Black Wizards (56 page)

“I-I’m going back there—back there!” Yazilliclick announced suddenly. He sat on the grassy bank of a placid stream and looked up at Newt.

“Back where?” asked the faerie dragon lazily. He lounged upon a tree limb that hung over the clear water.

Newt was bored.

“Come with me, Newt! Let’s find Robyn—Find Robyn!”

“Find Robyn? That would be fun! Let’s go!”

They drifted along through the vast forest, meandering slowly toward Doncastle. It was a full day later before they got close enough to tell that something was wrong.

“S-smoke?” asked the sprite.

“It sure smells, too! I bet Robyn didn’t like that much—a big fire
stinking up the whole woods! Too bad we couldn’t have seen her—”

Newt stopped in shock as they emerged from the trees.

“W-where’s the town?” gasped Yazilliclick. “Where’s Robyn—Robyn?”

The whole expanse before them was a blackened wasteland of ash and soot. Tendrils of smoke rose from several piles of charred wood. The Swanmay River, winding placidly through the midst of the desolation, was full of scorched garbage and bodies.

“Come on!” cried Newt. “We’ve got to find her! I bet she’s in big trouble somewhere!”

The two faeries raced with remarkable purpose across the wasteland and into the forest. They didn’t know where Robyn had gone, but they would look everywhere if they had to. For another day they buzzed hurriedly, discovering pockets of refugees from Doncastle and companies of the Scarlet Guard. But they found no sign of the druid or her friends.

Finally, they reached the western edge of the forest. Before them rolled a belt of green moor, and they could see the gray waves of the Sea of Moonshae beyond.

“We must have missed her—missed her! We have to go back and try again!” wailed the wood sprite.

“Wait!” said Newt, looking carefully at the moor before them. “What’s that?” Before Yazilliclick could answer, the dragon darted from the trees toward the objects that were attracting his eye. Newt blinked into invisibility, and the sprite did the same as he reluctantly followed.

They soon saw that these were creatures, but not the humans they were searching for. Yazilliclick wanted to turn back to the woods, but Newt kept going. “They look familiar—I know, they’re dwarves! I know lots of dwarves—they’re kind of sourpusses, but they can be fun!”

The dejected sprite trailed along as Newt landed in front of the marching column. The dragon suddenly became visible, drawing a startled curse from the leading dwarf.

“Hi, Finellen!” he chirped. “It’s me, Newt! Say, have you seen Robyn anywhere?”

The band of rebels grew as it moved southwestward through the forest. They encountered many small groups of stragglers, and these willingly fell in with them when they saw the size of the large group. Robyn continued to open the path for them through the forest, and they traveled far more quickly than their pursuers.

Tristan overheard some of the men who had joined them at Hickorydale recounting the tale of Robyn’s fire spell. The story grew grander each time, until according to the teller, an entire brigade of ogres had been routed.

It pleased him to hear these boastful stories, and it made the men feel better as well. The morale of the entire group increased with each step and each new band of recruits.

But finally they reached the edge of the forest, having been driven nearly to the coast by the knowledge that the Scarlet Guard was in pursuit. Tristan ordered a rest break, and the men collapsed on the grassy moor, still exchanging boasts. He saw that many of the men were unarmed, and he put them to work cutting and sharpening stakes. The makeshift spears would have to do.

“They look steadier already,” remarked Robyn.

“Yes. If we can avoid the king’s army for a few more days, I think we’ll have an army of our own!” said Tristan. “We’ll rest here for an hour and then move on—that’s our best chance to pick up more recruits.”

“You may not even have to do that—look!” The druid pointed to the south, along the coast.

The ragged band of men trudging wearily toward them were obviously also men of Doncastle—several hundred of them. As they drew closer, Tristan recognized two of the men in the lead.

“O’Roarke and Pontswain,” he said quietly.

Robyn and Fiona joined him as he walked purposefully toward the approaching band. The bandit leader stopped to wait for them, and his men flopped wearily on the grass.

“Prince of Corwell,” said the outlaw, eyeing Tristan with barely concealed hostility. “I see you have gathered some of my men together.”

“They are yours no longer, my lord Roarke,” Tristan responded evenly. “You lost the right to command them when you led them to disaster in Doncastle. You were indeed the lord of that town, but that
town no longer exists. If you wish, we shall ask them who they desire to follow—I am confident it will be me!”

“So you failed to usurp the king, and now you would take my men instead?”

“Don’t be such a pompous fool!” snapped Fiona, stepping before the prince to glare at O’Roarke. “He has done more to strike at the king in a week than you have done in your entire life! Now you
must
help him—it’s your only chance to make my father’s sacrifice mean something!”

“How dare you—” Hugh choked with rage.

“How dare you pretend you are the man to lead them!” barked the prince. “Your stubbornness cost the lives of hundreds of their companions. Your refusal to look at the battle rationally doomed your entire town to burning!”

The prince’s words cut into Hugh O’Roarke like a knife. He had carried the guilty knowledge with him since the battle, but no one had dared to throw it so bluntly in his face.

“There is hope of victory yet,” urged Tristan. “You and your men can join with me. You can avenge the defeat, stand up to the Scarlet Guard! We will unite and give battle!”

A spark of O’Roarke’s old spirit flashed in his eyes, and he looked from his band of exhausted stragglers to Tristan’s group, industriously carving spears.

“Let me lead us all to victory,” said the prince quietly.

Hugh O’Roarke drew his sword in a swift motion, then knelt and offered the hilt of his weapon to the prince. Tristan took the blade in gratitude and relief. “Rise, my lord, and join us!”

A cheer arose from both groups as O’Roarke’s men stood and marched quickly to Tristan’s. The small force now numbered over five hundred men.

“Pontswain?” Tristan turned back to the lord, who had stood sullenly during his conversation with O’Roarke. “Will you, too, cast your lot with us?”

“You have no hope—none at all,” said the lord, looking in despair at the ragged band. “I will fight and die here now, for I have no choice!

“But know this, my prince! Our deaths—yours and mine—mean the death of hope for Corwell. You have chosen to fight your battle
here in Callidyrr. It is my own folly that my fight is tied to yours—for now our own kingdom is bereft of leadership!” Pontswain stalked past him toward the gathering of men.

“He’s wrong,” said Robyn quietly. “There is a strength in these men that you can harness. We can prevail!”

“You’re right. I’m beginning to feel that it
is
possible, that maybe we can win. If we can have just a few more days to grow and get a little rest, we’ll have an army that can stand up to the Scarlet Guard and thrash it!”

After a two-hour rest, they resumed the march, traveling between the forest and the sea. The coastline here was a low bluff that rolled down a grassy slope to the shore. The beach itself was lined with coarse gravel.

They encountered more groups of stragglers along the shore, and all of these joined their ranks. Finally, in their march to the south, they came over a rise and saw a small fishing town spread before them—Cantrev Codfin, according to one of the soldiers.

There were no signs of activity around the village.

“Stay here, with the men,” Tristan said to Daryth and O’Roarke. “I want to have a look at this.”

“Take some of the men with you,” urged O’Roarke.

“We will be safe,” Robyn said. “The danger is past here.”

Tristan and Robyn walked down the gentle hill into the village. From a distance, they had seen few details, but as they moved closer they entered a scene of grim horror. In the village, sprawled grotesquely, were a hundred or more bodies, Torn and mutilated Ffolk lay motionless in their cottages and yards. There was no living thing left in the village. Humans, dogs, chickens—everything had been slain by those tearing claws.

“What could have done this?” asked Robyn, her face ashen. “Not the ogres. They wouldn’t tear the bodies like this, and they would have burned the place to the ground.

“Not even the sorcerers would do this!” Robyn whispered. She was certain, in some mysterious way, that this attack was part of a larger scheme.

“But what—or who—would do this?”

“I don’t know,” said the druid, but she pointed to the ground in a
soft patch of wet sand. Many prints of feet that were both webbed and clawed crossed the patch. The feet looked familiar to the prince, and he remembered where he had seen them before.

“The sahuagin have come from the sea.”

“What’s a scatterbrained faerie dragon doing here?” growled Finellen, in no mood for idle chatter.

“Why, looking for Robyn, of course! I should think that would be obvious, even to a dwarf! But what are you doing here? Now that’s a good question!”

Finellen was too tired and discouraged to argue. “We flee one battlefield, and look for another—one where we can die with honor.”

“Well, that seems like a silly plan. I mean, like you plan to lose the battle or something! Now, wouldn’t it be much better to find Robyn and Tristan and do something fun?”

“What do you know of the Prince of Corwell?” demanded the dwarf. “Quickly, Wyrm, speak!”

“Well, I certainly am not in the mood to talk to someone who speaks to me like that! Wyrm, indeed! Why, if you weren’t a friend of my friends, I would use a spell on you that would—”

“Tell me!” growled Finellen in a voice that even Newt could not ignore. Yazilliclick, invisible some distance away, actually feared for the little dragon’s life.

“Well, it started when we went back to Doncastle.…”

By the following evening, Tristan estimated his fledging army’s strength at nearly a thousand men. At the same time, reports of more vigorous pursuit by the king’s army came to them through stragglers. That afternoon, they were discovered by crimson-coated horsemen. The riders shadowed them for the rest of the day, and the prince knew that it wouldn’t be long before the entire army gathered for the attack.

Indeed, as they came over a hill just before sunset, they saw a full brigade of the Scarlet Guard’s human mercenaries. These spearmen
and swordsmen stood shoulder to shoulder, facing north.

“Damn!” Tristan, in the lead of his force, stopped.

“That’s not all,” said O’Roarke, stepping to his side. The bandit lord had been cooperative and forceful in getting his troops to march beside the prince, and Tristan had been grateful for his presence. “There, to the north!”

Looking behind them, the prince saw more red-cloaked figures emerging from the forest. These were huge, rumbling shapes—the ogres!