Return of the Exile

21 The Best Laid Plans

Varia found them the afternoon of the second day of their journey. She came wheeling from the sky with a hoot of welcome and swooped in to land on Linsha’s outstretched wrist. Hopping off, she perched on Linsha’s knee and blinked up at the Lady Knight with wide, dark eyes.

A few of the men stared in astonishment at the raptor on the woman’s lap, but most of them were familiar with Linsha and her talented “pet” and continued to ride without comment.

“I have seen Falaius,” Varia said softly, so only Hugh and Linsha could hear her over the rattle and creak of the wagon. “He was so pleased to see me, he gave me a whole rat. He wants to know what you are planning.”

“Where are they?” Linsha asked, scratching the back of the owl’s neck.

Varia clicked her beak with pleasure and bent her head so Linsha could reach every part of her neck. “Coming south down the eastern Toranth River. They’re planning to ford the river in the next day or two, as soon as the water becomes shallow enough for the baggage wagons, and then strike eastward. They want to lure the Tarmaks out of the city. But how do you get those Brutes to come to a place of your choosing?”

“Tell them where the eggs are,” Sir Hugh said.

A glint of deviltry gleamed in Linsha’s eyes. “That would do it.”

“Where are the eggs?” the owl asked. “And where is Crucible?”

Linsha pursed her lips as she thought about Varia’s news, the eggs, and the probability of Lanther’s fury. She twisted around and studied the faint tracks unwinding behind their wagon as they moved over the wet ground. It had rained in fits and starts for two days, making the earth soft beneath the hooves of the horses. They had tried to hide their tracks and finally decided it was a waste of time. The ground was just too barren and too muddy. The only thing that would help would be cold weather to freeze the ground, but the late autumn had been surprisingly mild so far. The centaurs, natives to the plains, told her when the warm weather ended, it would probably end with a snowstorm.

“What are you looking at?” Varia hooted, peering around Linsha’s cloak.

“A way to lure Lanther to the eggs,” she replied. “Are you too tired to fly again?”

“I just need a short rest,” the owl replied, fluffing her feathers.

“Good. There here’s what I want you to tell Falaius.” She explained carefully, while Sir Hugh and Varia listened, and when she was finished both man and owl approved.

While Varia fluttered down into the bed of the wagon to sit with Callista out of the wind and take her nap, Linsha turned the reins over to Hugh and hopped out of the wagon. She jogged over to a centaur she knew only as Menneferen. He was a grayish roan stallion of middle years, with reddish hair, deep brown eyes, and the long, powerful legs of a runner. He had seemed very steady to her, and he looked to be in the best condition of the escaped slaves. He glanced down at her jogging beside him and slowed to a walk so she could keep pace with him.

“Would you be willing to take a message to Crucible?” she asked.

“Of course, Lady,” he said in a deep, smooth voice. “Where has he gone?”

She told him of the elves’ mention of a volcano somewhere near the source of the river. His grave expression never altered.

“My clan is from the north, but I think I have heard of such a place.”

“If you can find it, tell Crucible to go seek Falaius, and tell him we are going to turn northwest.”

“Are you going to lure the Tarmaks away from the new nest?” Menneferen asked.

“Yes—and into a battle, I hope.” Linsha said, “so take an indirect route.”

“Then I will go.” He bent low and winked at her. “But don’t have the battle without me.” He said his farewells to his companions and galloped away.

The other riders and centaurs, about fifteen in all, gathered around Linsha to learn what was happening. She told them her plan.

“Make no effort to hide your tracks,” she said. “We want Lanther to follow us.”

“And what if he catches us?” one man said.

She lifted her hand to her sword hilt. “Then we’d better make sure we are close to the rebel army.”

“How do we know the Tarmaks will leave the city and come after us?” asked another.

Linsha’s mouth tightened into a thin line and her expression turned bleak. “I know the Akkad-Dar. He’s probably already left.”

“Perhaps, Lady,” said a light bay centaur with a sword cut on his flank, “it would be wise to leave a scout behind who could watch the rear and warn you if the Tarmaks are coming.”

“That’s an excellent idea,” she said, glad he had mentioned it. “Do you feel well enough to volunteer?” She hated losing another good archer, but the centaurs were the best choice for scouts.

“Of course.” He stamped a hoof, ready to go.

Pleased, Linsha returned to the wagon and climbed back onto the driver’s bench beside Hugh. The party moved on, and a short while later the bay centaur fell back into a cluster of treeless hills and vanished into the eroded valleys between. The wagon and its escort began a gradual drift to the north. By evening they were traveling northwest toward the river but away from the eggs. If all went well, the Tarmaks would follow them to a place that Wanderer and Falaius chose, a place where a battle could be fought and won.

A second wounded man died that night in spite of Callista and Linsha’s best efforts. His wounds had not been bad, but the constant travel in a rough wagon and the cool, wet weather had taken too much from him. They concealed his body in the deep crevice of a large rock outcropping and piled more stones on top. Instead of lightening the load of the wagon, they added rocks to the wagon bed to maintain the weight and the illusion of a load. They pressed hard the next day, knowing there were still many miles to go. Neither Varia nor the centaur scouts returned, and all Linsha could do was worry.

Sir Hugh distracted her for a while by asking for her tale of Lanther and Ithin’carthia, and he told her about his capture, the terrible long march back to the Missing City, imprisonment, and slavery. He had changed, Linsha realized, in the time since he had tried to intervene for her during her trial those long months ago. Was it only months? It felt like years. All sense of boyishness in Hugh had disappeared. He was harder, withdrawn, and more angry. His once muscular body was tempered to lean muscle and bone, and sometimes when he moved, she caught glimpses of scars and whip marks on his legs, arms, and neck. What would he do, she wondered, if he survived this war? Would he stay in the Solamnic Knights? Was it all worth the pain and suffering? She didn’t ask him, but the thoughts stayed in her mind like an insidious weed, and she heard Crucible’s words again in her memory—Should you decide the Knights of Solamnia are no longer enough for you…

By the gods, what was enough?

On the fourth day, Crucible came, winging from the clouded sky to the west. He came without net or eggs, only an expression of satisfaction. His scarred wings backflapped carefully and lowered his bulk to the crown of windy hilltop some distance from the nervous horses.

To prevent the wagon team from bolting in fear, Linsha climbed down from the wagon and ran to join the bronze on the hill. Hurrying to him, she could not help the smile that lit her face.

He lowered his head to greet her and inhaled her scent with pleasure. “I found the volcano,” he said as they walked side-by-side paralleling the moving wagon. “It is an old one, but the cone is still there and I found some lava tubes and an ancient chamber that I rearranged to make a spacious nest. They will be warm in there for a while.”

Linsha was pleased. She knew building a nest for brass eggs would not be a problem for him. He had tamed the ferocious forces of the three volcanoes around Sanction, allowing the city to grow and thrive, so he certainly had the skill and power to manipulate one old, extinct shell. She had just worried that he would not be able to find anything suitable. The volcano had been a gift.

“Do they still look close to hatching?” she asked.

“Too close. I don’t know what those priests used on the eggs, but it has sped up the development by forty years or more. I don’t want to leave them for too long. But Falaius has a message for you, and I could get here faster than anyone else.”

A shiver of alarm chilled her. “Is Varia all right?”

“She’s just worn out by all the flying back and forth. She came to find me, so I left her sitting with the eggs and brought you the message myself.”

An image formed in Linsha’s mind of the small brown, spotted owl trying to sit on nine dragon eggs at the same time. She started to giggle and a breath later she laughed uproariously for the first time in a long dry stretch. “Can’t you just imagine?” she gasped between fits of hilarity.

Crucible laughed with her, but he really didn’t see what was so funny. He hadn’t meant that the bird was literally sitting on the eggs. They were too hot for any avian. Nevertheless, he liked to hear her laughter and see her smile.

She sobered down after a while and tried to breathe normally. “Sorry. I am so tired, some things just seem silly.” She rubbed her face, took a deep breath, and said, “Now, what was your message?”

“Falaius and Wanderer will meet you here.” He scratched a rough map in the earth with his claw. “Here is the river. Here is the volcano, and here about twenty miles north is a low butte in a broad, fairly flat valley. The butte is a remnant of this ridge that stretches toward the river. There are low hills here and here. We will set up a trap in this valley, using the butte as our ‘dragon nest.’ ”

“How do we find this place from here?”

He dragged his claw through the dirt toward the east. “You are already due east of there. Turn west. If you stay on a straight track, you will soon see a string of buttes to your right hand. Stay to the south of those and you’ll find a runoff riverbed. It’s usually dry, but it’s sandy and has some water in it now, so you shouldn’t miss it. I think you’ll be able to get there in two days.”

“Is Falaius there now?”

“His vanguard is. He and his scouts just found the place last night. He is very pleased to hear you are back.”

“Tell him I will see him soon,” Linsha said. “Does anyone know where the Tarmaks are?”

“Not yet. The scouts haven’t come back yet, Varia is too tired from carrying messages, and I have been too busy. We need to find them. Perhaps a quick, high flight overhead? Lanther would expect that.”

She put a hand on his leg and felt the warmth of his sleek, gleaming scales. “He still has the Abyssal Lance, Crucible. Be very careful.”

“My back aches, my wings will never be right, and I still shudder at the memory of that lance. Trust me. I will be careful.”

They said good-bye, and Linsha watched as the dragon took a running leap off the hilltop and glided into the air. She wanted so much to go with him, but she couldn’t. Not yet. She still had her duty.

She jogged back down the hill to catch up with the wagon and told Sir Hugh what was being planned.

They turned the company west and raced for the river and the comparative safety of the Plains army.

Later that evening Crucible came back briefly to report he had found the Tarmak army. As Linsha had suspected, Lanther had gathered every warrior he dared spare from Missing City and sent them into the field. The army was stretched out in a long line and was a scant two days behind Linsha and the wagon.

“Two days!” she exclaimed. The Tarmaks must have run all the way.

“There is a unit of cavalry in the vanguard, and they are closest. They have almost reached the place where you turned north. We will soon see if they believe you have the eggs.”

“What if they don’t follow us?”

“I don’t know. I will talk to Falaius and Wanderer before I return to the peak to check on the eggs. We’ll let you know.”

And he was gone again, flying away into the dusky blue skirts of evening.

The Akkad-Dar did not bother to have his large tent erected that night. He ordered only a small camp tent and sat inside in the glow of a single lamp studying maps while his army gathered around him. He had sent orders down the line that the scattered units were to be moved up without rest until the entire army was together. The enemy, he knew, was coming to meet him, and he reveled in the thought of the coming battle. But he wanted all his forces at his disposal, not stretched across the plains. True, he had pulled this march together very quickly, thanks to the foresight of the officer in charge of the city’s garrison, but many of the ekwullik had needed weapons, arrows, food, and supplies for a long march. They had needed some time to ready themselves. Other units were ready to go. So the Akkad-Dar’s army had left the city in pieces. Now it was time to bring them together.

He pored over his maps of the Plains, a legacy from the Akkad-Ur, and wondered for the thousandth time where Linsha and Crucible would take the eggs. He knew the eggs were close to hatching and would need to be nested very quickly. He also knew the dragon could not fly long distances.

After the damage done to his wings, it was a wonder he could fly at all. So, where would they go? Did Crucible have the eggs? Or did Linsha? Was Linsha in this wagon his trackers were following? Were the eggs? And where was the text Afec had stolen?

He pounded a fist on his table. He did not know the answers. He needed more information!

He heard a loud commotion outside his tent and rose to his feet to quell the noise. Before he could leave the tent, his second dekegul threw back the tent flap and saluted. “Akkad-Dar, the trackers have brought in a centaur.”

Perhaps the answer to a prayer, Lanther thought. He breathed a silent word of gratitude to his goddess and strode out of the tent. He found three of his scouts surrounding a bound and angry centaur. Two more stood back with crossbows aimed at the stallion’s back. The horseman was a light bay who had the looks of an escaped slave. He was thin, haggard, dirty, and had a wound on his flank that had been broken open again in the scuffle with the guards. It bled heavily down his leg. He glared ferociously at the Akkad-Dar, but Lanther was pleased to see a tremble in the centaur’s hands and a nervous step in his hooves.

“Akkad-Dar, we found this one watching the camp,” one of the scouts reported. “He will not speak to us.”

Lanther crossed his arms and studied the centaur. His arms had been tied and his legs hobbled, but he was not gagged. “Were you with the traitor, Linsha Majere?” he asked. “Where are they taking the eggs?”

The centaur did not answer.

“We have been following a trail out of the Missing City that includes a wagon and a number of horses and centaurs. This group split off near the city, and the larger group went west.” Lanther’s voice turned sharper and came out hard and demanding. “Now they have turned northwest and are going… where?”

The centaur panted in fear. His eyes shifted left and right, and still he said nothing.

“All right,” Lanther said. He flexed his fingers and nodded to the guards. They swarmed over the helpless centaur and slammed him to the ground. Stunned and gasping, the centaur stared up at the Akkad-Dar in growing terror. Lanther stepped to the centaur’s front and clamped his hand over the horseman’s face.

All was quiet for a short time until the silence was shattered by the centaur’s agonized scream. The centaur twitched and writhed under Lanther’s hand. His legs jerked in violent spasms. Patches of sweat darkened his bay hide. He screamed again, then abruptly he fell silent. His body trembled then subsided to stillness. His breathing stopped.

Lanther stepped back, satisfied. He glared distastefully at the corpse and indicated that the guards should haul it away.

The dekegul beside him bowed expectantly. “My lord?”

Lanther stared into the darkness of the Plains night. “The eggs are not in the wagon. The dragon took them. The wagon is a lure.” He thought for a few more minutes while his officer and the remaining guards waited in silence. “We will go after the eggs and make the rabble come to us.” He turned on his heel and returned to his tent.

Flashfire. The name played in his mind. He had seen that somewhere on one of his maps. His hands flew over the stiff parchments and old hides. It was there, somewhere. And then he had it—an old peak, a dormant volcano. Of course! He would take his army there and make the Plains rabble come to him. The dragon would be a fearsome defender, of course, but Lanther had several weapons to deal with him. Linsha would come, too, and when the battle was over and the eggs were in his possession again, he would have his wedding night and his revenge. She would live just long enough to bear his son, the child of prophecy, the Amarrel.

And… perhaps he would let her see him take possession of the hatchlings so she would know that she had failed completely. Yes, that would be the best.

One more day to go. In one more day of hard travel, if the wagon did not break a wheel, or a horse did not go lame, or the food held out. If everyone could keep going for just one more day…

Linsha looked at her companions and knew they could not go much farther. They had endured weeks of forced labor, starvation, and miserable conditions only to be freed unexpectedly and encouraged to trek across the open plains in wet, cold weather with inadequate food and not even a fire at night to dry their clothes. The two wounded men were holding on, but just barely, and the rest of the troop was exhausted and worn and hungry. The only thing that kept them going was the hope that tomorrow would bring them to the butte and the camp of Falaius’s army. Then, hopefully, they would have a day or two to rest before the Tarmaks arrived.

Linsha glanced back at Callista, who gave her a wan smile. The courtesan was as exhausted as everyone else, for she spent most of her time caring for the wounded men—and lately, for Sir Hugh. The young knight’s cold had turned nasty and left him with a racking cough and a fever. He sat with Linsha sometimes while she drove the wagon, but much of the time he sat in the back with Callista and coughed. Linsha hoped Danian had traveled with Wanderer’s tribe and would be with the army. The healer would certainly have some medicines for such a bad cough.

A shout drew her attention to a faint sound coming behind them. She twisted in the seat and realized the sound was hoofbeats. Someone was coming up fast on the trail behind. The men and centaurs wheeled around and drew weapons while Linsha reined her team to a halt. Sir Hugh climbed up beside her, and they waited in tense expectation.

A form appeared on the far hill and came galloping toward them, waving and shouting. The centaurs relaxed.

“It is Menneferen!” one of the horsemen called to Linsha.

The roan centaur skidded to a halt by the wagon. His coat was muddy and damp, and his sides were heaving for air. “The Tarmaks,” he gasped between breaths. “Didn’t take the bait. They’re not… following the wagon.”

Linsha spat a curse and slammed her fist on the wagon seat. “Where are they?” she cried.

Menneferen took several more deep breaths and replied, “Crucible sent me to tell you. The Tarmaks are marching toward the river in the direction of the volcano.”

Linsha threw up her hands, feeling angry and frustrated. “How did they find out?”

“Crucible thinks they may have captured someone and learned the truth that way.”

The other centaurs exchanged glances. There was only one other scout away from the troop that knew where they were going, and they had not seen him in two and a half days.

“So Crucible knows,” Sir Hugh said. “Where is he?”

“He is going to Falaius to warn him. They must move the army south.”

A wordless groan drifted around the listeners. Their hope of finding rest and food the next day dwindled to nothing.

“And what are we to do?” Linsha demanded. She knew what she wanted to do, but she had volunteered to stay with this band, and she would not abandon them now.

“Crucible said, if you can make it, go to the volcano and wait for him. It is about thirty-five miles from here.”

Thirty-five miles. At the rate they were going, it would take two days—maybe a day and a half if they really pushed.

“Is this volcano warm and dry?” Sir Hugh asked, with the barest twinkle in his eyes.

“Crucible made the nest inside,” Linsha replied for everyone to hear. “It is warm as baked bread and as dry as the desert.”

There was a subtle shift in posture and expression among the whole group. The members of the little company looked at one another and shrugged. Thirty-five miles was nothing when they had already come so far. They could make that final push, especially if there was a warm, dry cave at the other end.

Since there was no longer a need for subterfuge, they shoved the rocks out of the wagon and turned southwest. Menneferen took the lead to find the best path for the wagon. Fortunately, the ground in this area was mostly grassland on gently rolling hills. The way was not difficult, just long and tedious.

Yet they had to hurry. They had to find the volcano before the Tarmaks reached it. If need be, Linsha decided, she and Crucible would move the eggs again to keep them out of Lanther’s grasp. They just had to get there first.