Shadow of a Dark Queen (63 page)

The next morning the city was in the hands of the Saaur and the populace awoke to the sounds of wailing as the invaders turned each household out, herding everyone, to the last man, woman, and child, to the central plaza, to hear the Priest-King. He had been marched out under guard and had informed the citizenry that they were now subject to the rule of the Emerald Queen. He and his cadre of priests were taken back into the palace and never heard from again.

The host of Lanada that had been sent north to face an army already behind them returned under orders from the Priest-King's General of the Army, who handed over command to General Fadawah, then joined his lord in the palace. Rumors flew through the city, ranging from the Priest-King, his ministers and generals being quickly executed to them being eaten by the Saaur.

One thing was clear, this conquest was coming to a head. With Lanada's downfall a near certainty, General Fadawah had held back a token force at his position north of the city and sent the entire bulk of the host in a circling move around Lanada and down the far side of the river to Maharta. They had moved out only days after Calis's company had deserted.

The benefit to the Queen's army had been a swift strike south with almost no opposition. The detriment had been finding themselves on the wrong side of the river. Now the northern element from Lanada was moving down the main road between the two cities while engineers were throwing temporary bridges across the river some miles north of the mouth.

Erik looked at the blackened landscape; some locals had fired the dry winter grass to avoid being captured by the Saaur, he judged, for the brush fires had been started in several places. Only a cold rain had prevented a major conflagration on the plain.

Erik reflected on the cold weather and realized it was after midsummer back home. By the time they left Maharta, if they left Maharta, it would be nearly a year since he had fled Darkmoor.

One benefit to Calis's company from the swift mobilization of Fadawah's host southward was that most of the invading army was in the grip of turmoil and confusion. Moving closer to the front was surprisingly easy.

A day earlier an officer had tried to demand passes from Calis, who had said simply, “Nobody gave us anything on paper. We were told to move to the front.”

The officer had been totally baffled and simply waved them past the checkpoint.

Now they were at the crest of a rise overlooking the river valley below, where the Vedra emptied into the Blue Sea. Erik squinted at the scene below.

Maharta was a city of white stone and plaster, bright in the summer sun, now reduced to grey by weeks of falling ash. It spread across two main islands, while several suburbs had arisen on smaller islands in the delta. The main city was surrounded by a high wall on the northwest, north, and northeast, while the remaining sections were flanked by river, harbor, or sea. Several estuaries and inlets provided a variety of anchorages in the deep channel of the river as well as along the coast. Sprinkled across numerous islands were villages, and on the western shore of the river, a large suburb with its own wall.

Nakor peered at the distant city. “Things move close to a finish.”

“How can you tell?” asked Erik.

Nakor shrugged. “See the garrison on this side?”

Erik shook his head. “No. There's too much smoke.”

Nakor pointed. “Look, there, at the river and sea, where they join in the delta. There were many bridges there—you can see blackened foundations where they were burned—and some villages on the smaller islands, but there, on this shore, there's a good-sized town, with its own wall.”

Erik squinted against the smoke and fading sunlight and saw a spot of light grey against the darker water. Studying it, he thought it might be a walled town, but he couldn't be certain. “I think I see it.”

“That is the western precinct of Maharta. It is still holding.”

Erik said, “Your eyes must be as sharp as the Captain's.”

“Maybe, but I think it's that I know what to look for.”

“What are we going to do?” asked Erik.

“I don't know,” said Nakor. “I think Calis knows, but then, maybe he doesn't. I do know that we need to be over there.” He pointed at the far side of the river.

Erik looked at the massive host marshaled along the riverbank and said, “That seems to be everyone's problem, Nakor.”

“What?”

“Being over there.” Erik pointed northward and said, “They say there are bridges being built ten miles north of here. If so, why is everyone marshaled down here near the coast? They can't be thinking of swimming across, can they?”

“Difficult swim,” Nakor admitted. “Doubt that's what they're going to do. But I expect they have a plan.”

“A plan,” Erik said, shaking his head dubiously as he remembered what Greylock had told him about battle plans and the realities of war. He sighed. “All we have to do is go through this army, cross the river, and get the defenders to open the gate for us.”

“There's always a way,” said the little man with a grin.

Erik again shook his head in uncertainty as the order to move down into the awaiting host was given, and suddenly he felt very much like a mouse invading a cat's lair.

If the outlying fringes of the host were confused, the heart of the army was strictly under control. Calis noticed several heavily manned checkpoints and
veered away from them, and twice had to improvise explanations for provost officers riding patrol. He claimed to be confused about which campsite he needed to locate, and said he was among those who were going to be first across.

Both times the officers assumed that no one would be lying to be the first across the river, so in both cases they merely waved Calis along. But as they skirted around the central position of the army, they got some sense of how things lay.

A large hill was central to the host, with the Queen's pavilion atop it. Around that tent were the officers' tents and rank upon rank of Saaur guard, with Pantathian combat troops arrayed behind them. Then came a series of tents used by Pantathian priests. The air was so thick with their magic it reeked, claimed Nakor. Then the bulk of the army radiated outward like spokes of a wheel.

De Loungville said, “It's a pity there's not another army lurking about in the grass nearby. These lads are so bound to conquer there's nothing remotely defensive about this place.”

Erik knew little of warcraft, but after months of working hard to create defensible encampments, even he could see this: there were major flaws in the disposition of this army. “They must be planning on launching the attack soon,” he observed.

“Why do you say that?” asked Calis.

“Greylock, what's that word you told me, for supply?”

“Logistics.”

“That's the one. The logistics are all wrong. Look at where they've got their horses. Each company has them picketed nearby, but there's no easy way to get
water to them from the river. This is going to be a mess in a day or two.”

Calis nodded, but said nothing, as he looked around.

De Loungville said, “You're right. This host can't stay here another week without a major blowup. Either men are going to get sick, start fighting, or run out of food and have to eat their horses. They can't stay here much longer.”

Calis said, “There,” as he pointed.

Erik looked to see a narrow peninsula of sandy ground, near the river's edge, sheltered by tall grasses. They rode down a long incline, through some rocky gullies carved out by rain, and down to a sandy stretch, then back up a small rise, and at last reached the indicated area.

Erik jumped from his horse and knelt near the water's edge. He cupped some in his hand and found it brackish and salty. “They can't drink this.”

“I know,” said Calis. “Form a team and haul water down from upriver to give the horses something to drink.” Looking around as the sun began to set, he said, “We're not staying here very long.”

Camp was quickly made and Erik saw to it that the eighteen remaining men from Nahoot's company were always under surveillance. They were not certain exactly what had happened to Dawar and the other man, but they knew it had been fatal and it was clear they didn't wish to meet a similar fate. De Loungville had remarked there might be another agent among them, but if there was, Erik was forced to concede he was far more clever at disguising his nature, for not one of those men tried anything suspicious.
Still, Erik billeted them closest to the river, with his own men and the horses on one side of them and the river on the other.

Roo came and found Erik as he was checking to see the horses were fit. “Captain wants you over there.” He pointed to where Calis stood with de Loungville, Nakor, Greylock, and Hatonis.

Reaching the mound on which they stood, Erik heard Nakor saying, “. . . three times. I think there is something strange here.”

Calis said. “That's a well-defended position—”

“No,” interrupted Nakor. “Look closely. The walls are good, yes, but there is no way to bring in reinforcements, yet the man said they were facing fresh soldiers every time they assaulted the walls. Three times in one day.”

De Loungville said, “Camp gossip.”

“Maybe,” said Nakor. “Maybe not. If true, then there is a way from that place”—he pointed toward the small western precinct of the city on this side of the river—“to over there.” He then pointed to the distant lights of Maharta. “It might be why they tried so hard to take it last week. If not for a way in, why not leave it and let them starve?”

De Loungville scratched his chin. “Maybe they don't want trouble at their back.”

“Bah!” said Nakor. “Does this army look like it's worried about trouble? This army
is
trouble. Trouble soon if they don't get across that river. Soon there'll be no food. Bad . . .” He turned to Erik. “What was that word?”

“Logistics.”

“Bad logistics. Baggage train all strung out from here up to Lanada. Men pissing into the river
upstream, and soon men downriver got belly flux and bad runs. Horse dung everywhere up to your knees. Men don't get food, men fight. It's simple. They take this precinct”—he made a diving motion— “and take tunnel under river, then up into city.”

“There was that tunnel under the Serpent River before,” conceded Calis.

Hatonis said, “But there's lots of bedrock under the City of the Serpent River. Our clans dug those tunnels over a period of two hundred years because of the storms of summer, the monsoons. You can't safely cross the bridges when the seas arc high and the wind is that strong.”

“They get big storms here in Maharta?” asked Nakor.

“Yes,” admitted the clansman. “But I don't know what the ground around here is like.”

“Doesn't matter,” said Nakor. “A good builder, he'll find a way.”

“Certainly a dwarf would know a way,” said Greylock.

Calis showed a small flash of irritation. “Whatever. We take a risk of getting killed no matter what we do. That's not the point. It's wasteful getting killed to get into a city that has no way out, and we don't know there is a way out of the Western Precinct. We know that across the river is Maharta, and we don't know if there's a tunnel on this side.”

“What if I go and find one?” said Nakor.

Calis shook his head. “I don't have any idea how you plan on getting in there, but the answer is no. I want every man ready to move out at midnight.

“Word's been passed there some sort of celebration on tonight. The Pantathians and Saaur are making
some sort of battle magic, then tomorrow the northern elements are supposed to hit the city.”

Nakor scratched his head. “There are some men building bridges north of the main camp, but they are not finished. Why this? And what tricks do the serpent men have to get this army across that river. They've been conjuring something all day long.”

“I don't know,” answered Calis, “but I plan on every man being on the other side when the sun's up.” He turned to Erik. “That's your job. Those men from Nahoot's company.”

Suddenly Erik's stomach tightened. He knew what Calis was about to say. “Yes?”

“Put them around the horses and give them this to drink.” He handed Erik a large wineskin that sloshed. “Nakor's dosed it so they'll be unconscious for a while.”

Erik felt himself grin as he took the skin. “For a minute . . .”

“If Nakor hadn't given me this drug, I would have told you to kill them,” Calis finished. “Now see to it.”

Erik turned away, again chilled and, for a reason he couldn't put any name to, feeling shame.

The camp rang with alien sounds, music from distant lands, screams of joy and pain, and laughter, swearing, and, most of all, drums.

Saaur warriors pounded on large wooden drums stretched with hide. The sound echoed across the river like thunder, and rang in the cars like the blood's own pulse. Bloody rites had concluded and now warriors readied themselves for the morning's battle.

Horns blared and bells rang, and on and on pounded the drums.

Hatonis and his men stood near the horses, and Erik quickly saw that all eighteen of Nahoot's men were unconscious. He knew that had any avoided the drug's effect he was to kill them.

Erik returned to Calis and reported, “All eighteen are truly asleep.”

Praji said, “If they can sleep through that racket, they are indeed senseless men.”

Calis stuck out his hand. “Good-bye, old friends.”

First Praji, then Vaja, then Hatonis took it and shook. They and the eight remaining men from their companies would make their way up the river, trying to position themselves to get across the river over one of the northern bridges while the main band attacked. In the confusion of battle they were going to try to slip away and head east, making for the City of the Serpent River. Whatever occurred in the coming days, eventually the City of the Serpent River would have to face the Emerald Queen's might. Hatonis would ready the clans; once they had been nomads, like their cousins the Jeshandi, and if need be, they would roam the hills near the city again, striking at the host, then fleeing into the high forests. For Hatonis knew that this struggle would be settled far from his native city and more than mere strength of arms was needed.