A warrior's joyrney

Chapter 18

The sprawling imperial army camp looked more like a shanty town than a military encampment. The pall of smoke which hung over the site was visible five leagues away. Twenty thousand men, plus at least as many traders, sutlers, and camp followers, had carved out a blight on the once-pristine grassland. Intermittent bouts of heavy rain had drenched the great army of Ergoth, which was now sinking ignobly into a lake of mud. The camp was too large to protect with the usual stockade, so the hodge-podge of tents and shacks were surrounded by a deep, muddy trench. An appalling odor permeated the scene-the combined stench of disease, death, and the manure of horses, cattle, and chickens.

Afraid to expose his men to Urakan’s tainted hordes, Tol left them outside the vast, ill-favored camp and rode in with only Egrin, Narren, and Mandes. Kegs of the sorcerer’s curative potion were slung on the backs of four sturdy horses.

On the journey from Ropunt, Mandes had proved an entertaining, garrulous fellow. There was no doubt he was clever, and when he wasn’t being blindingly arrogant, he was fascinating company. He knew all the gossip of Tarsis (at least up to the time he fled), and he entertained Tol and his comrades with colorful accounts of life in the wealthy port city.

The sentries they encountered were listless and gray-faced. More than the Red Wrack was plaguing Urakan’s army, the men reported. Ague and flux were rampant. The sentries themselves were so weak they could barely stand.

Outside Lord Urakan’s tent, Tol and Egrin dismounted, leaving Narren to watch Mandes and the kegs. They entered and found Urakan at his table, alone, with his head in his hands.

“My lord?”

Urakan looked up. The arrogant, iron-limbed general Tol had known in Daltigoth was gone. In his place sat a tired, dispirited man, his beard starting to go white.

“Lord Tolandruth! And Egrin, Raemel’s son, isn’t it?” he said hoarsely. He stood, propped up by his hands on the table. “By the gods, I never thought to see you here!”

They clasped arms all around. “I had word from Prince Amaltar you were on your way north, but he didn’t say you were coming to see me,” Urakan added, somewhat plaintively.

“This wasn’t part of my original mission,” Tol replied. He described their encounter with the bakali and the subsequent capture of Mandes. Tol expected the old warrior to demand the sorcerer’s head for aiding the lizard-men, but the instant Urakan heard the word “cure,” that’s all he cared to know.

“I’m burying fifty men a day,” he said, eyes dark with pain. “Is there enough potion for the entire army?”

“If there isn’t, Mandes will make more,” Tol vowed.

Lord Urakan received the first dose, then the kegs were sent to the great tent serving as the temple of healing, with instructions to the priests and priestesses of Mishas as to how to administer the potion. Word of the cure quickly spread, and hundreds of warriors and camp followers dragged themselves painfully to the healers’ tent. Once the distribution was well underway, Tol had Mandes brought before Lord Urakan.

“What do you have to say for yourself?” asked Urakan gravely.

Not the least intimidated, the wizard launched into his tale. When he reached his enslavement by the bakali, the general interrupted him.

“Did you make this plague people call the Red Wrack?” Urakan demanded.

“No, my lord. It has always existed. I did give the bakali chief, Mithzok, certain magical perfumes and unguents, compounded into large balls of resin. When burned, the resulting fumes created a soporific veil of fog, which only sunlight could disperse.”

“The plague, wizard. How did it get into the mist?” Tol interjected sharply.

Mandes lifted his hands in a gesture of ignorance. “Forgive me, lords, but is it proven the Red Wrack was a component of the mist? It did strike Lord Tolandruth’s men right after the fog arose, but the sickness has long lurked in this land.” The sorcerer folded his hands across his belly and furrowed his high brow. “It could be a conjuration made by the bakali, my lords. They have knowledge of poisons and sickness spells. Mayhap one of their shamans joined a coughing spell to my fog-making incense.”

They cross-examined the wizard for a long time, trying to trick him into admitting he had created the plague for the bakali. But Mandes deftly avoided every trap laid for him and steadfastly maintained his innocence.

“Very well,” Lord Urakan said finally. “I accept your story. Under duress, you helped the lizards. You are forgiven that weakness. Today you’ve done a greater service to us by curing the Red Wrack. So you are free to go.”

“My lord!” Tol protested.

“What would you have me do, Tolandruth?” Urakan asked, a hint of the old arrogance coloring his voice. “I have a war to pursue. Thirty days we’ve lingered in this stinking morass, while Tylocost and the Tarsan army have overrun eastern Hylo. When my men are fit to fight again, I intend to retake the province. I don’t want to worry about this wizard.”

“What of Tylocost’s defeat? Whoever destroyed half his army may still be at large in the western part of the country,” Egrin observed.

“Could it have been the bakali?”

“Possibly, but I doubt it, my lord. Tylocost’s defeat took place well before the bakali are known to have arrived,” said Tol.

“Solving that enigma is your task. Mine’s defeating Tylocost.” Urakan’s strength was returning, and he plainly burned to come to grips with the elusive elf general.

Mandes cleared his throat. “May I speak, gracious lords?” At Urakan’s nod he said, “If there is some unknown force at work in Hylo, Lord Tolandruth may need help dealing with it-sorcerous help. I am willing to offer my services.”

Tol folded his arms and said, “That might be wise.”

Even Mandes was surprised at the easy acceptance. “I’m honored by your trust, my lord,” he murmured.

“Don’t be. We don’t know what we’ll be facing up there. It may be the monster XimXim or more bakali. Who knows? Maybe there’s a dragon loose in Hylo. Feel up to tangling with a dragon, Master Mandes?”

The wizard crossed his arms, insolently imitating Tol’s pose. “My lord, what you can face, I can face.”

For several heartbeats they gazed at each other, faces masks of measured stoicism. Suddenly Tol smiled, giving way in the end to a full-fledged grin.

“You have grit, wizard.”

“I seek only to serve a worthy master,” Mandes replied modestly.

The change in the imperial camp was profound. Healing tents emptied, and men who’d been without appetite for days crowded around the cookfires, stuffing themselves on beef and bread. The camp took on a new air of confidence and action. As Kiya observed, Tylocost and the Tarsans had better take care. Urakan’s hordes were looking to end their bored inaction, and the enemy would feel the force of their frustration.

From this scene of grim energy, Tol’s column moved quickly and quietly away. An army the size of Lord Urakan’s always attracted spies, especially when it remained in place a long time. Tol wanted no one to learn of his mission.

They made good progress up to the border between the Northern Hundred and Hylo proper. Beyond the stone markers bearing the arms of Emperor Ergothas II lay the kender kingdom, forested and sparsely settled. Four-fifths of the population of Hylo lived in six towns: Last Land, Windee, Hylo City, Far-to-go, Old Port, and Free Point. The rest wandered the countryside, doing incomprehensible kender things. One of Tol’s captains, the former seaman Darpo, had served on a merchant ship that traded in the Hylo ports. As they camped at the edge of the forest surrounding Hylo City, Darpo spoke of his experience with the kender.

“Everyone knows their light-fingered ways,” he began. The shifting light and shadow played eerily over his scarred face. When his audience snorted at his words, Darpo grinned, saying, “But kender don’t steal the way human thieves do, to enrich themselves. They do it out of mischief more than anything else.”

“Are there female kender?” Miya asked. They snickered at her, and she added hotly, “I’ve never seen one, that’s all!”

“One of the ones with us before Ropunt was female,” Darpo said, and took a long swig of beer, a parting gift from the grateful Lord Urakan.

“Eh? Which one?” Tol asked.

“The smaller one-the one we called Rufus.”

“I don’t believe it!” said Kiya. “He had a face like a spoiled apple, and no shape whatsoever!”

Darpo smiled, pushing dark blond hair back from his face. “Well, she was pretty old. Kender cultivate a vague appearance. They also change their names whenever it suits them.”

“Darpo’s quite right,” Mandes remarked. “I lived among the kender for half a year, and I seldom could tell male from female, or get one to answer to any name I thought I knew.”

As the Dom-shu sisters continued to dispute with Darpo over the gender of their erstwhile guides, Tol said to Mandes, “Once the kender know we’re from Ergoth, they’ll not resist us, will they?”

Mandes shrugged. “No one can predict a kender’s mood, not even another kender.”

“In that case, we’ll keep clear of them as much as we can.” He ordered a standard bearer to ride at the head of the column, displaying the colors of the empire.

They moved out at dawn, fording a shallow stream and entering the ancient forest. Trees here were twice the size of the oldest specimens in the smaller Ropunt woodland, giving the forest more the look of the primeval Great Green. Kiya and Miya were quite taken with their surroundings. It reminded them of home.

According to a map Tol had borrowed from Valaran, the stream they crossed was called Fingle’s Creek. It flowed directly into Hylo Bay, by the town of Old Port. Several well-worn paths followed the creek to the sea. Tol’s column glimpsed a number of kender in the woods, but they melted into the trees at the sight of so many armed men. Ever after, though they saw no one, the Ergothians knew many sharp eyes were watching them with great interest.

The creek broadened into a sizable river about the same time the first whiffs of sea air reached the marching soldiers. Tol reined in Cloud and surveyed the water from bank to bank. A few rickety piers poked out from under the trees, and nothing larger than a canoe was in sight. The kender were indifferent sailors but fanatical traders, and the lack of activity on the river told Tol that either word of the Ergothians’ coming had quieted traffic, or the force responsible for Tylocost’s defeat had cleared the area of commerce.

He asked Mandes, “Can you sense anything untoward?”

“I’m not a seer, my lord. My specialties are potions and perfumes, and I’ve begun studying ways to command the clouds-”

“I didn’t ask for your life’s history, just if you sensed danger!”

Mandes sniffed. “No better than you, my lord.” His tone implied he did not consider it a useful trait.

Tol halted his men. He sent Sanksa and thirty skirmishers ahead to look for trouble. Another company of thirty, under the command of the seasoned Frez, he sent back as a rear guard. The high ground west of the river looked harmless, but Tol sent his engineer, Fellen, with thirty more men to look around there. The balance of the demi-horde resumed its march.

The land remained hilly right down to the sea. Before leaving the cover of the trees, Sanksa’s men returned with word they’d overlooked Old Port and all appeared ordinary.

“What?” Egrin exclaimed. “Is there no garrison of Tarsan troops for us to contend with?”

“We watched all afternoon and saw naught but kender,” Sanksa replied.

Old Port was on the other side of the estuary. Curious to see for himself, Tol told his men to keep to the trees and continue up the shore to the next town, Far-to-go.

“Darpo, Mandes, Miya, and Kiya will accompany me to Old Port for a closer look around,” he said.

Egrin protested, saying a commander should not enter an unknown town without proper escort. Tol assured him no one would know his rank.

He proceeded to take off his helmet and red mantle. He tied a strip of homespun around his forehead as a sweatband. Dressed plainly to start with, without his cloak and helmet Tol looked like an ordinary man-at-arms. He shifted his dagger from his belt to his boot, a style affected by wandering mercenaries. Darpo likewise dressed down, commenting that Mandes already looked like a vagabond. The sorcerer pointedly ignored the slur.

Tol gave Egrin command in his absence, telling him to keep the men out of sight but moving. He wanted the demi-horde in Far-to-go by nightfall.

“How will you catch up with us?” Egrin asked.

“If there’s no danger in Old Port, we’ll hustle up the coast in time to rejoin you before the next town.”

“And if there is danger…?”

Tol let the question hang. He turned Cloud over to Narren, and with his four companions set out for the kender town.

As they walked, they spoke in loud, unguarded voices of ordinary things-food, work, the weather. At the water’s edge they found a kender lying in a flat-bottomed boat, face covered by a woven-grass hat. Snores rose from under the hat.

“Wake up,” Tol said, rapping on the gunwale. “We want passage to town.”

The kender said, “So what’s stoppin’ ya? Ya think I row folks across the river?”

“You mean we have to row ourselves?” said Kiya.

“Yep. One silver piece each, please.”

They all looked to Miya, the renowned haggler. Eyes brightening in anticipation, she rose to the challenge.

“For a silver piece, we could hire a Tarsan galley!” she declared. “A copper per head is plenty.”

“Four coppers per head,” said the kender.

“One!” Miya insisted. “Plus one when we get to the other side.”

“One more each?”

Miya would have continued disputing, but Tol caught her arm and nodded. “Done,” she said to the kender. “One per head now, one per head on arrival.”

“Done.” The kender stretched out one hand. Miya gave him the first half of the payment. They piled in, sat down, and searched in vain for oars or poles.

“Where’s the oars?” demanded Tol.

“Oars would be one silver piece each-”

“You try me, little man!” Miya fumed. “Nothing more! Two coppers each was the price!”

“One was just to get in, and the other pays for getting out. Nobody said anything about oars.”

Tol was somewhat amused, but the Dom-shu most assuredly were not. Kiya seized the kender by his vest and dragged him up. Oddly, the grass hat clung to his face, even when she had him upright.

“Oars!” she bellowed.

The boat owner merely hung limp in her grip. Furious, she flung him into the water. Darpo and Tol rushed to the side to help the unlucky kender, but he bobbed to the surface out of reach. He had a swarthy, sunburned face, despite his clinging hat. Floating serenely on his back, the kender boatman kicked lazily away.

“Now that’s negotiation,” Mandes said dryly.

Tol and Darpo went ashore and cut a pair of saplings. They trimmed off the branches and used them to pole the boat out from shore. The current was strong, but they managed slow progress across the river.

From the water, Old Port lived up to its name-weather-beaten, innocent of paint. The houses were tall and narrow, worn brown by years of sun and rain, but every building bore a brightly colored pennant or metal totem, swinging in the wind. Eight merchant ships of modest size were tied up at the docks. They looked deserted and neglected. Streaks of black mold stained the canvas sails, and many lines were broken or untied. A few smaller craft crawled around the harbor.

Tol guided the boat to an empty berth on a long, ramshackle pier. A single kender, pot-bellied and possessing enormous ears, sat in a small kiosk at the end of the pier. Kiya leaped out and secured a line. They climbed out, and Tol nodded politely to the kender in the kiosk.

“Are you the harbormaster?” Tol asked.

“I am. That’s Gusgrave’s boat. Where’s Gus?”

“He went for a swim. We borrowed his boat,” Darpo said.

“Oh.” The harbormaster closed his eyes and held out a hand. “Docking fee, two silver pieces.”

Miya gave him two coppers. “We docked ourselves.” The kender shrugged and put the coins in his shirt pocket.

“Quiet, isn’t it?” said Tol. “No ships coming or going, no one loading or unloading.”

“Blockade. Tarsis,” the harbormaster said, yawning.

No blockading warships were in sight, but the long, narrow bay could be sealed easily at its mouth, over thirty leagues away.

“How long has the blockade been going on?” asked Darpo.

The harbormaster scratched his brown cheek. “Since the dark of the moons,” he said. The night when no moons rose was forty days past.

Tol asked, “Any Tarsans here?”

“A few traders, some sailors. Flack the feather merchant, he lives in the high street.” The kender looked slantwise at his interrogators and asked, “Will Ergoth attack our town?”

“How should we know?” Tol replied casually.

“You talk like Ergos. Word is, an army’s coming overland from Ropunt. Are you them?”

Tol denied it, but he was perplexed. Despite their precautions, the kender seemed well informed of their presence. And if the kender knew, the Tarsans likely knew too. What of the unknown menace that had repelled Tylocost-did it (or they) also know the Ergothians’ movements?

“We’re mercenaries,” Tol announced. “We heard there might be work here for good fighters.”

“Try the Tarsans, ’cross the bay.” The kender pointed vaguely northeast. “Big camp over there. General Ty-something. Maybe hell hire you. Or maybe he’ll hang you as Ergo spies.”

The harbormaster leaned forward and closed the shutters of his kiosk, indicating their conversation was over.

It was late afternoon by the time they finished their explorations and regained the western shore. They tied Gusgrave’s boat where they’d found it, and Miya tossed five coppers in it, the second half of the price she’d agreed to pay for use of the craft.

Tol led them quickly through the lengthening shadows. Mandes hampered their progress. He puffed and wheezed like an old man, and complained constantly of the too-brisk pace.

The setting sun colored the bay crimson, like an Ackal banner. On a bluff overlooking the calm sea, they paused to let the magician catch his breath.

“Look there!” cried Darpo, pointing out to sea.

Crawling across the flat water came a large vessel, a quin-quireme of the Tarsan Navy. It ploughed ahead steadily against the offshore wind, oars flashing in the fading sunlight. Foamy green water curled back beneath the bronze ram on its prow.

Tol and his comrades took cover in the trees. Lying on their bellies, they watched the Tarsan galley approach. Three flags whipped from a pole mast stepped amidships.

“Wizard, whose pennants are those?” Tol asked.

“Topmost is the flag of Tarsis,” answered Mandes. “The second is a naval flag of some sort. I’m not a warrior, but I’d guess it shows what flotilla the ship belongs to. The bottom banner”-he squinted at the colored fabric, tiny with distance-“looks like the flag of the Syndic House of Lux, the guild of goldsmiths and gem merchants.”

“Merchants on a warship?” scoffed Miya. “Wealthy merchants rule Tarsis,” Mandes explained. “The House of Lux is a rich and powerful guild. Many city officials, ambassadors, and diplomats come from their ranks.”

“Like Ambassador Hanira?” asked Tol, remembering the woman he’d seen in Daltigoth.

Mandes betrayed surprise. “Why, yes. Lady Hanira is mistress of the largest gemstone house in the city. How do you know her?”

“I don’t know her, but I’ve seen her. She leaves a lasting impression.”

The galley slowed as it came abreast of their position. From their high perch, the Ergothians had a clear view of the ship’s main deck. Some kind of violent activity had broken out there. White-clad figures swarmed fore and aft, wrestling with mysterious gear mounted on the forecastle and poop.

Suddenly, a shadow, larger and darker than the surrounding trees, fell over the cliff top. Tol looked up as something huge and airborne rushed in, snapping off treetops above them. Silent till then, it began emitting a loud buzzing sound, louder than anything Tol had ever heard. He could feel it in his bones.

Zimm-zimm-zimm-

He knew at once what it was: XimXim was here!

The droning buzz slowed and stopped. All around the hidden Ergothians, tree limbs cracked and popped, showering them with leaves and twigs. Through the thick canopy, all Tol could see was a large, dark green mass smashing its way through the trees. He saw long, articulated limbs moving in the treetops. He counted five and stopped. Whatever XimXim was, it wasn’t a dragon. Dragons were not common these days, and this monster had too many legs to be one anyway.

Loud, hollow thumps echoed across the water. Catapults on the deck of the Tarsan galley hurled giant darts at the monster. One missile hit an elm tree near Darpo, shattering the trunk.

“Tol, what should we do?” said Kiya, feeling trapped.

“Do nothing! Be still! No one knows we’re here!”

A trio of ancient alders crashed down. The monster was moving straight ahead, to the edge of the bluff. Catapult darts sailed in at a steady rate, but none hit their intended target.

Miya lay by Tol’s left hand, and she took hold of his arm in a grip made painfully strong by her astonishment. She didn’t have to say a word. They could all see it now, emerging from the woods.

The sun was behind them, nearly set. Its bold, ruddy glow darkened the monster’s green color almost to black. Rearing up nearly twenty paces, XimXim had an enormous three-sided head, with two faceted green eyes at the upper corners and a mouth equipped with many scissor-like palps. Two antennae, thick as a man’s wrist, sprouted from the creature’s forehead. Its head was perched on a thin stalk of a neck, which joined a relatively slender torso sheathed in green armor. Three pairs of legs supported the monster: four at the rear of the torso, and two enlarged arms hinged where the neck joined the body. Its forearms were shaped like a pair of downward-hanging scythes, their inside edges lined with sharp, saw-toothed spurs as long as a man’s hand.

One mystery was solved: XimXim was a monstrous insect, a mantis of truly gigantic size.

The monster gazed coldly at the Tarsan galley. In the center of its gigantic eyes, tiny black pupils tracked to and fro, following the movements of the terrified sailors. As more catapult darts whizzed by, XimXim unfolded stiff, bone-colored wings from its back. The wings didn’t flap or flex like a bird’s. They vibrated. The sound they made filled the air with the deafening, distinctive noise that gave the creature its name.

Tol wanted to shout a warning, but the men on the galley couldn’t possibly hear him. He and his companions watched open-mouthed as XimXim rose lightly from the bluff and flew slowly over the bay to hover over the ship. It was completely safe from catapults there; the machines could not elevate high enough to hit it. After watching the Tarsans’ futile efforts for a moment, XimXim dropped on them.

Slashing back and forth, the creature shredded the galley with its scythe-like forearms. Rigging and masts went down, entangling the hapless crew on deck. XimXim’s arms tore through the stout hull planking like a farmer’s blade mowing hay. After four horrible passes, the great ship was reduced to several large pieces, all sinking. By twilight’s glow, the Ergothians could see black dots bobbing in the water-the heads of the crew as they swam frantically for shore.

Not satisfied with sinking the warship, XimXim swept over the water, slashing the helpless survivors to pieces. When no one was left, XimXim climbed steeply into the evening sky and flew off to the northwest.

The teeth-rattling vibration of his flight eventually faded with distance. Soon, only the lap of waves and the steady sigh of the sea breeze remained. None of them spoke for several long minutes but simply stared in numb horror at the scene below.

“By all my ancestors,” said Kiya, breaking the shocked silence. “How can such a thing exist?”

“The gods’ ways are unknowable,” said Darpo flatly. His scarred face was ashen.

“Wizard, did you know about this?” Tol managed to say.

Mandes shook his head, whispering, “I’ve never seen or read anything about a monster like this in my life.” It was obvious he spoke the truth; he was as shaken and gray-faced as the rest of them.

“The kender have lived under XimXim’s threat for decades,” Darpo said. “They have a kind of understanding with it. It eats a few of them every year, takes their cattle, sheep, or pigs, but leaves them enough to live on.”

Tol remembered the day long ago when the kender delegation had come to Juramona to ask for Lord Odovar’s help against the monster. Odovar had chosen to send his hordes to fight in the Great Green, a choice that cost him his life-but probably spared the men of Juramona from wholesale slaughter such as they’d just witnessed.

It was clear now what had happened to Tylocost’s army, and to the eleven expeditions sent by the emperors of Ergoth to find the monster. XimXim had destroyed them all.

After years of equilibrium with the kender, the monster must have felt threatened by Tylocost’s army. Perhaps it thought the mercenaries were coming to attack it, so it struck first. Sorcerers in Tylocost’s pay raised a mist to hide their landing from Hylo’s Royal Loyal Militia, but the mist also hid XimXim. He had torn the invading Tarsans to bits, sunk their ships, and slaughtered ten thousand armed warriors in half a morning’s work.

“What now, husband?” Kiya asked.

“What can three hundred do against a beast that mighty?” Miya said. “We should go back.”

Tol’s response was immediate. “No,” he said. “The emperor himself chose me to deal with the monster, and I will not fail! First, we must catch Egrin before he goes too far. I don’t want XimXim doing to our people what he did to Tylocost’s!”

The Dom-shu regarded him with respect for his staunch words. Darpo was still shaken by what they’d witnessed, but didn’t question his commander. However, the reaction of Mandes, the city-bred sorcerer, surprised Tol.

For a man who had complained steadily about the pace of the march, his sore feet, and the bad food, Mandes seemed remarkably undisturbed by the prospect of facing XimXim. Once his initial shock had passed, his mood seemed more curious than afraid. “A fantastic creature, and a most unnatural one,” he observed. “The world is not generally populated with monsters so great. Someone, somewhere, may have created XimXim by magical means. Perhaps on purpose.”

His pale blue eyes were thoughtful as he added, “Sorcery that powerful should be studied. I would like to get a closer look at this monster, perhaps examine its lair. There may be much to learn from it.”

Tol was pleased to have the sorcerer’s support and felt obliged to say so. “I’m glad to have you along, Master Mandes. You may indulge your curiosity, so long as it doesn’t delay our mission. But take care! My first lord, Odovar, marshal of the Eastern Hundred, sent a priest, Lanza, to investigate XimXim five years ago. Lanza ended up dismembered like a feast-day chicken. What he might have discovered, no one will ever know.”

“Knowledge sometimes comes with a high price, my lord,” Mandes said primly, adjusting his worn, dirty gown. “How else would you know its worth?”