“Perhaps,” she said. “What did you have in mind?”
Hale whistled loudly, and one of his serving maids hustled over to the table. Like all of the inn’s maids, the young woman wore a gown that dipped very low in the front and was braced with a knee-length skirt. She curtsied to her master.
“Bring the gracious lady a Red Lotus,” Hale said in his soft but curiously seductive voice. He turned back to Selinda. “It is another concoction that comes out of the east. I believe you will find it very pleasing.”
And indeed, Selinda did. The drink was tart, with a hint of some kind of berry that covered up stronger, unusual tastes. It felt soft yet prickly on her tongue, and when she sipped it, she found the sensation strikingly pleasurable. Before she knew it, her glass was empty, and Hale was motioning for another…
And another after that. It seemed the drink was focusing her thoughts, heightening her awareness, and she found herself laughing very loud at something-she couldn’t say what it was. The lights were suddenly very bright then seemed to fade almost to black. They flared up again with a sudden, wavering brilliance that she found absolutely hilarious. She wondered at the fact that no one else seemed to take notice of the distortion, but she didn’t wonder very much as the music started up again.
A fiddle player had joined the man with the exotic flute, and they picked up the tempo into a lively jig. Suddenly Selinda was up and dancing, and everyone was clapping in time to the music, cheering her on, and it was simply the most wonderful, exhilarating experience in all of her life. Laughing, she encouraged the musicians to play an extra song, and was terribly disappointed when, a long time later, they pleaded the need for rest.
She felt a little unsteady on her feet as she made her way back to the table, where the proprietor still sat, beaming happily at her. He was such a nice man!
“Perhaps the mistress would come with me now?” said Hale.
A glimmer of alarm tried to find its way through her fuzzy brain. But all she could think of were Hale’s eyes, so dark and mysterious and utterly, completely compelling. “Very well,” she said, realizing that she had to speak very slowly to make herself understood. “But where are we going?”
“This way,” he whispered, pointing to a dark hallway at the back of the inn.
“Why?” she tried to ask. It seemed like a very long way away, but she was terribly curious. Slowly, she pushed herself to her feet, surprised at how strong his hand was as he helped her up.
“Don’t worry, and don’t wonder,” he said softly. “I promise you that it will be a magnificent surprise.”
“The knights have an army in front of the city of Cleft Spires, and another army marches this way, across the plains,” reported Rib Chewer. “Many horses in the north. With knights. And long spears.”
Ankhar nodded. He was not surprised by any of the reports, and he knew better than to ask the rather stupid goblin for precise calculations. The City of Cleft Spires, he knew, was Solanthus, thusly called because of the twin blocks of stone that loomed high above the center of the place. He knew the city was cherished by the knights and that they would move to protect it from any threat.
But he had already made a different plan, and the scout’s reports only reinforced the course of action he had chosen. Solanthus lay over the horizon, only about twenty miles away, west and a little north of his position. The Garnet range loomed directly to the west, with the tops of the peaks concealed behind a mass of dark clouds that promised heavy rains, possibly even snows, in the high country. Ankhar smiled at the thought.
He gathered his captains, as well as his stepmother, for a conference. The ogres were restive and grumpy, having marched farther and faster in the past fortnight than at any previous time in their lives. Still, they looked at him respectfully, and Ankhar took heart from the fact that they were still prepared to follow him.
“Up there!” he said, pointing into the mountains. “Knights are all before us, on plain, in city, north of city. But they are not up there.”
“We find treasure and booty in the mountains?” asked Bullhorn skeptically. “Or just cold and snow and hard rocks for beds?”
“We will not stay in the mountains,” Ankhar said. “We just go through them, and come out the other side. The knights look for us over here-and we are over there!”
He gestured in triumph to the lofty ridge, hoping that his plan was sinking in.
“Over there!” cried Laka, cackling shrilly. “Across the mountains-there we find treasures, and slaves, and war.”
For a moment the ogres looked skeptical. Finally, General Bloodgutter roared out a challenge. “We march! Who is afraid of the mountains?”
Bullhorn raised his face toward the heights, and bellowed his own challenge. “Mountains will not stop me! Go over mountains! Make war!”
“Over mountains! Make war!” The chant was soon picked up by the rest of Ankhar’s captains. A few moments later, the great horde turned from the flat plains into a valley that, Ankhar knew, would take them all the way to the summit of the range, and still remain north of the vexing mountain dwarf realm of Kayolin.
On the other side of the crest, he knew of a wide river valley that would lead them down to the plains. No one lived in that valley; he knew because he had marched through there only a few years before. No one was there to stop his plan.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Hoarst returned to the Black Army with a small keg in his bag of holding. It contained perhaps two gallons of precious liquid-very precious in so many ways, he thought a little wistfully. Would he ever find another concubine quite like Sirene? He doubted he would. But like a passing breeze-or a teleporting wizard-that regret vanished when he beheld the neat rows of tents, arrayed at the southern end of the hidden valley in the Vingaard range.
It was time to get to work.
The companies of Blackgaard’s force, ten units of three hundred men each, had moved there. They would travel light, leaving their tents and baggage behind, because, after all, soon they would all be sleeping comfortably in the High Clerist’s Tower.
Hoarst found Blackgaard sharpening his sword in the predawn mists. The Gray Robe was interested to note the commander did that mundane chore himself, but he made no mention of it.
“The bridge was finished just yesterday,” the captain reported to his mage. “Your timing is impeccable.”
“Good.” Hoarst patted the bag of holding. “I have the means of attack right here. It all went as planned.”
The bulk of the keg had vanished within the magical confines of the container, but Blackgaard understood his companion’s gesture. “Excellent,” he replied. “It’s time to move out.”
The columns of companies quickly fell into line and started up the steep road, switching back and forth to ascend the sheer wall that was the valley’s southern barrier. Their goal was only fifteen miles away, and Blackgaard intended to have them in position by nightfall, so they could have some rest before making the attack after moonset, in the darkest hour just before dawn.
The Black Army marched with the ease of a veteran formation. The soldiers were mercenaries, true, instead of men who fought for colors, state, or oath, but they were the finest, toughest mercenaries in the world. They took pride in their reputation. No untoward click of metal against metal, no cursing or grumbling or even careless stumble would mar their advance.
Within an hour the leading company reached the crest of the ridge bordering the valley and led the column out of the sheltered vale and into the windswept wilderness of the high Vingaard range. As if crossing a line of demarcation, they left the fields, pastures, and groves of their own settlement behind and entered a realm of stark gray stone, white glaciers, deep chasms, and lofty peaks. There were no trees there and few stretches of level ground.