NexLord: Dark Prophecies (50 page)

Lor had no choice now; she had to try for the
spire. She ran a short distance toward the approaching Togroths,
and when they were only twenty yards from her she skidded to a
stop, and then reversed her path. They let out a howl when she
turned. Lor ran toward the large gap between the cliff and spire
with all her youthful speed.  She
leaped
with her strong leg
muscles
and used the skill she had honed over her entire
youth on the High Road of Strakhelm. She flew out over the
hundred-foot fall below, her mind on a single goal of
cheating
gravity to land on the shallow ledge
that was next to a vertical crack in the wall of the
spire.  For a moment she thought she had enough momentum,
but then her forward speed slowed too much, and gravity pulled her
down.  She slammed into the cliff face hard, bruising the
whole side of her body, and cracking her left hip into the
stone.  Her hands caught the lip of the ledge above and
she managed to cling on through the pain of that hard impact.

Behind her, she heard the Togs barking and
knew she couldn't afford to hang and wait for the pain to
lessen.  Wincing, Lor pulled herself
upwards
and rolled up onto the
ledge.  She got to a crouch and looked back toward the
Togs.  Four of them were slowing, but two were running
toward the edge for a leap.

They made the leap nearly at the same time,
their faces snarling in hatred for their human prey.  The
Tog in the lead
leaped
the large
gap cleanly and sailed toward Lor's ledge.  But the
second one slipped at the edge of the cliff, and its leap was too
short.

Lor didn't even hear the scream of terror
from the falling Tog; she was too busy fighting for her
life.  As the other Tog landed on the ledge, Lor met him
in a leap that could have taken her off the cliff to fall to her
death.  She launched her body up sideways so that she met
the Togroth with her feet, rebounding off its large chest and
killing its forward momentum.  The Tog outweighed her,
but Lor's momentum added impact as she struck its
chest.  The impact caused the Tog to lose its balance,
and it flailed its arms wildly for a moment before falling.

Lor landed on the ledge and watched the
falling Tog disappear over the edge.  She just pulled her
foot back in time, as its grasping hand tried to grab hold as it
fell.

A thrown dagger struck the rock next to her,
and Lor scrambled to her feet.  A glance showed her two
more Togroths raising daggers to throw.  Without even
looking for a hold, Lor swung around, and into the deep vertical
crack, just as the two daggers arrived, striking the stone where
she had stood.  In the natural chimney Lor braced her
back against one side, and her feet against the other, using
pressure from her legs to keep her in position. She started to
climb by inching her back up the stone wall and then moving her
feet up to match.  It took a while, but eventually Lor
reached the top of the chimney and climbed out onto the top of the
spire.

The Togs were still milling around on the
cliff face, barking at each other in their
language.  
Eventually,
one of the larger brutes clouted another Tog in the
face.  That Tog moved back and then ran and
leaped
the gap to the ledge.  Lor
couldn't quite see if it made it because of a bulge in the rock,
but she didn't hear it screaming or a sound of
impact.  After awhile she heard the sounds of small rocks
falling and looked down the chimney.  The Tog was
climbing upwards.

There weren't any rocks on top of the spire,
so she could not get rid of the Tog by pummeling him from
above.  Lor took stock; she had her leather juggling
balls and one dagger.  The situation wasn't looking
good.  She was just glad her friends had gotten away and
freed the captives.

Gandarel was miserable.  He rode in
the center of the Bluecoat line with his twelve Guardsmen and three
advisors arrayed around him.  He felt like a prisoner
going to trial.  The idea that a military officer could
come in and just drag him off to some far away city, at a moment's
notice, ground on his soul, like a mason wheel on
iron.  Not only did they treat him as a child, but they
also had no respect for his position, his councilors or his
Guardsmen.

The captain in charge of these Bluecoats had
made it plain to Gandarel that he considered this escort task
beneath his status. He considered the lands east of the Dragonback
to be hardly better than the wastelands beyond the border, and the
people who decided to live in them, hardly human.

The Captain’s
disdain
was difficult for Gandarel to swallow. He’d been
raised as a boy to think of himself as the heir to the Seat of
Stone, the most important person in Strakhelm. To now have a mere
captain look down his nose at him, like something that didn’t quite
smell right, grated on Gandarel’s sensibilities. He couldn't wait
to come before the Regent and denounce the officer for his
rudeness.  He pictured the man stripped of uniform and
ridiculed before the great court.  It was an image that
pleased Gandarel.

Yet, Gandarel’s brief moment of pleasure
changed when he thought of the capitol and meeting the
Regent.  What if the Regent didn't confirm him to his
post?  What if he found him wanting and instead elevated
one of his officers, even this ridiculous captain, to the post of
Warlord?  Gandarel would then have lost his family's
hereditary position, a rank that was once the second most powerful
position in the Kingdom, it worried him.

Niler had been coaching him and telling him
that everything would be fine once they got to the
capitol.  Enolive, on the other hand, agreed
wholeheartedly with Gandarel on the outrageous treatment he was
receiving from the
Bluecoats
and
didn't think it boded well for the meeting with the
Regent. 

Hork
, High
Priest of The Hand, supported the Regent
completely
and told Gandarel it was time to shape up to
the necessities of his post and embrace the Regent's
policies.  
Hork
told him
that the Regent was a great man, and how he was the heart of the
Kingdom, now that the King was dead. It was the Regent who had sent
the High Priest to the borderlands several years ago to shape the
young Gandarel.

But as they slowly rode up the dusty road
toward the pass through the Dragonback Mountains, Gandarel grew
angrier by the mile.  He didn't want to be told when and
where he had to go by some prissy captain, and he didn't want to be
taken from his friends. He felt like some prize cow being herded to
the slaughter.

He pictured Aerin, Dono,
Lor,
and Katek, back in the city, having
fun.  Perhaps they were having an adventure with the
Skulls
or getting into trouble at
the Arena.  He never spoke of this to Niler or Hork, but
Enolive was sympathetic and lent him an ear.  If truth be
told, he was a little jealous of his friends as
well.  They didn't have the weight of the Seat of Stone
on their shoulders, nor Mara's
precious
prophecies predicting their rise to greatness as
some NexLord messiah.  Gandarel wasn't even sure what was
expected of a NexLord.  To him, it was just another title
that meant more responsibility and less freedom to live his
life.  
All-in-all,
he
was miserable, he was not the master of his own life, but the
puppet of his councilors, the slave to his heritage as Warlord, and
the conscript in Mara's prophecies.  Gandarel just wanted
to make his own choices and do what he wanted in life. His anger
was like a smoldering fire, ready to burst into flame at the right
fuel.

The long column of three hundred men was just
approaching a large mesa off to their
right
when there was a disturbance from the front of the
column, and everything came to a halt.

"Now what?"
Hork
demanded, angry at the sudden stop.

Gandarel didn't care; anything that disrupted
the Bluecoats path was all right with him.

A few minutes later a Bluecoat Corporal came
trotting down the line of men.  "Gandarel Trelic, you are
required to attend the Captain at the front of the column."

Gandarel raised an eyebrow at the Corporal's
tone, a mannerism he had picked up from Mara, but Gandarel
swallowed his angry retort; the man's insolence was nothing new,
and Gandarel wanted to see what was happening up front.

The future Warlord started his horse forward
and motioned for his guards to follow.

"Just you," the Corporal commanded.

Gandarel stopped his horse and looked at the
man.  "I will bring my Guardsmen with me, and my
councilors
or your Captain can
come back here to talk to me."

The Corporal actually sneered when he glanced
at the twelve handpicked Guardsmen that were clustered around the
young heir.  "The Captain is not at your
beck-and-call."

"Fine then," Gandarel stated, then started
his horse forward, signaling to his entourage to follow.

The Corporal started to open his
mouth
but closed it with an audible
snap.  He whirled his horse and cantered away, leaving a
trail of dust through which Gandarel and his followers would have
to ride.

Gritting his teeth, Gandarel followed the
Corporal.

As they approached the front of the line,
Gandarel made out three riders surrounded by
Bluecoats.  He didn't see who they were until he drew
near.  From behind him, Gandarel heard a choking sound
from Hork, just as the large form of Tocor came into view.

Niler spoke with a little
anger.  "Not that same troublesome woman,
again!  Confound her, how did we ever let her get the
notion that she has any control over Gandarel's
destiny?  Will this woman never desist?"

The Bluecoat Captain addressed his
Corporal.  "Why is Gandarel's entire entourage following
like a pack of dogs?"

"He wouldn't come without them, and I didn't
have time to teach him manners," the Corporal answered.

Niler nearly sputtered with
indignation.  "I'll hear none of
this!  Gandarel is the future Warlord of this country,
you will treat him with respect, or I'll have the Regent throw you
in irons when we reach the
capital
!"

The Captain laughed.  "My dear
Councilmen, the Regent may or may not confirm this boy's position,
though I have my opinion as to what that outcome shall
be.  Until then, he has no authority.  As to
you, I do not answer to councilors, nor does the Regent, so watch
your tongue lest you lose it forthwith."

Niler’s bushy eyebrows quivered and his eyes
grew wide in his shock at the Captain's rude statements and
threats, but Gandarel put up a hand to head off his councilman's
coming outburst.  "Be that as it may, Captain," Gandarel
said, putting as much derision into the military title as he
could," I am still, as of this moment, the heir to the Seat, and
that means you shall treat me as such.  Now, what is
going on up here, and why is Mara here?"

The Captain was angry, but he gathered
himself after a moment.  "You know this woman?"

"She is my teacher," Gandarel explained.

"
Well,
she
has supposedly come to warn us of some great Togroth attack, for
Gedin's sake, by an army hidden behind that
mesa
.  Everyone knows that since the Last War
the Togroths are just a nuisance that can be handled by untrained
'policemen'.  There are only a handful of these brutes
left in the world; they certainly don't have enough numbers to form
an army.  If there were a few of the beasts skulking
around they wouldn't attack well-armed men.  I only
called you forth, before tying this woman to a tree and leaving her
there for her insolence, because she told me that she knew you and
I wanted to confirm that she was a liar.  Since you say
you know her it only proves she wasn't lying about that."

Gandarel looked toward the mesa with a little
fear; if Mara said there was a Togroth army, Gandarel believed
her.  "Captain, you can trust this woman when she gives
her word.  Is there really a Tog army behind the
mesa?"

Mara nodded.  "Yearl saw it for
himself, over four thousand of them."

Hork
spoke
up, "Ha, Captain, she gives you the word of a Willowman."

The Captain looked at the
lavender-skinned
man with utter
disdain.  "We do not abide such trash to live in the
west."

The Corporal laughed.  "Four
thousand Togroths, there aren't that many left alive in the entire
world."

Gandarel was furious with the Bluecoat
officers.  "Didn't I tell you that an army of Togs far
larger than that lay siege to the city not long ago?"

"That is a ridiculous claim, that won't do
you well when you go before the Regent. Not that it matters
anyway.  You are just trying to justify an old position
that has no more use.  The wars are over, and the
Togroths a myth you prolong, as did your father, just to maintain
your post.  Corporal, lash that woman to a
tree
and hang the Wiggin and that...
bald
thing, he looks half Tog
himself.  We'll leave her here and she can work her way
loose over time."

Gandarel started with alarm as the Bluecoats
began to close on Yearl and Tocor.

Mara shook her head sadly.  "The
Kingdom has let the blood thin in the ranks of the
Worthy.  I just hope that all officers aren't a tenth as
bad as you or we are all doomed."

"Captain, I'll not allow you to hang..."
Gandarel started.

The Captain whirled on
Gandarel.  "You shut up, or you'll join them!"

Hork
smiled
with triumph, as the Bluecoats converged on Mara and her
friends.