Shards of a Broken Crown (56 page)

Acaila
continued. “That dark agency has servants, and they are
building power in Ylith and Zun and now in LaMut.”

“What
Subai said about human sacrifice?”

Acaila said, “It
is a thing of great evil and great power, and it grows by the day.
The servants of such evil often are dupes and have no idea of what
they bring upon themselves as well as others. They do not know they
destroy their own souls first. As soulless men they feel no remorse,
no shame, no regret. They merely act on impulse, seeking what they
think they want, glory, power, wealth, the trappings of might. They
do not realize they have already lost and anything they do serves
only waste and destruction.”

Tomas was silent
for a while, then said, “I have Valheru memory, so those
impulses are well known to me.”

“Your
Valheru forebears lived in different times, my friend. The universe
was ordered differently. The Valheru were natural forces, serving
neither good nor evil.

“But this
thing is a thing of evil, apart from any other consideration, and it
must be rooted out and destroyed. And to do so, the forces which
strive to endure and survive the onslaught will need help.”

Tomas said, “So
I leave to lend my strength.”

Acaila said, “Of
all of us here, you alone have the means to tip the balance to good.”

“I will
leave and find Pug,” said Tomas. “Together we will do
what we must to save the Kingdom and prevent the rise of this evil in
Krondor.”

“Go to the
Queen,” said Acaila, “and know whatever you do, you do
for her and your son.”

Tomas gripped
Acaila’s hand and left.

Later that
night, after dining with his wife and a lingering good-bye, Tomas
returned to the clearing north of the center of the forest. He was
now dressed in his white-and-gold armor. A legacy of an ancient past,
the armor was without blemish or scratch. He had reclaimed his golden
sword with the white hilt when his son had unraveled the mystery of
the Lifestone. His hand rested on its hilt, and he wore his white
shield with the golden dragon emblazoned on it over his shoulder. He
looked to the sky and sent forth a call. He waited.

Men lay dead and
dying on all sides. Erik stood exhausted, a mound of dead enemies
before him. Sometime during the afternoon his horse had gone out from
under him courtesy of a stray arrow.

Twice he had
been tempted to order retreat, but on both occasions his men had
rallied and the enemy had been thrown back. He vaguely recalled a
lull during the afternoon in which he had greedily drunk from a
waterskin and eaten something; he couldn’t remember what.

Horns had
sounded from the other side a few minutes before, and the enemy
withdrew. The diamonds had held, and a thousand or more men had died
trying to take them. Erik couldn’t begin to guess how many
defenders had died as well. He knew he’d get a body count in
the morning.

Leland rode up
and said, “My father’s compliments, Captain.”

Erik nodded,
trying to get his thoughts organized. “I’ll be along
presently, Lieutenant.”

Erik bent and
cleaned his sword on the tunic of a dead man before him, then put it
in his scabbard and looked over the field. He had ended up in the gap
between the center diamond and the one on the right. The bodies
before him were waist-high. He turned toward Jadow Shati, who yelled,
“I hope we don’t have to do that again anytime soon,
man!”

Erik waved. “Not
until tomorrow.” He headed toward Earl Richard’s tent.
When he got there he found two bodies being dragged out of the tent
by guards, and the old Earl sitting at his table, an orderly
bandaging his arm.

“What
happened?” asked Erik.

“Some of
the enemy got loose on your left flank, Captain, and actually got
here. I finally got to use this sword.”

“How do
you feel?” asked Erik.

“Like
hell, Captain.” He looked at the orderly, who finished tying
off the bandage, and waved him away. “Still, I can at last feel
like a soldier.

“You
know,” he said, leaning back, “I once rode a patrol, and
we saw some Keshians who ran across the border when they saw us, and
until today that was as close as I had come to being in an actual
battle.” He got a distant look. “That was forty years
ago, Erik.”

Erik sat. “I
envy you.”

“I don’t
doubt that,” said Richard. “What next?”

“We wait
until they withdraw a bit more, then I’d like to put some
scouts up in the hills to get a sense of how they’re deploying.
Our men did well this day.”

“But we
didn’t break them,” said Richard.

“No,”
said Erik. “And each day we fight out here in the middle of the
road, our chances of reaching Ylith diminish, and our hope of freeing
Yabon becomes faint.”

“We need
some sort of magic,” said Richard.

“I’m
short of magic right now,” said Erik, standing up. “I had
better see how the men are.” He saluted and left the tent.

He encountered
Leland outside and said, “Your father’s fine; his wound
is slight.”

Leland’s
face reflected his relief. Erik’s estimation of the boy rose;
he had gone about his business not knowing how his father fared.

Erik asked, “How
are the reserves?”

“They
stand ready,” said Leland.

Erik was
relieved. “I lost track in the afternoon and didn’t
remember if they had been called up.”

“They were
not, Captain.”

“Good,
order the men inside the diamonds relieved and tell the cavalry to
stand down. Get the men fed. Then come back. I have a job for you.”

Leland saluted
and hurried off. Erik made his way to his own modest tent among the
Crimson Eagles and sat down. Commissary soldiers hurried with water
and food and one approached Erik with a wooden bowl of hot stew and a
water skin. He took the bowl and a spoon and dug in, ignoring the
heat.

Jadow Shati and
the men from the center diamond came walking slowly back and Jadow
half-sat, half-collapsed next to Erik. “Man, I don’t want
to do that again.”

“How did
we do?”

“We lost a
few,” said Jadow, fatigue making his speech slow and his tone
somber. “It could have been worse.”

“I know,”
said Erik. “We’ve got to come up with something brilliant
and unexpected, or we’re going to lose this war.”

“I thought
it was something like that,” said Jadow. “Maybe if we
could bleed them enough tomorrow we could launch a counteroffensive
and punch through their center, leaving their forces divided.”

Erik was almost
finished eating when a messenger found him. “Earl Richard’s
compliments, sir. Would you attend him at once?”

Erik rose and
followed the youngster and returned to the command tent. There he
found a terrified-looking scribe standing next to Earl Richard. “This
just came in a few minutes ago,” Richard said to Erik.

Erik read
Jimmy’s message and said, “Gods!”

Richard said,
“What do you think we should do?”

“If we
take any of our forces south, we lose Yabon. If we keep them here, we
lose Krondor.”

Richard said,
“We must preserve Krondor. We can hold here and, if we must,
postpone the campaign to retake Yabon until next year.”

Erik said, “This
is impossible.” He was silent for a minute, then said, “My
lord, if you’ll allow me?”

The Earl said,
“I always do, Erik. You haven’t made a mistake so far.”
The old Earl had come to recognize Erik’s talents and his utter
lack of personal ambition and would ratify any decision Erik made.

Erik said, “Send
for Jadow Shati.”

While the
messenger was gone, Erik questioned the scribe and found the man
completely ignorant of most of the things Erik wanted to know. He
did, however, impress upon Erik the level of concern and agitation in
Earl James, enough that Erik felt he must heed Jimmy’s warning.

When Jadow
showed up, Erik said, “We have a change in plans.”

“Don’t
we always?”

“I want
you to start now on building a barricade. I want a fort by the end of
this week.”

“Where?”

“Here,”
said Erik. “Across this road. Put a squad up in the hills to
the east with Akee’s Hadati and kill anything that comes south.
This is our new northern border until I tell you otherwise.”

“What sort
of fortifications?”

“I want a
six-foot-high earthen breastwork a hundred yards north of the three
diamonds. When that’s done, start building a wall. Fell trees
to the south and get on it. I want it twelve feet high, reinforced,
with an archery platform every twenty yards. I want two ballista
ports every hundred feet, and a clear line of fire to the rear for
catapults, so they can launch stones without knocking our own men off
the walls.”

“Man, how
long is this thing to be?”

“From the
cliffs overlooking the sea to the steepest hill you can find.”

“Erik,
that’s more than two miles!”

“Then
you’d better start now.”

Leland of
Malkuric appeared. “The cavalry is standing down, sir.”

“Good,”
said Erik. “At first light I want you leading them down the
coast, back to Krondor.”

“Krondor?”
said the youth, looking at his father.

The old Earl
nodded. “It appears our old friends the Keshians are about to
launch an assault on the city. Earl James of Vencar requests
reinforcements.”

“But what
about the fight here?” asked the youth.

“You just
get south and save Krondor, lad,” said Erik. “Leave this
area to me.”

“Yes,
sir,” said the lad. “Which units, sir?”

“Every
horseman we have. We can dig in and hold here for the rest of the
summer with the footmen, but they can’t reach Krondor in
anything under three weeks.

“Now,
listen carefully. Don’t start off galloping down the coast.
You’ll kill half your mounts in the first three days. Start off
forty minutes at a trot, then get off the horses and lead them for
twenty. At noon, switch to a half hour trotting and a half hour
leading the horses. And give them plenty of grain and water each
evening. If you do that, you’ll save most of them and get
thirty miles a day out of the troops. That should put you in Krondor
in a week.”

“Yes,
sir!” said Leland. He turned and left to carry out his orders.

Erik balled his
fist and looked skyward. “Damn!” he said. “I just
thought up a way to dig those bastards out from behind that fortress
to the north, and this has to happen.”

Jadow, who had
been about to leave when Leland appeared, said, “You know they
say Tith-Onanka runs a soldier’s life, but I got to tell you,
man, Banath seems to run my little corner of the world.” He
left.

Erik nodded.
“Banath runs mine too, it seems.” The God of Thieves was
also known as “The Prankster,” and was commonly given
credit for everything that went wrong.

Erik looked at
the old Earl, who said, “We do what we can.”

Erik nodded, and
silently left the tent, feeling as defeated as he had ever felt in
his life.

Dash roused
himself and rubbed his eyes. He had given up on staying awake during
the afternoon unless an emergency occurred. There was too much to do
after darkness fell.

He began his day
at sundown and worked throughout the night, with his mornings spent
at the palace or sorting out problems around the city. About noon, if
the gods were kind, he would collapse into his bed at the rear of the
New Market Jail and fall into an exhausted sleep. Six or seven hours
later, he would be roused.

He had received
unexpected help from the Mockers in locating the infiltrators. He had
put at least two hundred of them behind bars, and had forced Patrick
to build a temporary stockade to the north of the city over the
Prince’s objections. Should Kesh attack—when Kesh
attacked, in Dash’s mind—they would be freed by the
Keshians. At least, thought Dash, they would be unarmed and outside
the city.

It was the ones
still armed and inside the city that he worried about.

As Dash entered
the former inn’s common room, used as a squad room by the
constabulary, he realized he had overslept, and it was at least an
hour after he had planned to be up. He asked one of the constables,
“What time is it?”

“Eight of
the clock about fifteen minutes ago. He’s been waiting here an
hour. We wouldn’t let him wake you.”

The constable
was pointing at a court page. “What is it?” he asked.

The lad handed
him a note. “The Prince wishes you at the palace at once, sir,”
said the boy.

Dash read it and
winced. He had completely forgotten he had been invited to dinner
this evening at the palace and had agreed to go. “I’ll be
along shortly,” said Dash.

Lately he was
unhappy with Patrick even more than usual and probably that was the
reason he had forgotten the invitation. Dash realized that the Prince
could certainly operate in any fashion he wished, with or without
Dash’s approval, but given that the city’s security was
Dash’s responsibility, he resented those decisions of Patrick’s
which made security that much more difficult to insure.

Dash wanted
things from Patrick, and making the Prince angry wasn’t a good
way to do that. He had to make Patrick understand how dangerous
things were right now.

Dash couldn’t
seem to impress upon Patrick the mere fact that having had two
Keshian agents inside the palace walls was a major source of concern.
Dash knew his grandfather would have had both men singing out the
names of every contact they had from Krondor to the Overn Deep.
Patrick, on the other hand, seemed oblivious, and Duke Rufio felt
that as both men were absent from the palace— one gone and the
other in custody—things were in hand. Dash wondered if Talwin
had put in an appearance as yet and what his view on the matter was.
Dash was certain his late father’s spy wouldn’t share
Rufio’s equanimity on the matter.