The Legend of Asahiel: Book 03 - The Divine Talisman (22 page)

“The king will be notified of your request,” the toifeam assured them, while Yellowbeard slid an iron linchpin into place. “Make yourselves comfortable.”

Even seated, the Entient had to bow his head to prevent it from knocking against the bars. A minor annoyance. He had been forced to stoop or crawl throughout much of this trek, and could bear such petty torments with ease. He felt worse for Crag, who he knew had not come all this way to suffer such indignities.

“I had hoped for a warmer welcome,” the Entient offered in apology.

Crag said nothing for a moment, then replied, “Best I’ve had in years.”

They did not converse after that. What words that needed to be shared had passed between them during the long hours prior to their capture. Htomah had not for a moment fooled Crag into believing he had revealed all there was to know, but the dwarf seemed to understand the futility of pressing him for any knowledge he had not readily volunteered. Likewise, the Entient was not fooled by Crag’s stoic response to the tale of Torin’s confrontation with Darinor and subsequent death due to the smoke he had breathed in that fiery smelter. The Tuthari was clearly driven by a strong sense of duty, and troubled by the thought of a debt he would never get a chance to repay. Htomah had argued that the dwarf had already done much more for Torin than Torin had done for him, but, for Crag, that did not seem enough.

Soon after their sentries had left, Hrothgari milling about the area had come to look down on them, shaking their heads and murmuring and casting looks meant to arouse shame. Suitable punishment, Htomah supposed, for most who found themselves cast hither. But in this case, their dour judgment felt misdirected and undeserved.

Though it might be said he deserved worse.

He did his best to be patient, to respect the wishes of those who had placed him here and await their coming. It would have been much easier, in some respects, to throw aside the lid to their prison and take the king’s audience by force. But it would not be by force that he might win the allegiance of an entire people. As the nameless toifeam had suggested, he first had to win their trust.

But his patience waned quickly as one hour and then another slipped by, with naught to do but listen for the distant drip of Achthium’s Spear as it marked the passing moments. And with each drip, he heard in his mind the screams of another soul lost to Illysp possession. Like a shepherd sitting upon his staff while wolves butchered his flock.

The faces above came and went. Though he kept his head bowed and his eyes low, Htomah sensed the onlookers for who they were: curio-seekers of little import. If any of influence had learned of his imprisonment, they had yet to show themselves.

He had begun to contemplate a transposition, which would allow him to take temporary control of one of his viewers and thus discreetly check on whatever progress the king might be making, when he detected the coming of a sizable company, swift and direct in its approach. With a twitch of his fingers, he cast an invisible jolt through Crag’s flesh, nudging the snoring Tuthari from a restless slumber. As the dwarf regained his bearings, the crowds above continued to shuffle and part, making way for what Htomah believed to be the king’s envoy.

He was not disappointed. When a pair of well-armed warders had cleared aside the last of the random observers, the Entient’s upturned gaze was met by that of Warder General Vashen herself—primary commander of the Hrothgari military and first defender of Ungarveld.

At long last, an auspicious sign.

He matched her stare while waiting for her to speak. The warder general’s cheeks were smooth and hairless, though a long beard of forked braids decorated her chin. Its strands were soft and silken, as opposed to the scouring mesh that clung to the males’ faces like brambleweed. A signature collection of knobs and spurs grew upon her brow and elsewhere upon her hearty limbs. Her scarred lips formed a ragged frown.

Her gaze turned toward Crag, who held his breath in response to her appearance, then settled again upon Htomah.

“Your sire’s name—”

“Aethelred.” Htomah had anticipated the question, thus answering before it could be fully asked.

Vashen scowled at him over a pair of blue eyes almost as bright as his own. “King Hreidmar would speak with you.”

Moments later, they were free from their pen and on the move once more, encircled by warders as they made their way through the lower city. They drew quite a lot of notice this time. Their escort was a score in number, bristling with weapons and echoing a heavy, rhythmic march. But then, there was little need for discretion when the whispers had already traveled the length and breadth of all but the farthest reaches of Ungarveld. Hreidmar and his general were making it clear that the intruders were being dealt with.

Their snaking route brought them eventually to the King’s Warren. A series of curving passages carried them upward through the rock and emptied at last within an openmouthed audience chamber overlooking the city’s main cavern. Here, they were left to wait yet again, bound still, while General Vashen stumped off down another corridor, leaving more than half of her patrol to stand guard.

This time, the wait proved brief. Crag had only barely taken a seat upon one of the encircling stone benches when another dwarven company approached. One of the warder sentries ordered the Tuthari to rise, which he did just before General Vashen, a dozen fresh guard units, and King Hreidmar himself crossed the chamber threshold.

“Be seated,” the Hrothgari king bade them, peering up at Htomah from within his ring of warders, “else I’m likely to crick my neck, staring up so high.”

The Entient accommodated the gnarled ruler, settling beside Crag upon an elaborately sculpted bench—bathed like everything else in that blue-tinged mineral glow. Lights from the cavern beyond shone through the terrace opening like crystalline stars.

Hreidmar pushed through his throng of guards to stand boldly before the pair. Warder General Vashen remained at his shoulder, glaring in warning.

“You carry a dwarven name, bairn of Aethelred,” the king remarked, his focus still locked on Htomah.

The Entient bowed in acknowledgment. Even seated, he was more than
a head taller than the Hrothgari monarch. “In honor of the dwarf who defended my mother’s life, enabling me to be born safely into this world.”

The king raised a bushy brow, though he did not ask to hear the story. “I thought it a lie, perhaps, meant to curry favor.”

“Trust won by lies is no trust at all.”

Hreidmar pulled at a bejeweled beard striped red and black. “Then tell me true, what reason have you to sully our halls?”

“I am he who helped unleash the skatchykem upon your proud people. I am here now to liberate you from my foolishness, and that of man above.”

Vashen continued to scowl. The king himself betrayed more amusement than concern.

“So let us hear it.”

As he had with Crag, Htomah proceeded to tell the Hrothgari king all he needed to know concerning the Illysp, beginning with the Entients’ role in the quest that had resulted in their release. He spoke of Darinor, and the way in which this scion of the renegade Algorath had played them all for fools. He spoke also of Torin’s final stand—what the Alsonian king had won, and what he had lost. He told them of his own sacrifice in leaving Whitlock, and of the sacrifice he had come to ask the Hrothgari people to make—a sacrifice not without reward, he pointed out, emphasizing his ultimate goal of returning their kind to the surface. Hreidmar seized upon the notion.

“What you speak of is something my kin have dreamt about for centuries,” the king allowed when at last he chose to respond. “We have done what we had to do to subsist down here, but why should we be deprived of sun and sky? Why should we be forced to root around like gnomes in the dark, feeding upon trogs and skitters and other burrowing creatures? Alas, our entire populace would not fill even one of man’s cities. We survive largely because he no longer believes we exist.”

“The Illysp know better,” the Entient reminded him.

“Quite so, and yet have paid us little heed, if the story you tell be true. Leaving me to wonder if mayhap this plague you speak of is in answer to our prayers. Unleashed by man, you say. Well, let it consume him, or at the very least bugger his numbers, to give us a fair chance to emerge once more.”

Htomah shook his head. “A grave misjudgment that would be. For this plague does not consume, but strengthen, making man the very essence of his most primal urges. Nor do his numbers dwindle, for every man fallen does rise again, along with countless more already interred in the earth. If you would emerge, you must do so now, to fight alongside those not yet poisoned. Wait, and it will find you—an unimaginable swarm, possessed of a single-minded cruelty you cannot fathom.”

The king chewed upon that for a moment, then turned to Crag. “And what is
your
story?”

“The one ya seem to fear,” the Tuthari admitted, clearing his throat.

“Name is Craggenbrun, bairn of Ragglesband. I’ve seen man’s cruelty up
close, and ain’t likely to forget it. Stick your neck out now, and there’s a fine chance he’ll lop it off.”

Hreidmar glanced at Htomah with fresh amusement. If the Entient had brought Crag along in an effort to win sympathy or support, he had misjudged the Tuthari grossly. In that moment, Htomah was thinking much the same, but did his best not to look surprised or betrayed.

“When war broke between our races,” Crag continued, “we stood our ground long as we could. When forced to flee, his armies chased us down. Wasn’t enough that we were beaten. He viewed our kind as vermin to be eradicated. To my knowledge, I’m the last what got away. Been in hiding ever since, alone mostly, and among those smart enough to secret themselves away at the first.”

Htomah resisted the urge to silence the dwarf. He realized Crag had made no promises, and he in turn had demanded none. Even so, he had not expected such outright opposition.

“Then you carry different counsel than your friend here,” Hreidmar observed.

Crag shrugged. “Ain’t my place to tell your folk how to live, and only barely my concern. I sailed with Torin to this land in hopes of finding a people to dwell among. But that was before I understood just how bad things were. Way I see it, ain’t much hope for the lot of ya. I’m thinking now it’d be wiser of me to make my own way.”

“You don’t think we can defend ourselves?” the king asked with a frown.

“Against this threat? No more’n my own stood against theirs.”

“But you said—”

“I said ya stick your neck out, might be it gets lopped. But it might also be that man’s willing to accept whatever aid is offered. Seems to me, quick death with a chance at life—a life ya claim ya want—is better than a slow, certain death, which is what ya face here.”

Again Htomah had to fight to keep his expression neutral. This time, however, it was his pleasure he sought to hide from a suddenly disgruntled king.

“You’ve a rather loose tongue, Craggenbrun, and speak less fact than judgments that may or may not have been fed to you by this one.”

“Little to gain and less to lose,” the Tuthari huffed. “Mayhap I’m wrong, and your forces can weather this scourge.” His eyes flicked to Vashen, then back to her king. “But I’ve had near twenty years to reflect on the mistakes my people made, and the biggest is the one I see your own about to repeat.”

Hreidmar stroked his beard. “Oh? And what would that be?”

“Refusing allies. Trying to subsist on your own. Do that, as we did, and—in my
judgment
—the mighty Hrothgari will share the Tuthari’s fate.”

T
HE SENTRIES AT THE EDGE
of camp peered at him as if he were an apparition born of the swirling mists. Corathel smiled at their shock. That he might already be a ghost was something even he would have to consider. For he could think of no surer way to explain his unlikely string of narrow escapes.

He continued forward, overcome with relief, anxious to learn how many more had come to rendezvous.

Then the guardsmen caught sight of those who accompanied him, flexing their bows in response. The chief general froze, raising his hands.

“Hold!”

It was all he could manage before one of the arrows was loosed, directly toward the Mookla’ayan chieftain—he of the crown of stakes embedded in his skull.

Swifter than thought, one of the flanking elves snapped forward, catching the arrow by its shaft. Mercifully so, for instead of dodging, the chieftain had puffed up as if to shield his trailing clansmen. He held himself that way now, with the arrow’s tip not but a finger’s breadth from his tattooed cheek.

Corathel might have sighed in relief, but scarcely had time to blink before the response he feared was unleashed.

In a bounding swarm, a dozen Mookla’ayans lunged forward, weaving from side to side to engage the startled sentries from all directions. The bowman who had not yet fired his arrow did so now, only to gape as it went sailing harmlessly into the night-cloaked forest. The other drew his knife with a sharp, sudden rasp. Just as suddenly, it was torn from his grip, following a wild slash. In the next heartbeat, both soldiers were on the ground, limbs twisted painfully behind them, with half-moon blades held against their necks.

“No! Stop!” Corathel was finally able to shout. He turned toward the chieftain, the one his men had taken to calling “Owl.” The elf clicked and gestured. Grudgingly, his savages relaxed their holds.

Corathel hastened forward, flanked by men of his own. One of the Parthan sentries looked at him with confused gratitude. In the other’s eyes, he saw only horror and mistrust.

“At ease, soldiers. It is I, your chief general.” He pulled up his sleeve, offering them his pulse. But neither could take his eyes off of the towering chieftain who strolled up beside him. “Ceilhigh be praised,” he added with a sigh, “but these are our friends.”

R
ATHER THAN RISK A REPEAT
of hostilities throughout the encampment, the chief general sent the more accepting of the two sentries to fetch Lieutenant General Jasyn to him. He demanded of the remaining sentry a full report, clenching his jaw as the news was delivered. What remained of the legion had arrived just hours ago. Their numbers were better than he would have anticipated, given the slaughter and chaos that had marked their counterassault at Atharvan. The Second General had done an admirable job marshaling the retreat.

All of which might account for naught. Leaven was already besieged. At best, their count was half that of the enemy, and though other scattered companies could be expected to funnel in, following the markers as he had done, the same might be said of the reavers. No matter how he looked at it, they had not the numbers for another battle upon the plain.

A preliminary assessment, the sentry admitted, reading the chief general’s distress. By now, the lieutenant commanders and their scouts might have better word.

The sentry-turned-herald was gone just long enough to make Corathel wonder if he had deserted when the Second General and his squad came upon the brush-covered hill where the rest of them waited. As Jasyn entered the rugged glen claimed by the chief general for his central command, one of the lieutenant’s personal guard offered to examine Corathel, to verify that he was who he claimed to be.

“No need, Sergeant,” Jasyn replied. “No reaver ever looked so haggard.”

“I was about to say the same of you,” Corathel offered, clasping the other’s arm in greeting. “When was the last time you slept?”

“My days may be numbered. I’m not about to waste what moments I have left in nightmare.”

“Preferable to the waking truth, I should think.”

“In your boots, I can see why,” Jasyn agreed. His gaze shifted to regard the band of wild Mookla’ayans with evident distaste. Most of his squad were already doing the same. “How in the Abyss do you explain them?”

“Would that I could. They came upon us as if in ambush, but were it not for them, we might never have escaped the reavers who hunted us.”

“Allies?”

“It would seem so.”

Jasyn gnawed at the inside of his lip. “Nevertheless, the men have become skittish enough. Would it not be better to send these savages on their own way?”

“I tried, but once we left Atharvan behind, they seemed insistent on following us. And I lacked the men to persuade them otherwise.”

“You have them now. Give the word, and I’ll call for a battalion at once.”

Corathel shook his head. “I care for the sight of them no more than you do. But it would seem a poor show of gratitude. They’ve shielded us more
than once against Illychar attack, else you and I might not be having this conversation.”

The chieftain, seated nearby, looked up as if knowing they were talking about him. Corathel turned away, oddly embarrassed. Jasyn’s expression remained sour.

“What do you suppose they want?” the lieutenant general asked.

“My company lacks a translator, so I can only guess. But Stake-brow there is clearly their leader. I haven’t been able to make out his name—sounds different every time. ‘Hoo-hoo Hen’? ‘Ooo-ooo Wren’? Most of ours call him ‘Owl,’ given his hooting. The rest choose not to refer to him at all. What I
have
heard, more than once amid the rest of his gibberish, is
Jarom
.”

“Torin, Jarom?” Jasyn asked, arching a brow in interest.

Corathel nodded. “Who else? Leads me to wonder if he might not be the one who led our Alsonian friend’s expedition through the ruins of that elven city.”

“You were told of that, were you?”

“That and more, when first Kylac introduced me to Jarom and Allion, back in Leaven. Why?”

“The story you shared with the rest of us made no mention of the savages. I didn’t learn of their involvement until our trek through that forsaken jungle to rescue you.”

Corathel saw no need to apologize. “As I recall, we were fighting swarms of dragonspawn at the time. You’ll forgive me if I neglected a few meaningless details.”

“Not so meaningless, perhaps,” Jasyn said, turning his gaze back to Owl.

“For our purposes here, it is.” He felt his face darken. “The city. How bad is it?”

“No sign of any dragon yet,” Jasyn offered cheerfully. His eyes lifted toward the starlit skies, and Corathel’s reflexively followed. “Other than that, the Queen is as heavily besieged as her King, with reavers crawling up her skirts.”

Queen of the East, Leaven was called, larger and grander than any but Atharvan. But if the King had already fallen…

“Did our divisions make it inside?” Corathel asked.

“The scouts sent near enough to make sure have not yet returned—and I’m doubting now that they will. But my gut tells me Dengyn made it. Maybe Bannon, too. Otherwise, she’d have already fallen.”

“You’ve sent riders on to Laulk?”

“Awaiting word. The one we have now, however, is that the passes are already filled with Illychar.”

Which meant that there would be no quick escape as had been attempted at Atharvan. Leaven’s only bolt-holes led through the mountains to Laulk—likewise the reverse. Either both cities were surrounded, or General Bannon had managed to escort Laulk’s citizenry east to Leaven as commanded. Whichever, the Queen, if not her sister, stood now upon an island, and with no way to stem the rising tide, could only pray for the waves to be diverted.

“Whatever her defenders,” Jasyn continued, “be they one division or two—or merely her own garrison—they fly the red.”

Of course they did. Every city in Pentania, it now seemed, was begging reinforcement—those that hadn’t already succumbed. And it had fallen to him, with but the dregs of his once-mighty legion, to answer them all.

He looked around his temporary campsite, here among the shadowed slopes and ravines of the lower Whistlecrags. He had gathered barely a hundred men in his flight from Atharvan. Half or more of those were savages he’d been taught since birth to regard with only contempt and loathing. Of the roughly thirty thousand he had marched into battle only a week ago, less than a quarter had gathered here, to hide amid rock and crag and tree lest their enemy sniff them out.

While every day, every hour, his opponent grew stronger.

“General?”

The task before him was impossible. The wisest course would be to take those who followed him now and continue on to Kuuria, hoping the horror that had claimed his lands had not yet devoured theirs.

His gaze found Owl’s, depthless, implacable. It reminded him of his father’s. Suddenly, in the back of his mind, he could almost hear the man’s voice.

How do you climb a mountain?

A favorite phrase, used whenever Corathel had complained of an insurmountable challenge. His own, trained response echoed automatically.
One stride at a time.

“Sir?”

“Maltyk and Lar, I’m told they are here?”

“Nicked and bruised, but as capable as ever,” Jasyn assured him.

“Send for them at once. I have a plan, but we must execute it before dawn.”

It was a lie, of course. He had no plan, only cold hard truths. Still, he knew they must be met head-on, and there were only so many ways to do so.

While Jasyn’s runners fetched the others, Corathel received a more detailed account of the size and condition of their forces. It was not much to work with, but it would have to suffice. Their numbers might be minuscule compared to those of their enemy, but they were too large to avoid detection for long. Whatever they chose to do, they could not remain here.

By the time Third General Maltyk and Fourth General Lar had joined them, Corathel knew what course they must take, and set the idea forth quickly.

“We can do our people little good from out here,” he stated bluntly.

“Atharvan showed us that. If we mean to make a better showing than we did there, we must do so from within the walls, where at the very least we might rest and regroup.” He waited for one or more to raise protest, but none did. Their silence spoke volumes. “You say the bulk of the enemy assails the main gate?”

Jasyn nodded grimly. “And to a lesser extent, the western road.”

“Leaving the southern portal mostly clear.”

“By comparison.”

“Then our strategy seems plain. A diversion out front, to draw their attention to the east. If this swarm responds as did the one at Atharvan, its members will forsake the walls to hunt those on open ground. Move swift and quiet, and the bulk of the legion just may find time enough to win entrance through the south while the enemy is occupied.”

“What of the diversion force?” Maltyk asked.

“Mounted, of course. As the main force reaches the portal, I want a full-bodied wedge planted against the wall, pointed southward and split down the middle to form a safety corridor for those funneling after. The diversion force will buy as much time as it can, then race around to the south, to follow the rest of our troops. The shield lines formed by the wedge will deflect the reavers giving chase, and allow our riders inside. Afterward, the shield lines themselves will fall in, in reverse formation—tip first, base last, until all have entered and the portal is closed.”

“And if the shield lines fail?” Lar posed, his voice a quiet rumble.

Corathel eyed him squarely. “I trust you to make sure that doesn’t happen. Thick at the anchor, thin at the tip, to help redirect closing enemies southward, away from the portal. Should you find yourself unable to build the wedge, or if you find its echelons failing too soon, get as many as you can inside, and close the gate. Forget the cavalry unit, if you must. The gate is your first priority. Better that my company should perish than the entire city be breached.”

“
Your
company?” Jasyn noted.

“You didn’t think I’d let
you
lead it, did you?” the chief general replied, forcing a reckless smile.

Jasyn shook his head. “It’s a long ride from the main gate to the southern portal—at night over rugged terrain. Should you stumble, or the reavers to the south hold their position rather than be sucked out to the east, you’ll be finished.”

“Perhaps, though we might argue all night about which group faces the greatest danger. Is it the diversion force, or those first to the portal? Those at the southern tip of the wedge, few and easily blunted; or those at its base, who must hold the longest and will be the last to find safety within the walls?”

The Second General stroked his normally smooth chin, fingers scraping against the dark stumps of hair that had sprouted across his face.

“At least I’ll be on horseback,” Corathel pointed out, “with a better chance of escaping into the night, should it come to that.”

“You can hope,” Maltyk muttered darkly. “The animals brought with us have eaten and rested no more than the men.”

A desperate maneuver, without question. But it was all the chief general could think of. Were they thrice the number and half as ragged, little or nothing would have changed.

“Hope is for those whose fate lies in another’s hands. As of yet, I control my own. All else are but risks I choose to accept.”

“Assuming this works,” Lar interjected, “and we manage to reinforce those within, how do you propose we get back out?”

Corathel shook his head. “We’ll bridge that river when we come to it. Agreed?”

They did, and no more complaints were uttered. Instead, their discussion shifted to focus on logistics, assignments, and other details. Very little breath was wasted on safeguards and contingency plans, none of which truly mattered. Should they fail, those strong enough to run would do so. The rest would be without further concerns.

The Nightingale’s Hour was upon them by the time all of relevance had been settled.