Lord of the Rose (56 page)

Through the long, dry morning the throng made its way across the bridge in steady ranks, paced by Captain Marckus’s steady voice and confident air. Jaymes and his diminishing company held the line against constant attacks. The goblins found renewed energy when they sensed the survivors were on the verge of escape.

For two hours the men of Solamnia fought a pitched battle at the north end of the long bridge. Jaymes commanded the soldiers
at the rear, as Marckus moved others across the span as quickly as possible. Archers in the bridge towers added to the defense, and Ankhar’s troops were not able to rupture the determined front.

Finally, the rear guard was the last unit, standing in a tiny knot between the towers at the northern end. Leaving the ground littered with their dead, the pursuing goblins had fallen back slightly beyond the reach of the deadly crossbows on the bridge towers.

They waited as though to see what these last humans would do next. No need to fight and die in such close quarters, after all.

“Let us face the enemy here, men,” Jaymes announced. “Stand shoulder to shoulder, and don’t let them onto the bridge.”

“How long must we hold out?” asked a young, wounded soldier plaintively. He looked with longing at the south shore, a quarter mile away.

“As long as it takes,” Jaymes said, trying not to let his anxiety show as he glanced around. Where was Coryn? Would she find Dram and bring him back in time to help?

“Just have faith, lad,” said Captain Marckus, who had come back to stand with the rear guard. “Your officers won’t let any more harm come to you.”

Not half a mile away, the ground was black with the gathering mass of Ankhar’s army. “If they cross the bridge, there’s nothing to stop them between here and Caergoth,” the veteran captain muttered quietly.

“I know. I might have a plan, but I’m waiting for a wizard to get here and help out.”

As they set up positions, Jaymes dismounted, sending his horse across to the other side of the bridge with a couple of wounded men lashed to the saddle. The first rank of the enemy, a line of huge hobgoblins, rushed forward with a roar.

The warrior drew the sword of Lorimar and twisted the hilt in his hands. Immediately bright blue fire erupted along the keen edge. In the face of those flames, the hobgoblins faltered.

In a flash of white smoke Coryn was there beside him. With her arrived Dram Feldspar and the two gnomes of Dungarden. They bore four stout casks.

Growling and pointing, the goblins balked again at the sudden display of magic. Soon they would deploy archers, Jaymes guessed. He gave instructions to the newcomers. Glancing at the goblins, they saw the urgency.

“So, I should have guessed. Is this your wizard?” asked Marckus, regarding the enchantress, the dwarf, and the gnomes. “Hello, Lady Coryn,” he said, with a formal little bow.

“Hello Marckus,” she replied. “You look spent.”

“Just doing my job,” he said. “I had help—from your friend, here.”

“Yeah, yeah. Will one of you help me put these under the bridge?” Dram cut in. “One at each of the four northern supports.”

Several knights helped lower the dwarf, supported by ropes, until he could crawl along the pillar that supported the marble slabs of the bridge. He lodged the first cask in place, then crawled out, trailing a piece of string that, he explained to Jaymes, was a refined version of their earlier fuses. “Leave it be for now,” the dwarf counseled.

In short order, the rest of the casks were placed underneath the span, with the shortest fuse at the south end, increasingly longer lines toward the north. With the touch of matches, the long fuses were fired. Immediately they started to sputter and flame.

“Run!” cried Jaymes, ordering the rest of his men away. Seeing the fire dance along the fuses, they needed little urging to sprint for the south bank. Dram and the gnomes followed.

Jaymes brought up the rear, but as soon as the humans started to flee, goblins and draconians surged onto the bridge, howling. A great, painted hobgoblin led the way, waving a studded mace. The span vibrated under the pounding of hundreds of boots.

That first hob disappeared as a towering explosion lifted a whole section of the bridge into the air. Smoke and fire billowed skyward, soaring up hundreds of feet, sending shards of white marble cascading down into the Garnet River.

The subsequent explosions came in staggered sequence. Each one of the four casks of powder blasted out another portion of the bridge, and with each section a score or more of enemy warriors were blown to pieces, or hurled through the air and into the river. Many goblins were trapped on standing parts of the bridge or pinned under wreckage. Without their connecting supports, the last parts of the bridge swayed and, one by one, toppled into the river.

When the last blast had sounded, and the smoke began to clear away, the King’s Bridge was a ruin. Fully half of its length was gone.

No army would be crossing to the south of the river any time soon.

G
o along bank! Swim! Get after them! Kill them!”

Spittle flew from Ankhar’s jaw as he roared commands at the mass of his troops milling around on the north bank of the Garnet River. His frustration was so great he was trembling. Pacing in agitation, he kicked more than one slow-moving goblin so hard he broke its bones.

The smoke had drifted away by now, revealing huge gaps in the bridge that had stood for more than a dozen centuries. At least four of the vast support pillars were smoking wrecks. He didn’t know how many of his troops had perished in the hellish eruptions, but certainly many hundreds. What kind of terrible magic had these cursed knights used against him? He looked around, wanting to shake an explanation out of Hoarst, but the Thorn Knight was missing.

“Move!” he bellowed, waving his spear at a group of hobgoblins hesitantly probing the marshy bank. Three of them leaped into the water and were carried downstream by the current. Flailing and splashing, they tried to return to the shore, but only one—aided by the clasping hands of his comrades—was able to reach safety. The other two went under and didn’t come up.

“Wait!” The voice came to him as though from a distance,
familiar, but irritating him like a bug that wouldn’t go away. “My son—wait!”

Ankhar heard the cry only after Laka had repeated it many times. He ordered his units to spread out along the bank, to seek a crossing of the Garnet River so he could continue the campaign against the shattered Solamnic Army. Finally the half giant turned to glare down at his foster mother.

“See—bridge gone!” he roared. He gestured to the long, ragged files of weary soldiers on the far bank, shuffling in the direction of Caergoth. “That army beaten—but it getting away! I must destroy!”

His frenzied anger would have driven any other member of his army into panicked retreat, but not his wizened foster-mother. Laka put a frail hand on the half-giant’s great paw, and—though he wanted to brush her away—he could not ignore her insistent touch.

“Listen to prince!” the old she-hob said, shaking the rattle she had made from Duke Rathskell’s head.

The eyes glowed, and the jaw spoke. Ankhar scowled at the talisman but knew that he must listen—he
had
to listen.

“Enough of blood,”
came the hissing commands.

“For now did fall
,

“The river stands

“A fortress wall.”

“But …” He waved his hand at the escaping Solamnic formations.

“Listen to Prince of Lies,” Laka repeated. “To you, he speaks Truth. Remember: Truth!”

The half-giant rubbed his fingers across his eyes, trying to hold back the headache that was starting to throb. He hated this Truth, but he knew that his mother and their dark god must be right.

“One time before you make war without prince’s blessing,” Laka reminded him unnecessarily.

Indeed, Mason’s Ford stuck in his memory like a thorn. On that occasion he had attacked merely because he felt the impulse
to do so. He had ignored his own warriors’ disorganization and fatigue and hurled his troops against a feeble defense that had, nonetheless, inflicted the only defeat Ankhar had suffered. It was a defeat that would have been avoided if he had taken the counsel of Hiddukel and Laka.

“You win so much!” his foster mother reminded him in a whisper, her eyes glowing with pride. “You shatter cities of knighthood! You break their armies. You have surrounded city of Cleft Spires—now you lay siege to it! You not need to drown army in river.”

Ankhar nodded. His agitation melted away.

“You right,” he said. He raised his voice, shouting to his captains—Bloodgutter, Rib Chewer, Dirtborn, Blackgaard, and the rest—who stood nervously nearby, waiting for his orders.

“Stop attack. Camp here. We rest. Enjoy spoils.”

And those spoils, he admitted with some pride, were great. Not just the treasures and provisions they had gained in sacking Garnet, Thelgaard, Luinstat. No … his gains were greater than all that.

“Est Sudanus oth Nikkas.”
He murmured the phrase quietly, looking to the north and relishing the great Truth:

All that vast plain belonged to him.

The city gates stood open, and the few knights still on duty actually flinched away from Jaymes as he rode into Caergoth at full gallop. Everywhere he saw signs of the defeat—wounded men on porches, in alleys, even stableyards. Sergeants-major shouted and cajoled. Shamefaced men—many lacking the weapons they had dropped on the long retreat—took positions on the walls, in the gatehouse. Others marched with lackluster gait but with some semblance of discipline toward the castle or other defense points.

The exhausted men were fearful of pursuit, but Jaymes knew they were safe, for now. Following the destruction of the bridge, the army of Ankhar would be stopped at the Garnet River for a
long time. Dram, Sulfie, and Salty Pete were not far behind him, making their way to the city as fast as their legs could carry them. Coryn had flown to destinations of her own, riding the wings of magic.

Within the city, Jaymes paid little attention to the disorganized army as he guided the horse along the city’s wide central avenue. A great plaza that had been the site of a teeming marketplace was now so empty he could cross it at full speed. The hooves of his horse clattered across the flagstones as, finally, he rode past the Temple of Shinare, with the great golden scales on the doors, and drew up before the gate of Castle Caergoth itself.

The great drawbridge was down, but several guards hurried into position to block his path. Two of them carried long halberds while the third drew his sword and stood firmly in the middle of the wooden span. Jaymes pulled his own weapon and waved it high.

“Get out of my way!” he snarled, sweeping the great weapon in a circle. “I have business with your duke!”

This proved persuasive, and the men cleared out of his path. One shouted a warning across the courtyard as Jaymes continued toward the keep, his horse stumbling and only gradually slowing.