“You forget yourself, my old ally,” said the lord regent. “I know the truth about you, and for that knowledge I will demand respect and obedience!”
“Very well, my lord. I apologize.” Even as he spoke, the priest felt a tingle, his pleasure kindled by his companion’s anger. Ever it was with the minions of darkness: they thrived on conflict, violence, and fury.
Du Chagne sat, glowering, and the priest pulled out a chair and sat across the table from him. “As a matter of fact,” the black-masked man went on, “my visit should please you as well.”
The lord’s eyes narrowed, and he looked at his visitor shrewdly. “Oh?” he inquired noncommittally.
“You should know that all the pieces of our plan have been put into place. The time has come to act, and if we are decisive, the emperor’s reign may come to an end within the next few days.”
“What do you mean, exactly?” asked du Chagne.
“I mean the emperor is gone from the city. The High Clerist’s Pass is closed to him, so he will not return in any timely fashion. I have troops coming to the city and will see that they enter.”
“Troops? You mean Dark Knights?” asked the lord.
“Yes, in fact. But they will encounter no real resistance. The city garrison is not only toothless, but riddled with spies.”
“Do you forget the foe that vexed us through our previous reign? The Legion of Steel! They have agents everywhere, and as much as they hate the emperor, they will surely rise up against a coup of Dark Knights. Don’t underestimate the Legion of Steel!”
“Good news there, too, my lord. Of course I know the legion to be a formidable enemy. But now I have, after years of trying, figured out a way to neutralize them. An unwitting pawn has been placed in their midst. As soon as the Black Brigade reaches the city gates, you must be prepared to reclaim your seat as lord regent of Palanthas. And the new Solamnic nation will be no more.”
“Can you hold this place with only five hundred men?” Blackgaard asked Hoarst skeptically. The Thorn Knight and the captain stood in the Nest of the Kingfisher, the little parapet that jutted above the High Lookout at the pinnacle of the High Clerist’s Tower.
The troops of the Black Army were assembled in the many courtyards that surrounded the broad base of the great spire. But there were not as many soldiers as either man would have liked to see: the fanatical defense of the Solamnics had claimed the lives of more than a third of the army’s three thousand men.
The Thorn Knight shook his head. “I don’t think so. Do you?”
“No,” the mercenary captain replied. “We would be subject to the same kind of attack that we ourselves employed against the garrison. I should say we need more than a thousand swords to do an adequate job.”
“Which leaves less than eight hundred for the march on Palanthas,” Hoarst replied. “Rather too few, I think.”
“Damn those traps!” snapped Blackgaard. “Three hundred good men, burned alive! And how many more drowned, crushed, or mangled?”
Hoarst shrugged; the past was past. “Well, there is one way I could bring more troops here,” Hoarst said thoughtfully. “It would require an unusually powerful spell, but I believe I could make it happen.”
“You could?” the captain asked hopefully. “How? From where?”
“I could borrow them from our former master,” Hoarst said in a tone dripping with irony, “and his army on the plains.”
“But they’re hundreds of miles away!”
“That, of course,” the Thorn Knight replied mysteriously, “is where the magic must come into play.”
“Surely you can’t teleport an entire army?” Blackgaard probed, very intrigued.
Hoarst shook his head. “No, the teleport spell works only for one person at a time. Perhaps I could cast it over and over, but that would be inefficient.”
“Then how will you do it? And how confident are you that you can pull it off?”
“Confident enough to suggest you take all but two hundred of your men with you to Palanthas. I will depart for my own castle and make the preparations there. Within a few days-certainly before the Solamnics can react-I will have a full garrison here.
“I rather look forward to facing the emperor here,” Hoarst added. “Ogres throwing rocks from these walls will cost him half his men. And the other half will die trying to scale the ramparts.”
“What about his cannon?”
Hoarst shrugged. “He only had one left when he marched across the plains. Even if it survives his campaign against Ankhar, it won’t be enough to bring down this great fortress. This tower is ten times larger than those spires of Vingaard, after all. And if you recall, I destroyed half of his battery at the foothills battle with but a single fireball.”
“I do remember,” Blackgaard said, nodding. “It was the high point of the battle, from my point of view. Things turned sour on us not too long after that.”
“This time,” the Thorn Knight said confidently, “the outcome will be sweet, not sour.”
“Very well,” said the captain. “Then I will take the rest of the brigade and march on Palanthas.”
“Where the gates will open before you and the Solamnic Knights will fall.”
Hoarst looked to the east and wondered how many days it would be-weeks, more likely-before Jaymes Markham brought his army up that road. It did not matter.
Whenever he came, Hoarst would be ready.
True to Dram’s estimate, the ogre army came around the bend in the road just over an hour later. The dwarf recognized Ankhar, swaggering along at the front of his horde, and felt a familiar rush of adrenalin as the enemy force spread out. The old campaigner had learned a thing or two, the dwarf was forced to acknowledge: instead of attacking in haste, his army was ordered to halt.
Together with a few huge ogres and that shriveled witch of a hobgoblin, the half-giant climbed a low knoll on the edge of the valley and peered at Dram and New Compound from across the distance, appraising the lake, the precipitous walls, and the bridge that was the only route leading north out of the town. Dram was disturbed to see a couple of unusually big draconians with the half-giant, and he wondered what other surprises Ankhar had in store.
A half hour later, the little party trooped down the hill, dispersing into different sections of the barbarian horde. It looked as though the half-giant were intending to attack head-on but also dispatch a secondary force along the lake. Smart moves, Dram thought grimly. He or Jaymes would have done the same thing.
Dram looked ruefully at Sally, who was holding a blacksmith’s hammer with a haft almost as long as she was tall, and forced a smile of encouragement. She looked back at him and grinned cheerfully.
Then the ogres roared into the attack. They came in a rush, and Dram knew that Rogard Smashfinger’s mountain dwarves at the edge of town would quickly be overrun.
“Charge!” he cried, dashing forward as fast as his stubby legs could carry him. He waved his own weapon of choice, a keen, double-edged axe, and felt a primeval thrill as hundreds of dwarves echoed his battle cries and joined the attack. Then he remembered that one of those dwarves was Sally, and the momentary joy vanished into a cold, doomed feeling. He spared a glance over his shoulder and saw that she was running right behind him; she winked, hoisting her heavy hammer without any apparent exertion.
Heartsick, he realized that she was sensing that primitive battle lust, which had animated so much of his life, for the first time.
The bulk of the ogres smashed against the two sturdy buildings where the mountain dwarves had elected to make their stand. Timbers shook and groaned, and the drumbeat of blows rang out like the thunder of a great storm. Many ogres spilled between the factory and the logging shed, crowding onto the main road into the village. It was there that Dram led his counterattack.
Within moments the ogres were upon them. Dram dodged the first blow from a heavy club, swinging upward to disembowel a huge, lumbering bull. The brute uttered a fearsome wail and toppled, flailing. With a nimble dodge, the dwarf ducked out of the way then scrambled up on the still-twitching corpse to swing his axe through a slashing circle, holding the middle of the ogre line at bay.