Beyond the High Road (36 page)

The rumble of a tremendous fireball erupted from the keep. Vangerdahast looked back to see a long tongue of flame licking out of the portal. The mud walls were instantly transformed to black marble as high as the second story. He took a small scrap of parchment from his cloak, then rolled it into a small cone and held it to his lips. He whispered a quick incantation and turned toward the survivors of the battle.

“Retreat to the keep!”

Though even he could barely hear his voice over the battle rumble, the remaining dragoneers broke ranks and ran for the keep at their best sprints. Half a dozen fell almost immediately to tendrils of poison fume or curtains of leaping flame. Vangerdahast guessed that half their number, perhaps twenty soldiers, would survive long enough to reach the keep.

The royal magician grabbed the nearest war wizard. “When I enter the keep, you are to take command. Block the breach with an iron wall-not touching it, mind you, but only a hair’s breadth away-then take the survivors and teleport back to Arabel.”

The sorcerer’s relief was obvious. “As you command.”

“What about Alaphondar?” asked Owden. “You haven’t sent up the shooting star.”

Vangerdahast glanced at the carnage around him. “Alaphondar’s safer in his hiding place. We’ll teleport from Arabel and fetch him.”

Vangerdahast returned his attention to the keep, where the last flames of the fireball were just dying out. He pulled a crow feather from his cloak pocket and brushed the vane up and down his body, uttering a low incantation. A warm prickle crept up his arms. He started to feel very light, then his feet left the ground, and he was floating.

As Vangerdahast completed his spell, the first dragoneers staggered in from the shoreline, stinking of brimstone and coughing violently. To a soldier, their faces were swollen and red with insect bites, and many had the glassy-eyed expressions of men ill with the ague. Seeing Vangerdahast floating in the air, one warrior stumbled forward to clutch at his robes.

“Where are you going?” The man’s voice was shrill and unbalanced. “The Royal Excursionary Company doesn’t desert!”

“Coward!” accused another. “Come back and make your stand!”

Several more took up the cry and lunged forward, all reaching up to grab hold of the wizard’s cloak. Vangerdahast tore his arm free and flew out of their reach with a quick flick of his hands.

“Who are you calling a deserter?” Vangerdahast demanded, growing furious. He pulled a wand from inside his cloak. “How dare you!”

Owden stepped forward, raising his hands to stop the attack. “Vangerdahast, it’s ghazneth madness!” The priest waved at their swollen faces. “They’re wounded and sick, just as you were in Arabel.”

“Then get them under control!” Vangerdahast snapped, feeling foolish-and more than a little frightened by all he did not know about the ghazneths. “I’ll see you in Arabel.”

“Me?” Owden looked shocked. “What do you mean? You need someone to watch your back.”

“How?” Vangerdahast flapped his arms and floated toward the smoking breach in the keep’s black wall. “Unless you can fly, you’ll only slow me down-and lose your weathercloak’s magic to the keep.”

“Wait!” It was the wizard to whom Vangerdahast had given command. “I can help.”

The royal magician looked back to see the war wizard and Owden scurrying after him, the sorcerer brushing the vane of a pigeon feather over the harvestmaster’s arms. A handful of mad dragoneers were stumbling along behind them, cursing Vangerdahast for a coward and promising to take vengeance in the afterlife. Behind them, on the near shore of the peninsula, the ghazneths had finally drawn all of the magic out of the force wall. Cadimus charged through the gap, leading the rest of the horses along behind him and bowling the astonished ghazneths over backward.

Owden rose unsteadily into the air, blocking Vangerdahast’s view of Cadimus’s mad charge. “Ready!”

“I’ll be the judge of that.”

Vangerdahast turned away and glided into the keep’s marble darkness.

From the hilltop where Alaphondar lay hiding, the keep appeared as a mere thumb-sized box at the heart of a slow-swirling spiral of brownish marsh haze. The men of the Royal Excursionary Company-what remained of them-were tiny stick figures glimpsed occasionally through the smoke and flame at the peninsula tip. The orcs were a frothing mass waiting in the water, while the ghazneths looked like four shadows and a single tongue of flame pressed to the face of the invisible wall. Now and again, Alaphondar’s hill would vibrate with the low rumble of an explosion, or the air would smell briefly of brimstone or scorched flesh. Otherwise, the battle had drawn in on itself, leaving him blind to the events below and frightened for his companions.

The one thing he could see clearly-the marsh mist spiraling in toward the keep-worried him more than anything. Aside from seeming rather unnatural, it suggested an ominous gathering of forces, as if the tower were drawing inward the Royal Excursionary Company, the ghazneths and orcs, even the corrupting energies of the marsh itself. Alaphondar felt quite certain that Vangerdahast wouldn’t notice the pattern, or appreciate its significance even if he did. The royal magician was a man of many strengths, but philosophical insight was not among them-and especially not in the midst of battle.

Alaphondar started to reach for his throat clasp, then pulled his hand away and rose from his hiding place. Even if he were to contact Vangerdahast, what would he say? I’ve noticed a suspicious pattern? The old wizard would only bark at him for drawing the ghazneth’s attention to himself-and rightly so. To be any help to his friends, the old sage needed more information.

Alaphondar descended the hill at the best pace his old legs could manage, then retrieved his spyglass from his saddlebags and started back up the hill. When he had first shown his invention to Vangerdahast, decades before, the old curmudgeon had mocked it as a “four-foot monocle” and asked why anyone would suffer such a blurry jumpy image when a simple clairvoyance spell could produce a perfectly clear vision. Alaphondar had accepted the criticism gracefully and muttered something about improving the opticals.

When Alaphondar reached the crest of the hill and raised the spyglass to his eye, the image was not blurry at all-nor was it jumpy, so long as he steadied the end of the viewing tube on a boulder. The keep now appeared as tall as his arm, and even through the gauzy yellow smoke, he could see Owden Foley flying behind Vangerdahast through a windowlike breach. Strangely, the timber gate now seemed to be sheathed in dark iron, while the building’s lower story had taken on the glossy appearance of black marble.

A series of silver flashes silhouetted Vangerdahast in the dark portal, waving a wand around the chamber’s dark interior. Outside, another six inches of wall darkened from mud to marble, and the sage had a sinking feeling he had guessed right about the significance of the keep’s location. It had been built to protect something coming out of the marsh, and Vangerdahast’s magic was hastening matters along.

A war wizard stepped into view and began to gesture at the portal as though casting a spell. To Alaphondar’s astonishment, a dozen dragoneers swarmed the sorcerer at once. An iron wall appeared over their heads and fell on them all. Several warriors near the edges crawled from beneath the slab in various states of injury, then staggered to their feet and limped off with raised weapons. One pair turned to scramble into the keep and they were promptly blasted out of the portal by a lightning bolt. The others rushed off in the opposite direction.

Alaphondar shook his head at the madness, then noticed the company horses racing into the marsh. He swung the spyglass over to the charge and was astonished to find the terrified beasts stampeding into the orc horde, barreling into the front rank and forcing those behind to retreat or be trampled. The royal magician’s brave mount, Cadimus, was leading the assault, rearing up to slash both front hooves at any swiner between him and the open marsh. So fierce was the stallion’s assault that Alaphondar wondered if Vangerdahast had used some spell to drive the poor beast into a battle frenzy.

His curiosity vanished a moment later, when a ghazneth rose from the water behind Cadimus. The phantom spread its wings and raised an arm to point in the stallion’s direction, then slipped and nearly fell as another horse ran into one of its wings. The ghazneth spun around, spraying a long arc of crimson fire from its fingertip, and pointed into the oncoming stampede. A dark rift opened down the center, swallowing half a dozen beasts in the blink of an eye. A moment later, their smoking carcasses reappeared atop a blinding curtain of crimson fire.

A second ghazneth shot out of the water, then launched itself into the air with nebulous ribbons of darkness trailing from its wings. It began to circle back and forth over the stampede, dragging the black streamers across the heads of the charging horses. The beasts went wild, turning to bite at the others around them, or stopping to buck and kick at the beasts pressing them from behind.

The charge began to falter. A third ghazneth rose from the water and launched itself over the orcs, yelling and gesturing wildly into the stampede. To a warrior, the swiners turned and flung themselves against the charge, hacking and slashing with their primitive weapons and paying no heed to their own lives. The horses responded in a like manner, stopping in the middle of the horde to bite and kick, or even wheeling around after they had cleared the fighting to wade back into the fray. Only Cadimus and a handful of sturdy beasts in the front part of the charge escaped the ghazneth’s influence and continued forward.

The fourth and fifth ghazneths rose together from a spreading circle of browning marsh grass. One launched itself after the escaping horses, swooping in from behind to sprinkle them with brown droplets from its wet wings. The beasts slowed almost at once, flecks of white foam spewing from their nostrils. Only Cadimus escaped, hurling himself into the marsh on his side and disappearing beneath the water.

Not waiting to see whether the stallion surfaced again, Alaphondar swung his spyglass back to the last ghazneth. The creature had alighted on a powerful bay that was rearing up in the middle of the battle, jaws clamped around one foe’s neck and forefeet slashing at two more. The ferocious beast split one orc’s skull, pinned the second beneath the water, bit through the third one’s spine, and went to work on its unwelcome rider, bucking and whirling and biting in a mad effort to tear the phantom from its back.

The horse tired only a moment later. Its coat suddenly grew dull and grizzled, its face became gaunt, and the muscle melted from its body. The beast dropped to its side and rolled, trying one last trick to unseat its rider. The ghazneth merely leaped to another mount, leaving the bay to drown in the marsh.

Alaphondar lowered the spyglass and sank behind the boulder, his veins running cold at what he was seeing: fire and fury, darkness, disease and decay-five primal forces wielded by five dark phantoms Emperel had been chasing when he disappeared. The implications were manifest. Emperel guarded the Lords Who Sleep, a secret company of Cormyrean knights hibernating against the day when a prophesy uttered by the great sage of Candlekeep, Alaundo the Seer, came true:

Seven scourges-five long gone, one of the day, and one soon to come-open the door no man can close. Out come the armies of the dead and the legions of the devil made by itself to sweep all Cormyr away in ruin, unless those long dead rise to stand against them.

Boldovar was a scourge long gone, now returned bearing darkness and lunacy. Alaphondar did not know the names of the other ghazneths, but it seemed reasonable to assume they might also be scourges from Cormyr’s past. He could list a dozen eligible names off the top of his head, and those were just kings.

That left only two scourges, “one of the day” and “one soon to come,” to open the “door no man can close.” Alaphondar’s next thought made his chest tighten. Tanalasta might well be one of those scourges. Certainly, Vangerdahast had predicted dire consequences for the realm if the princess proceeded with her plan to establish a royal temple, and the Royal Sage Most Learned knew enough history to realize that royal magicians were seldom mistaken about such things.

Alaphondar forced himself to stand. Cadimus was creeping toward the shore, having eluded the orcs and ghazneths by circling into the marsh and ducking into a thicket of high grass. The rest of the horses lay near the peninsula, floating in the shallows or piled high along the shore, thwarting the orcs’ progress as they clambered ashore. The ghazneths seemed to be hanging back to urge the horde onward, apparently unconcerned that Vangerdahast had entered their keep. Of course, they had little reason to worry, since every spell the wizard cast transformed another few inches of mud into hard marble.

Alaphondar raised the spyglass to his eye. The tower was already black to three-quarters of its height, with the marsh’s brown haze swirling around it in tight spirals. Close to the ground, the cloud was so thick he could no longer see the wall itself only the silver flicker of Vangerdahast’s battle spells flashing through the gaping breach. Alaphondar was disheartened to see his friend had made so little progress. By the time he reached Tanalasta, the tower would be solid marble and completely swaddled in brown fog.

What remained of the Royal Excursionary Company had gathered about twenty paces in front of the keep. Incredibly, the small force was trying to ready itself for a charge. The dragoneers were holding their iron swords and pushing and shoving each other into a rough semblance of a double rank. The two surviving war wizards stood together in the center of the second line, facing each other and gesturing angrily. Alaphondar could not imagine what the dragoneers expected to accomplish, but their jerky motions and comical efforts at organizing themselves suggested they had fallen prey to Boldovar’s dark madness.

The sage was about to lower the spyglass and start down the hill when a cloud of insects rolled over the company from behind. The men flew into a frenzy, breaking ranks to slap wildly at themselves and each other-sometimes with the flats of their iron blades. The two wizards pulled spell components from their pockets and spun around, gesturing toward the top of the keep. Neither managed to complete his spell. One suddenly covered his eyes and fell writhing, and the other dropped when an errant sword caught him across the back of the neck.