“Go ahead, put it back on,” she instructed. “You will be able to use it to teleport four times-you must picture the place you wish to go. Turn the ring twice around your finger, and it will take you there.”
A shiver ran down his back as Jaymes slipped it over his finger. The warmth it emanated felt pleasant, comforting.
“Do you know the mountain road south out of Solanthus?” she asked him.
“Yes. I know it well from my goblin-hunting days. Dram and I just traveled that way to meet with Cornellus.”
“Good.” Coryn handed him a small leather bag. “Here,” she said, answering his raised eyebrows, “this is a magic bag. In case,” she added with her sly half-smile, “you find yourself with a few more treasures than you can easily carry in your pockets.”
He nodded. “It should come in handy,” he said.
By now Dram had awakened, and the two gnomes were also stirring. Jaymes filled them in. “You should make for the Vingaard Mountains with all haste,” he said. “I will catch up as soon as I can. Tell Swig Frostmead I’ll be bringing his money.”
After a hasty goodbye, the White Witch wrapped them both in the cocoon of her magic, and they were gone.
The wagon rumbled along the narrow mountain way, skirting the steep foothills of the Garnet Range. The Duke of Solanthus and his driver clung to the rails and the reins, trying to stay perched on the jolting seat. A column of a dozen Knights of the Crown clattered along ahead of the four sturdy workhorses pulling the wagon, while a similar detachment followed close behind.
The road was dangerous. To their right, the slope spilled down to a cliff, which hung over a dry ravine some two or three hundred feet below. To the left, the land rose sharply.
They had departed through a little-used gate in the very south of the city walls, far from the main roads connecting Solanthus to the rest of Solamnia. Fortunately, there were no goblins near this route. Leaving before dawn, they had been able to travel high into the mountains before the sun rose. Behind them now they could see the ogre army sprawled across the plains like locusts, a dark smudge extending for miles in three directions around the walled city dominated by the stark landmark of the Cleft Spires.
Duke Rathskell glanced over his shoulder, not at his besieged city but at the four strongboxes lashed into the wagon’s cargo bed. They were all filled with jewels. Probably enough jewels to ransom his city, he reflected sourly, but they were bound elsewhere.
“My lord duke!”
Rathskell saw one of the men from his trailing escort galloping forward, waving for his attention. He kept his grip on the side rail, gritting his teeth at every wrenching bounce, waiting for the man to catch up to the rumbling wagon.
“What is it?” snapped the duke, even as the driver, at his orders, kept urging the team of horses onward.
“Goblins, my lord,” said the knight. “A large number have moved onto the road behind us. They seem bent on giving chase.”
“How many of them?” he asked.
“A detachment. A good-sized group, to be sure-maybe a thousand of the bastards. We didn’t spot them at first, and now they are but a few miles behind us.”
Rathskell cursed. “Are any of them mounted?” he demanded.
“No, sir. The party appears to be on foot.”
“Good. We should be able to outrun the wretches. Now go back to your post, and keep an eye on them! Let me know if you see any sign of worg-riders or if they appear to be closing the gap.”
“Aye, lord!” The knight snapped off a salute and turned to ride away. Rathskell was still watching him when he was stunned by the loudest explosion he had ever heard. Dust and smoke rmixed with gouts of fire billowed across the road behind the wagon. The duke watched in disbelief as the man and horse, propelled by the blast, went soaring into space and tumbled toward the base of the rocky precipice along which the road skirted.
The team of horses bucked and surged ahead in sudden panic, lurching the heavy vehicle forward over the bumpy road-until, moments later, a second blast obliterated a great section of that roadway, right in the path of the advancing wagon. The lead horse fell, part of its head torn away by the explosion, while another steed shrieked piteously and went down with a broken leg.
“What’s happening?” demanded Rathskell, panic setting in as he stood up and drew his sword. The driver didn’t answer. Instead, he clasped both hands to his bleeding forehead where a shard of rock had smashed him, then slumped, unconscious, in his seat.
The wagon was trapped, the duke could see-two sections had been blown out of the cliff-side road, blocking passage forward and back. The two blasts had neatly separated the duke from his escort of knights. Some of those men had recovered their senses but were forced to rein in at the edges of the gaps. There was no way for the mounted men to reach their lord.
“Are you all right, Excellency?” called one captain, astride an agitated horse at the edge of the forward gap. “Are you hurt?”
Rathskell shook his head, still trying to grasp what had happened. Was it magic that had torn the very roadway off of the mountain? He didn’t think so-not from the ogres.
“Stay there, lord! We’ll try to reach you!” cried the captain, the leader of the detachment at the front of the column.
One brave rider volunteered. The knight urged his horse into a gallop and tried to leap the still-smoking breach in the road. The distance was too great, and both horse and rider tumbled over and bounced down the cliff, finally settling in gruesomely distorted poses among the broken rocks below. Wincing, the duke looked away toward the rear. He saw the knights there taking a defensive posture down the road, dismounting, drawing weapons. Several of the men were hauling fallen timbers out of the woods, making an impromptu breastwork. With a sickening sense of apprehension, the duke remembered the goblins-“maybe a thousand of the bastards”-coming at them hard and fast from that direction.
Only then did Duke Rathskell notice a lone swordsman step into sight, on the island of road with the duke and his trapped wagon. The man’s weapon, a mighty blade, was gripped in both his hands, as he approached the disabled wagon.
He wore a cape, and his whiskered face was devoid of any emotion. But his eyes were dark, and smoldered with contempt.
“I know you. You are the Assassin!” spat the duke, as Giantsmiter blazed even brighter than the sun on that bright mountainside. The duke whipped out his own slender rapier and jumped down to the road.
“I’ve been called that,” Jaymes said, “but I’m no assassin, and I didn’t kill Lorimar. You, of all people, should know that.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” demanded Rathskell. “You killed him, and you slew his bitch of a daughter, too!”
Jaymes lunged at the duke, nearly gutting him. The nobleman, though taken by surprise, fell back. The knights on both sides of the gap in the road shouted curses and warnings.
“Be careful how you talk about the Lady Dara,” Jaymes hissed. “You don’t want to have too many lies on your lips when you go to meet the gods.”
A master swordsman, the Duke of Solanthus was grim now and circled warily. Jaymes brought Giantsmiter over his head in a whistling smash, then swiftly chopped from the right and the left, advancing remorselessly against his foe. The smaller man leaped back, using the edge of the wagon as a shield, stepping around the two restless horses remaining from his team.
Rathskell charged into Jaymes’s attack with parries and thrusts, forcing the taller man away from the wagon, backing him to the edge of the precipice. The warrior stopped at the edge, driving his own blade with powerful overhand blows, again and again knocking aside the duke’s slender weapon.
Changing tactics, Rathskell scrambled up into the bed of his wagon, swinging wildly down at Jaymes’s head until the warrior jumped up next to him, forcing him back. For several moments they slashed and cut at each other, both standing in the wagon, their blows whistling over the four strongboxes resting there. Finally, Jaymes made a rush, and the duke half jumped, half fell off the wagon, again retreating to the edge of the slope.