Shadow of a Dark Queen (50 page)

Unfortunately, the work was going more slowly than he had hoped, since the labor turned out to be slave labor and, as such, the workers were in no hurry. Also, he was now being closely guarded at night. The guards might not have noticed him when he arrived—if there was an extra slave in a squad, the guard would merely assume he had miscounted in the morning—but he would be certain to notice if there was one less.

Which meant Nakor would have to wait for exactly the right moment to vanish into the companies of mercenaries. He knew that once he was free of the guards watching the work gang he would have no trouble staying free, but he wished to create as ideal a moment as possible before he attempted it. A manhunt in the southern camp might prove amusing, but Nakor knew that he must share what he had learned with Calis and the others before too long, so that they could start planning their escape from this army and their eventual return to Krondor.

“That idiot” dropped his end of the plank before Nakor could move, and as a result he took more
splinters in his shoulder. He was about to do one of his “tricks” in retaliation, a sting to the buttocks that would make the man think he had sat on a hornet, when a chill passed over him.

He glanced back and felt his chest tighten, for a Pantathian priest stood not ten feet away watching the construction, speaking quietly to a human officer. Nakor set down his end of the plank and hurried back for another, keeping his eyes down. Nakor had encountered the Pantathians and their handiwork before, while traveling with the man who was now Prince of Krondor, but he had never seen a living Pantathian that close. As he passed the creature he noticed a faint odor, and remembered having heard of this smell before: very reptilian, yet alien.

Nakor bent to pick up another plank and saw “that idiot” stumble over a rock. He lost his balance and took a half-step toward the Pantathian. The creature reacted, turning with a clawed hand sweeping out. The talons struck across “that idiot's chest, ripping his tunic as if they were knives. Deep cuts of crimson appeared as the man cried out. Then he went weak in the knees and collapsed, to lie twitching on the ground.

The human officer said to Nakor, “Get him out of here,” and Nakor and another slave grabbed the fallen man. By the time they had moved him back to the slaves' compound, the man was dead. Nakor studied the face, frozen in death with eyes open, and watched closely. After a few minutes, he was certain he knew exactly what poison the Pantathian had on his claws. It was no natural venom, but something created by mixing several deadly plant toxins together, and Nakor found this revelation fascinating.

He was also fascinated by the Pantathian's need to demonstrate before the human officer his deadly ability to kill with a touch. There were politics here in the camp of the Emerald Queen that were not obvious to those far from the heart of power, and Nakor wished he had the time to try to uncover more about them. Any struggle in the enemy camp was good to know about, but unfortunately, he couldn't afford to spend the time insinuating himself where he could observe the byplays of power.

A guard said, “Drop him there,” pointing to a garbage heap that would be hauled away by wagon at sundown and dumped at a fill a mile or so away from the river. Nakor did as he was bid, and the guard ordered the two slaves to return to work.

Nakor hurried down to the building site, but the Pantathian and the human officer were now gone. He felt a brief regret that he couldn't study the Serpent priest any longer, and even more regret that “that idiot” had been killed. The man had deserved to have his backside stung, but he hadn't deserved to die painfully as a poison shut down his lungs and heart.

Nakor worked until the noon meal. He sat on the bridge, now only a few yards from the other bank, dangling his feet above the water as he ate the tasteless gruel and hard bread to keep his strength up. All the while he ate, he wondered what Calis and the others were doing.

Calis motioned for the outriders on the right flank to keep an even line of sight, one man to the next, for a half mile. Signals from the closest man indicated the order was understood.

They had been riding since noon and still had no sign of anyone near the bank. Either the report of those tribesmen being nearby was in error, or they had left the area, or they were, as Praji had said, able to keep themselves from being seen.

Erik watched for any unexpected movement in the grass, but it was a breezy afternoon, and the tall grass moved like water. It would take eyes far better than his to see someone moving through this sheltering plain.

A short time later, Calis said, “If we don't find something within the next half hour, we should return. We'll be getting back to the ford in the dark as it is now.”

A shout from an outrider, and everyone looked to the west. Erik used his hand to shade his eyes against the afternoon sunlight, and saw a rider frantically signaling from the base of a large mound. Calis motioned and the column turned toward the rider.

When they reached the base of the hillock, Erik could see it was covered in the same grass as the plains, making it look like nothing so much as an inverted shaggy bowl. Almost completely round, it was some distance from the next rise, the beginning of a series of hills leading toward the distant mountains.

“What is it?” asked Calis.

“Tracks and a cave, Captain,” answered the outrider.

Praji and Vaja exchanged questioning looks, and dismounted. They led their horses close to the cave and inspected it. A short entrance, one a man could enter stooped over, led back into the gloom.

Calis glanced down. “Old tracks.” Then he moved to the entrance and ran his hand over the stone edge of the cave. “This isn't natural,” said Calis.

“Or if it is,” said Praji, also running his hand along the wall, “someone's done some work on it to make it more sturdy. There's stonework under this dirt.” He brushed away the dirt and revealed some fitted stones underneath.

“Sarakan,” said Vaja.

“Maybe,” conceded Praji.

“Sarakan?” asked Calis.

Praji remounted his horse and said, “It's an abandoned dwarven city in the Ratn'gary Mountains. All of it underground. Some humans moved in a few centuries back, some cult of lunatics, and they've died out. Now it just sits empty.”

“People are always stumbling across entrances down near the Gulf,” said Vaja, “and in the foothills near the Great South Forest.”

Calis said, “Correct me if I'm wrong, but that's hundreds of miles from here.”

“True,” said Praji. “But the damn tunnels run everywhere.” He pointed to the hillock. “That one could be connected somewhere over there”—he pointed at the distant mountains—“or it could simply go back a few hundred feet and stop. Depends on who built it, but it looks like one of the entrances to Sarakan.”

Roo ventured, “Maybe it's built by the same dwarves, but it's a different city?”

“Maybe,” said Praji. “It's been a long time since any dwarves lived anywhere but the mountains, and city folk don't linger on the Plain of Djams.”

Calis said, “Could we use this as a depot? Leave some weapons and supplies here if we need to come down this side of the river?”

Praji said, “I wouldn't, Captain. If the Gilani are around here, they may be using this as a base.”

Calis was silent for a moment; then he spoke loudly enough for the entire troop, except for the other outriders, to hear. “Mark this location in your minds. Check the distant landscapes. We may be very needful of finding this exact spot, soon. If we need to break from the camp, for any reason, or fight our way out, if you can't make straight for the city of Lanada, make for this mound. Those who do meet here, make your way to the south the best you can. The City of the Serpent River is your final goal, for one of our ships should be waiting there.”

Erik looked around and then looked down at his mount. If he put her nose in line with two peaks in the distant mountains, the one that looked like a broken fang, and the other that looked like a clump of grapes, to his imagination, and kept the river at his back while keeping another distant peak off his left side, he thought he should be able to find his way back here.

After the men had taken their bearings, Calis turned to an outrider up on a distant hill who was watching. Calis made the arm signals to indicate they were turning back.

The man acknowledged the order, then turned and signaled an even more distant rider, while Calis gave the order to return to the host of the Emerald Queen.

N
akor waved.

He had learned years ago that if you didn't want to be accosted by minor officials, look as if you know exactly what you're doing. The officer standing on the far end of the dock didn't recognize Nakor, as the Isalani knew he wouldn't. Slaves weren't people. One didn't take note of them.

And now he didn't look like a slave. He had ducked out of the slave pen the night before so that the morning and night head count would match. He had wandered around the camp, smiling and chatting, until he had reached the place where he had secreted his belongings when he had run off to play construction worker.

Then at dawn he had wandered back to the slave pens and fallen in a few yards behind the work gang. He had moved along the newly constructed bridge, past a guard who started to ask him something when Nakor patted him on the shoulder in a friendly fashion and said, “Good morning,” leaving the guard scratching his chin.

Now he called to the officer, “Here, catch!” and threw him his bundle of bedroll and shoulder sack. The officer reacted without thought and caught the bundle, then set it down as if it were covered in bugs.

By then Nakor had jumped the five feet separating the end of the bridge and the south-shore foundation of rocks. He landed and stood up, saying, “I didn't want to take the chance of dropping the bundle in the water. There are important documents in it.”

“Important . . . ?” asked the officer as Nakor picked up his bundle.

“Thank you. I must be getting those orders to the Captain.”

The officer hesitated, which was his undoing, for in that moment, while he tried to frame his next question, Nakor slipped behind a party of horsemen riding past, and when they had moved on, the little man was nowhere in sight.

The officer stood peering this way and that, and failed to notice that a few feet away there were now seven sleeping mercenaries around a cold campfire where moments before there had been only six. Nakor lay motionless, listening for any sign of alarm.

He grinned as he lay there, his usual reaction to pulling off a good vanishing act. He found it amazing that most people never noticed what was going on right before their noses. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and started to doze.

Less than an hour later, he heard a voice and opened his eyes. One of the soldiers next to him was sitting up and yawning. Nakor turned over and saw that the officer he had flummoxed was standing with his back toward the camp.

Nakor rolled to his feet, said, “Good morning,” to the still-half-asleep mercenary, and moved off down the trail toward where he hoped Calis was camped.

Erik looked up from where he sat, a few feet away from Calis, de Loungville, and Foster, polishing his sword. They had returned to camp after nightfall, and Calis had gone to report to the officers' tent near the bridge while Erik and the others tended the horses. When he returned he showed no sign of how the meeting went, but Calis rarely showed anything that Erik could read as pleasure or irritation.

But now Erik saw a small betrayal of emotion as Calis rose with an expectant expression: Nakor was making his way across the narrow trail that had been worn by hooves and feet between the Eagles' camp and the one to the east.

The little man came trudging into view, with his seemingly ever-present grin in place. “Woof,” he said, sitting down heavily on the ground next to Foster. “That was some doing, finding you. Lots of bird banners, and lots of red things, and most of these men”—he pointed in general at most of the other companies nearby—“don't care who's next to them. This is one very ignorant bunch.”

Praji, who was lying back picking his teeth with a long sliver of wood, said, “They're not being paid to think.”

“True.”

“What did you discover?” asked Calis.

Nakor leaned forward and lowered his voice, so that Erik had to strain to overhear, though he and the others in his squad were trying hard to look as if they weren't. “I don't think it's such a good idea to talk
about this here, but let's say that when I can tell you, you don't want to know what I saw.”

“Yes I do,” said Calis.

Nakor nodded. “I understand, but you'll understand what I mean when I tell you. Just let me say that if you have a plan for us to get out of here, tonight would be a very good time to do it. We don't need to stay any longer.”

Calis said, “Well, now that we know where the ford is, we could try to slip across, or bluff our way and tell the patrol at the bank that we're going out on another sweep to the south.”

Nakor opened his ever-present bag, slung over his shoulder, and said, “Maybe one of these passes would fool them.”

Erik tried hard not to laugh at the expression on Foster's and de Loungville's faces. They looked at the documents, and de Loungville said, “I'm not an expert in reading this gibberish, but these look authentic.”

“Oh, they are,” said Nakor. “I stole them from Lord Fadawah's tent.”

De Loungville said, “The Queen's Lord High General?”

“That's the man. He was busy and no one noticed, as I was playing the part of a slave. I thought one of these might do us some good. I wanted to poke around. There's something very funny about that general. He's not what he seems to be, and if I hadn't been in such a hurry to get my news to you, I would have stayed around to see just what this general really is.”