The half-giant barely maintained his footing but recovered quickly, and the two combatants circled as the battle raged around them. Each held his long weapon with the deadly tip aimed at his opponent’s chest. Pacing sideways, Ankhar looked for an opening, while the knight rested in his saddle as if he were a part of the horse. His shield firmly held over his chest, the knight peered over the top of the metal barrier, keenly studying the half-giant’s maneuvers.
Ankhar lunged, and the steed skipped sideways. Then it reared suddenly, flailing with its great hooves. When the half-giant charged, the horse veered again and the rider jabbed quickly with the lance. Once again, Ankhar parried with the Shaft of Hiddukel.
With a sharp kick in his horse’s flanks, the knight suddenly attacked. The massive horse bared teeth like some kind of nightmare steed and rushed at Ankhar, intent on trampling him. The half-giant crouched, aiming his spear at the horse’s breast, but the man again used his lance to knock the great weapon, the Shaft of Hiddukel, out of the way. Ankhar tumbled into the dirt, rolling away from the charge, barely holding onto his precious spear.
Springing to his feet with a growl, he sprinted after the horse as the steed pivoted and reared, those massive forehooves lashing at the half-giant’s face. He felt a glancing blow on his cheek and staggered back. Surprise gave way to rage, and he bored in, driving between the flailing hooves, sticking the spear right through the horse’s muscular chest. The mount reared back with an earsplitting shriek, toppling onto its side, fatally wounded.
The knight tried to leap from the saddle as his horse went down, but his foot stuck in the stirrup. With a strangled curse, the man sprawled on the ground, his leg trapped under the thrashing, dying horse. Ankhar yanked on his mighty spear, but the Shaft of Hiddukel was stuck fast. Releasing the weapon, the half-giant hurled himself on the knight, bashing the lance out of the way, smashing a huge fist into the shield so hard that the man gasped and lay momentarily stunned. With one massive hand, Ankhar seized the stunned warrior by the neck and squeezed until he heard the snap of bone.
Pushing himself to his feet, the half-giant took hold of his weapon with both hands. He put a massive, booted foot on the dying horse’s chest and pulled with all his vast strength. At last the weapon, the emerald head glowing all the brighter for its soaking in blood, burst free. Raising it over his head, Ankhar shook the weapon at the sky, howling like a maniac to celebrate his personal victory.
Before him he saw a knot of fighting around the gate at the northern end of the great camp. Some of the sivaks had landed there, where they were fighting furiously, holding the passageway against knights who were trying to reach the horses. Quickly the half-giant rallied a hundred ogres and charged toward the draconians. Beyond the corrals, he saw a deluge of sparks and flames, sputtering lightning, and dramatic pyrotechnics. Guilder Aurak was there, casting spectacular-if relatively harmless-spells. The effect on the horses was the important thing, as more than a thousand of the normally steady mounts panicked and stampeded away from the battle, away from the camp, and away from the knights who depended on them for mobility and survival.
When next he looked around, Ankhar saw that the last pockets of defense were being mopped up. Some ogres plundered the extensive food supplies piled behind the kitchen tents while others were hoisting grotesque trophies, including the severed heads of their enemies, and dancing about in triumph and glee.
“Enough!” roared the half-giant in a voice that rumbled even over the celebratory chaos. “We feast later. Remember those forts! Now is the time to go back… and to kill them all!”
With howls of anticipation, the ogres responded to his command. Ankhar himself would remain in the conquered camp-he made sure that a message was conveyed to Pond-Lily and Laka, inviting them to join him in his luxurious surroundings-while thousands of ogres spread across the plains, intent on wiping out the border outposts to the last man.
The half-giant chuckled, a sound of genuine happiness that had not erupted from his chest in several years. It was good to have an army again, good to march, to fight.
And it was good to kill Knights of Solamnia.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Lord Regent Bakkard du Chagne watched the city of Palanthas from the serene height of his Golden Spire, the tallest tower on his palace. It was an ornate building, which he had ordered erected on the slopes of the mountains rising above the city and well outside the wall. It was nightfall, and the lights were twinkling throughout the great metropolis. Ships in harbor were draped with navigation lanterns, which winked in the placid waters of the bay. It was not hard for the lord regent to imagine he was looking down on a field of fireflies, insignificant creatures bustling around in the illusionary comfort of their own short-lived brightness.
He liked the feeling of superiority provided by his lofty vantage. From his palace, his tower, he had the sense he was looking down on the lesser beings of the world like a farmer might look down on the ants in his garden.
But there was a very potent ant in that garden.
Unlike the lord regent’s edifice, high outside the city walls, the palace built by the emperor was situated right in the middle of Palanthas, facing one corner of the great plaza. Du Chagne could see the emperor’s residence clearly from there, and-if the truth be told-he spent far too much of his time staring at that garish, ostentatious structure. He had worked hard to rein in the powers of the upstart ruler, but thus far he had been thwarted at every turn.
Du Chagne’s wealth, the magnificent cache that had brightened his world and shed its enchanted light across his city from the top of this very tower, was sadly depleted. The hoard had been claimed by the emperor and spent on public works such as the horrendously expensive widening of the road over the High Clerist’s Pass. The city was a seaport, by all the gods! A narrow, twisting road had served Palanthas throughout the centuries, providing all the land connection with the rest of the world that the city needed… or desired. Why was it necessary to widen and smooth that thoroughfare? Of course, increased trade had been the result, but the city’s greatest tariffs would always be collected at the docks. Didn’t Jaymes Markham understand that?
Even Bakkard du Chagne’s own daughter, who had been the regent’s most significant pawn in the power game of governance, had been co-opted by the usurping emperor. She represented great power to whoever claimed her and, for reasons du Chagne had never fully understood, she had given herself to Jaymes Markham.
Even in his aloof aerie, Bakkard du Chagne heard rumors and kept his finger on the pulse of the city and the empire’s government. He had heard the gossip that his daughter might be pregnant and that she was no longer entirely happy with the choice she had made. There were still ways, perhaps, that the lord regent could put his powerful pawn back into play. He had already sent out a valuable agent, preparing a contingency, hoping to retrieve the Princess of the Plains.
There were other biting ants in the city as well. During his term as ruler of that place, the lord regent had been awarded the loyalty of the Solamnic Knights, as was his due as their lawful lord. But there always had been knights, a secret legion of them, who had resisted his will, had worked to hinder him at every turn. Those knights still existed, and though they were not the emperor’s tools, they stood in the way of the lord regent’s resurgence.
He had a plan for them as well.
He did not hear the newcomer enter this room-he felt more of a chill, like a metal gate closed across the door to a stove-but neither was he surprised to welcome that particular visitor. Du Chagne turned to notice the Nightmaster was standing quietly, well away from the windows, waiting to be noticed.