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.
Dealing with the Enemy
17
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 Blцde into a swamp. She drowned Blцdehelm 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.
The Akkad-Ur was not one to waste time. He assessed the prisoners for a moment then gestured to his trackers to come close. After he received their report, he rose to his feet and walked slowly around the two spies. “You, or others like you, have been following us for days. Why?”
As he guessed, the man answered. Garbed in rough brown robes and leather pants, the man was short in stature, narrow-faced, and brought to mind the image of a weasel. “We were merely curious, my lord. The sight of such a magnificent army has not been seen on these Plains in generations.”
“True,” agreed the Tarmak. “But I know you better than you think. You are thieves. Brigands. Probably part of a larger gang of robbers, murderers, and sneaks. And I do not-” he moved swiftly in front of the kneeling man, slid a long, slim dagger smoothly out of its sheath, and rammed it into the man’s left eye, killing him instantly. “Tolerate sneaks,” he finished while the robber’s body sagged to the floor. He turned to the bozak. “Which are you?”
Without blinking an eye, the bozak replied, “The murderer.”
“Good.” The Akkad-Ur wiped the dagger blade on the dead man’s chest and slid the weapon back out of sight. “Perhaps we understand each other. I have heard the bozaks fight their battles with more than bloodlust.”
The draconian eyed him without reply. The Akkad-Ur returned to his chair and sat down.
“In the event you have not heard the news out here, the dragonlords Iyesta and Thunder are dead.” A widening of the draconian’s already bulging eyes was answer enough. “This realm is ours. We have taken Missing City and driven the dragon’s forces from the region.”
The bozak jerked his head. “We saw their trail,” he growled.
“Their complete destruction is a matter of time. However, if you and your fellow brigands do not wish to join them, I have an offer.” He picked up a leather bag from among the things on his worktable and tossed it to the bozak. It fell on the floor at his feet with a satisfying clink. “We are marching on Duntollik. With that realm in our grasp, the rest of the Plains will fall like overripe fruit. If you wish to participate in this glorious victory, we would welcome any news your trackers and scouts find interesting-any stray soldier you happen to capture, perhaps information on Duntollik’s tribes, the landmarks, or its leaders. Also if your people wish to join us in battle, we would reward you well.”