“The Knights of Neraka have sent scouts over the border. And when I say scouts, I mean more than a dozen hardy warriors.”
“Hmmm.” Golgren understood the significance of Tyranos’s visit. “Soon they will move in force.”
“Yes. And as chance would certainly not have it, the empire appears to have crossed your southern border almost at the same time. Your good friend Faros yearns for your other hand, I suppose.”
Golgren winced, and his good hand attempted to reach for his shadow limb. But the Grand Khan showed no other emotions. Indeed, all that he had suspected was beginning to come to pass. He looked at the elf. “What say you, my Idaria?”
She bowed low, her movements as graceful as the wind. “My lord, I am concerned only about your well-being.”
“You hear that, Tyranos? She speaks the truth. Part of the truth, at least.” Before Idaria could protest, Golgren waved her silent. “So … The Black Shells to one side, the Uruv Suurt to another. It comes as no surprise, wizard.”
Tyranos’s heavy brow arched. “How about the fact that some of your own armies have gone missing?”
Golgren couldn’t disguise his astonishment. “Speak clearly!”
The wizard chuckled. “As to that, it would be best if you spoke with Khleeg,” he answered, referring to the Grand Khan’s trusted second in command. “He should be getting the information that I already know very soon.”
How the human knew such things before anyone else irritated Golgren, but he let the wizard’s arrogance pass. Yes, he’d speak to Khleeg. Striding to the great brass door, he swung it open fast enough to send the guards outside jumping to attention.
“Khleeg! Send Khleeg to me!”
One of the ogre warriors rushed off. Golgren shut the door again and returned to his magical visitor. The guards would not have heard the wizard’s deep voice. Not only were the walls and the door intentionally thick, but Tyranos usually masked the area with magic when speaking with the Grand Khan.
“There is more?” Golgren asked.
Tyranos’s eyes flickered ever so briefly over to Idaria and back to Golgren “Only … Have you seen any more winged spies of late?”
“Other than your pet?”
“Chasm only watches on those occasions when I am not available. But speaking of gargoyles, yes. Let’s refer to those in particular. Any of the winged spies?”
Golgren growled, but more at himself than at the human. “No. Not since …”
“Not since the battle. Not since you proclaimed yourself Grand Khan.” Tyranos nodded to himself. “As I thought.”
“That means something to you?”
The wizard suddenly swept up the hand that held the short staff. “I’ll let you know.”
And with that, Tyranos turned to shadow and vanished.
Unimpressed by the grand exit but annoyed by its suddenness, Golgren faced his slave. “My Idaria, have you seen any gargoyles? Seen them, and failed to mention their presence?”
“No, my lord.” Her expression was all innocence.
The Grand Khan turned from her. He fought off his swelling impatience for Khleeg’s arrival by striding to the chamber’s balcony. The first hint of daylight had just begun to spread over the capital. As Golgren stepped out onto the balcony, his sandaled feet trod upon a huge, stylized griffon crafted in mosaic on the floor. The vertical columns of the stone rail were carved to resemble the same beast.
Well familiar with his moods, Idaria did not follow her master out onto the balcony. She hung back, watching and waiting. Her gaze was no longer that of merely a servant, but had narrowed, as though in deep speculation.
Golgren moved to the rail. His first glance at what lay beyond was cursory, for he didn’t really expect to see any sign, however slight, of one of the mysterious, leathery sentinels who had in the past spied upon him from one distant rooftop or another.
The sky was empty of any creature save one of the fearsome, dark red predators of the type that Golgren’s predecessor, Zharang, had kept as pets. The vulturelike creature was likely stalking simple fare, rather than the severed fingers of punished subjects that Zharang had liked to feed his birds. Golgren had noticed more than a few foreign birds about his city, especially since he had made Idaria his foremost slave. Birds that would have been more at home in the forests of lost Silvanost, he reflected.
Both the bird and the gargoyles were forgotten as the conqueror of Kern and Blode drank in a full sweeping view of the capital of his new kingdom, Garantha-called Kernen by ignorant outsiders.
In the prime of its existence as one of the greatest centers of High Ogre civilization, Garantha had offered to the world tall, shining towers and obelisks, a great zoo featuring exotic animals from all over the world, and a market where one could find rare and valuable items brought from the farthest reaches. The outer walls had held gargantuan reliefs of Garantha’s many treasures and triumphs. Inside those walls had been a pristine city teeming with the beautiful, blue-skinned masters of Krynn.
But centuries of neglect had left the walls crumbling, even gone, in many places. The great towers had collapsed; the zoo was but a shell of a memory. And the monstrous descendants of the High Ogres had lived like animals themselves in hovels that had once been the grand estates of their forebears. There had been attempts, especially in the past generation or two, to patch up the capital. But although the Grand Khans before Golgren had played at imitating the High Ogres, they had looked more like swine clad in fine garments. Their notions of repair and revival had been just as pathetic as their attempted playacting.
Golgren had changed all that. As he gazed over his city, he saw many at work on rebuilding the towers, clearing streets of refuse, and making the grand walls surrounding the capital whole again. Farther east, construction had nearly finished on one of the Grand Khan’s personal projects: an oval tower ten stories high with twelve windows-almond-shaped like the eyes of Golgren-all covering the side facing the setting sun. The twelve windows marked even intervals once the sun began its descent. On the other side, where the sun first glimmered, there were no windows at all. In the Common tongue, the structure was called the “House of Night.”
To ogres, the hot, stifling day-so savage in the height of summer-was called iSirriti Siroth or the “Sirrion’s Burning.” The ogres believed that the god of fire, Sirrion, sought to devour the land of the High Ogres and that was why few places in all of Ansalon were as desolate as Golthuu. Ogres paid great homage to no particular god-though, like the minotaurs, they honored Sargonnas the Warrior-but if there was a deity that they feared, it was Sirrion.
Golgren himself had no fear of any god. Sirrion was one of the neutral deities and, therefore, of little consequence to him. The Grand Khan naturally respected Sargonnas and Kiri-Jolith, the former’s rival for the Uruv Suurt and one of the chief patrons of the Knights of Solamnia. Golgren had hoped the bison-headed Kiri-Jolith would look with favor on his plan to deal with the Solamnians, but such apparently was not the case.
And with no alliance imminent, Golgren’s adversaries had apparently teamed up against him.
The Knights of Neraka and the Uruv Suurt.
He heard the door open and Idaria murmuring. Golgren started to turn, when his eye caught sight of something glittering atop the House of Night.
The ogre leader stumbled back in surprise.
A golden figure stood atop the oval tower. Tall and gleaming, the figure had no face, yet somehow Golgren knew that it stared into his eyes.
“My lord!” grunted a throaty voice.
Golgren instinctively looked to the speaker, a heavyset but muscular ogre with a face ugly even by his people’s standards. The ogre’s left eye appeared to be constantly squinting, and the upper half of one of his tusks was missing. His flesh was a sickly, mottled brown, and it was clear that he was not of the same hearty stock as either Golgren or the lankier guard who stood several paces behind.