from the desert blew in and tore away the curtain of sea fog. The clouds shredded and faded away to reveal a sky of cerulean blue. The sun warmed the earth and dried the grass. Sheep drifted out of their shelters and onto the hills, looking like bits of cloud left behind.
Three hours after sunrise the Tarmak warriors at the oasis heard the distant sound of horns. Excitedly they grouped on the top of a nearby slope and watched with pride as the army of their emperor marched along the trail from Missing City. In the vanguard rode the scouts and a unit of chariots pulled by the large, stocky Damjatt horses. Behind them came the Akkad-Ur’s personal retainers, accompanying the bronze dragon, who stalked silently among them. Then marched the foot soldiers in rank after rank of blue skins and shining weapons. To the rear rolled the chariots followed by the baggage wagons pulled by massive oxen and the mob of slaves pressed into duty as laborers and pack carriers. In their midst trudged the Knights of Solamnia and the two members of the Legion of Steel.
The watching hundred cheered their companions heartily and jogged down the hill to join them. Battles lay ahead and a land to conquer—without the taskmasters of Neraka looking over their shoulders. This is what they had trained for and what the emperor had sent them to do. Thunder rolled under their feet, and their voices lifted in song. Swinging steadily in a ground-eating jog, the Tarmaks moved into the heart of Iyesta’s realm.
17
Dealing with the Enemy
Before the arrival of the great dragon overlords, the eastern half of the Plains of Dust had been a barren, arid land of sweeping hills open to a vast sky where nomadic tribes followed the seasons north and south. Little had grown on the red lands but tough grasses, indomitable shrubs, and cold-hardy cacti. As far east as the skirts of the sweeping Silvanesti Forest, the dry lands spread and supported little more than snakes, goats, sheep, and a few hardy species of antelope.
Then came Sable, the black dragon, who used her powers of geomancy to transform great stretches offer-tile land between the Plains of Dust and Blöde into a swamp. She drowned Blödehelm and New Coast and extended her dismal realm into the New Sea. Huge tracts of land disappeared under stagnant water, twisted trees, moss, and slime.
While this tragedy affected millions of acres and displaced thousands of humans, ogres, and centaurs, it held one small blessing for the Plains of Dust. That much water to the northeast of the Plains, combined with several other minor climactic changes, altered the climate of the eastern plains from cold and arid to temperate and semiarid, changing the barren wastelands on the eastern fringes of Iyesta’s realm to savannas and grasslands. The winters north of Missing City grew more tolerable and the warmth of the summers lasted longer. Trees thrived along the riverbanks, old creek beds, and in the depressions of scattered oases. Grass grew in abundance and with it, the herds of wild animals and domesticated stock flourished. Flocks of birds returned to the fields and rivers. Wildflowers bloomed where none had grown before.
Many of the plains tribes, attracted by the more abundant grass and water, drifted eastward out of the desert into Iyesta’s realm and flourished in the comparative safety of her peace. Other peoples came too—clans of centaurs, families of humans, traders, explorers, and some others not so desirable.
Although Iyesta and her companion dragons had worked hard to keep the violent element out of her realm, they could not watch every hiding place, every path, every patch of woods. Small bands of brigands or draconians or sometimes both together roamed the edges and byways of the Plains, especially on the northeast borders where Sable’s foul swamp offered many places to hide. Like wild dogs they would slink out at night and attack small groups of travelers, isolated farms, or unarmed caravans. Since Iyesta’s disappearance and the troubles with the Dark Knights to the east, the bands had grown bolder, and several had joined to together to form larger and more dangerous groups. They roved out, looking for loot and weapons and women, and they rarely took prisoners.
The Tarmak army, however, made them think twice.
Four days after leaving Missing City, the Tarmak scouts lost the trail of the fleeing militia in an area of rough, eroded badlands. In a single night the band seemed to have split apart and melted away into the grass.
The Akkad-Ur looked at the region, at the exposed rock, the crumbling, twisted hills, and the intricate sculpturing of the weathered stone and released his scouts from blame. He doubted even a pack of hounds could have tracked the refugees out of that place. Instead of uselessly venting his anger over the escape of the militia, he looked for other means of tracking Falaius’s forces, and very quickly he found one.
Each day the scouts had reported seeing riders or sometimes individuals watching the advancing army from afar. These observers would sit on a distant hill and watch or track the army for miles before fading out of sight. If a Tarmak tried to approach, the watchers vanished. For three days these spies followed the army, until the Akkad-Ur decided it was time to find out who they were. He gave orders to his best trackers, and they, wanting to make amends for their failure in the badlands, obeyed with a vengeance. The Akkad-Ur curbed his impatience and sat back to await results.
By late evening the trackers returned with a human and a draconian.
The first indication the Akkad-Ur had of their arrival was a loud, vicious snarl from Crucible, who was chained near his tent. As soon as they entered the shelter, the Akkad-Ur understood why. There were few draconians on the Plains, thanks to Iyesta’s efforts, and of the races native to Ansalon, he hadn’t anticipated seeing this one.
The man, upon seeing the statuesque Tarmak painted and masked and seated in his black chair, fell promptly to his knees and bowed low. The draconian merely grunted a greeting of sorts.
“How appropriate,” said the Akkad-Ur in smooth tones. “A bozak.”
The bozaks were the draconians created from the bronze dragon eggs. They were not the brightest, toughest, strongest, or most magical of the five races, but they were good at all of those together and possessed their own form of paranoid intelligence. This particular one stood about six feet tall—shorter than the Tarmaks—and had dirty bronze scales, long leathery wings, and a long muzzled face. Although his weapons had been taken away from him, bits of armor were still tied to his arms and broad chest, and his hands had not been bound. He glowered at the general with bulbous, black eyes.