The War Of The Lance (24 page)

“Considering what, Grimm?” Jastom asked gaily, resuming his whistling.

"Considering that cloud of dust that's following on the road behind

us,“ the dwarf replied. Jastom's whistling died. ”What?" He cast a hurried look over his
shoulder. Sure enough, a thick

plume of ruddy dust was rising from the road perhaps a half mile back. Even as Jastom
watched, he saw the shapes of three dark horsemen appear amidst the blood-colored cloud.
No . . . one horseman and two figures running along on either side. The sound of pounding
hoofbeats rumbled faintly on the air like the sound of a distant storm.

Jastom swore loudly. “This is impossible,” he said incredulously. “The townsfolk couldn't
have sobered up this soon. They can't have figured out that we've swindled them. Not yet.”

“Is that so?” Grimm grunted. “Well, they're riding mighty fast and hard for drunken men.”

“Maybe they're not after us,” Jastom snapped. But an uncomfortable image of a noose
slipping over his neck went through his mind. Swearing again, he slapped the reins, urging
the ponies into a canter. The box- shaped wagon was heavy, and they had just begun to
ascend a low hill. The ponies couldn't go much faster. Jastom glanced wildly over his
shoulder again. The horseman had closed the gap to half of what it had

been only a few moments before. He saw now that two of them - the ones running - wore
heavy black robes. Sunlight glinted dully from the sword

that the third rider had drawn. Jastom considered jumping from the wagon but promptly

discarded the idea. If the fall didn't kill them, the strangers would simply cut him and
the dwarf down like a mismatched pair of weeds. Besides, everything Jastom and Grimm owned
was in the wagon. Their entire livelihood de pended upon it. Jastom couldn't abandon it,
no matter the consequences. He flicked the reins harder. The ponies strained valiantly
against their harnesses, their nostrils flaring with effort.

It wasn't enough.

With a sound like a breaking storm, the horseman rode up alongside the wagon. One of the
dark-robed men dashed up close to the ponies.

With incredible strength, he grabbed the bridle of the nearest and then pulled back hard,
his feet digging into the gravel of the road. The dapples reared, whinnying in fear as the
wagon shuddered to a sudden

stop. “Away with you, dogs!” Grimm growled fiercely, reaching under

the seat for the heavy axe he kept there. The dwarf never managed to get a hand on the
weapon. With almost comic ease, the second dark- robed

man grabbed the dwarf by the collar of his tunic and lifted him from the bench. The dwarf
kicked his feet and waved his arms futilely, suspended

in midair, his face red with rage and lack of air. Jastom could pay scant attention to the
spluttering dwarf. He had

worries of his own. A glittering steel sword was leveled directly at his heart.

Whoever these three were, Jastom was quite certain that they weren't townsfolk from
Faxfail, but this did little to comfort him. The man before him looked to be a soldier of
some sort. He was clad in black

leather armor sewn with plates of bronze, and a cloak of lightning blue was thrown back
over his stiff, square shoulders.

Suddenly, Jastom was painfully aware of the fat leather purse at his

belt. He cursed himself inwardly. He should have known better than to go riding off,
boldly flaunting his newly-gained wealth. The roads were

thick with bandits and brigands these days, now that the war was over. Most likely these
men were deserters from the Solamnic army, desperate

and looking for foolish travelers like himself to waylay. Jastom forced his best grin
across his face. “Good day, friend,” he

said to the man who held the sword at his chest. The man was tall and stern-faced, his
blond, close-cropped hair

and hawklike nose enhancing the granite severity of his visage. Most disturbing about him,
however, were his eyes. They were pale and colorless, like his hair, but as hard as
stones. They were eyes that had watched men die and not cared a whit one way or another.

The man inclined his head politely, as though he wasn't also holding a sword in his hand.
“I am Lieutenant Durm, of the Blue Dragonarmy,” he said in a voice that was steel-made -
polished and smooth, yet cold and so very hard. “My master, the Lord Commander Shaahzak,
is in need of one with healing skills.” He gestured with the sword to the picture of the
bottle painted on the side of the wagon. “I see that you are a healer.” The sword point
swung once again in Jastom's direction. “You will accompany me to attend my commander.”

THE BLUE DRAGONARMY? Jastom thought in disbelief. But the war was over! The dragonarmies
had been defeated by the Whitestone forces. At least, that was what the stories said.
Jastom shot a quick look at Grimm, but the dwarf was still dangling in midair from the
dark-

robed man's fist, cursing in a tight, squeaky voice. Jastom turned his attention back to
the man who called himself Durm.

“I fear that I have an appointment elsewhere,” Jastom said pleasantly, his grin growing
broader yet. He reached for his heavy leather purse. “I am certain, lieutenant, that you
can easily find another who is not so pressed for - ” - time, Jastom was going to finish,
but before he could, Durm reached out in a fluid, almost casual gesture and struck him.

Jastom's head erupted into a burst of white-hot fire. He tumbled from the wagon's bench to
the hard ground, a rushing noise filling his ears. For a dizzying moment he thought he was
going to be sick. After a few seconds the flashing pain subsided to a low throbbing. He
blinked his eyes and looked up. Durm had dismounted and stood over him now, his visage as
emotionless as before.

“I recommend that you not speak falsehood to me again,” Durm said in a polite, chilling
voice, his tone that of a host admonishing a guest for spilling wine on an expensive
carpet. “Do you understand, healer?”

Jastom nodded jerkily. THIS MAN COULD KILL ME WITH HIS BARE HANDS AND NOT EVEN BLINK,
Jastom thought with a shudder.

“Excellent,” Durm said. He reached down and helped Jastom to his feet - the same hand that
had struck him a moment before. Durm gestured sharply, and the dark- robed man who had
been holding Grimm let the dwarf fall heavily back to the wagon's bench, gasping for air.

“If you lie to me again, healer,” Durm went on smoothly, “I will instruct my servants to
deal with you. And I fear you will not find them so lenient as myself.”

Durm's dark-robed followers pushed back the heavy cowls of their robes.

They were not human.

The two looked more akin to lizards than men, but they were not truly either. The two of
them gazed at Jastom and Grimm with unblinking yellow eyes. Dull, green-black scales - not
skin or fur - covered the monsters' faces. They had doglike snouts. Short, jagged spikes
sprouted from their low, flat brows, and where each should have had ears there were only
small indentations in their scaly hides. The monster nearest Jastom grinned

evilly, revealing row upon row of jagged, yellow teeth, as if it enjoyed the idea of
having Jastom to do with as it wished. A thin forked tongue flickered in and out of the
thing's mouth.

Draconian. Jastom had never seen such a beast in his life, but he had heard enough tales
of the War of the Lance to put a name to it. The draconians were the servants of the
Dragon Highlords, and they had marched across the land to lay scourge to the face of Krynn
even as the evil dragons themselves had descended from the skies.

“You might as well save everyone the trouble and let the lizards have us now,” Grimm
shouted hotly. “We're only - ”

Jastom elbowed the dwarf hard in the ribs.

“Apprentice healers. New at this. Very new.” Grimm mumbled, saying something about
“necks,” but fortunately only Jastom heard him.

Jastom drew upon all his theatrical skills to pull his facade back together. “Very well,
my good lieutenant, we shall journey with you,” he said, tipping his cap. As if we had a
choice in the matter, he added inwardly.

“That is well,” Durm said simply.

The lieutenant mounted and spurred his horse viciously into a canter. Jastom realized
there was nothing to do but follow. He climbed back onto the wagon and flicked the ponies'
reins. The craft lurched into motion. The two draconians ran along either side, hands on
the hilts of their wicked-looking sabres. Jastom cast a quick look at Grimm. The dwarf
eyed his friend, then shook his head gloomily.

For the first time he could ever remember, Jastom found himself wishing his elixirs could
truly work the wonders he claimed.

*****

Dawn was blossoming on the horizon, like a pale rose unfurling its petals, when the wagon
rattled into the dragonarmy encampment.

They had traveled all through the night, making their way down treacherous mountain roads
guided only by the dim light of the crimson moon, Lunitari. More than once Jastom had
thought that wagon, ponies, and all were

going to plummet off the side of a precipice into the deep shadows far below. Yet he had
not dared to slow the wagon's hurtling pace as they careened down the twisting passes.
Jastom feared tumbling over a cliff a good bit less than he did facing Durm's displeasure.

Now, in the pale silvery light of dawn, they had left the mountains behind them somewhere
in the gloom of night. The dragonarmy encampment sat in a hollow at the edge of the
rolling foothills. Stretching into the distance eastward was a vast gray-green plain, its
flowing lines broken only here and there by the silhouette of a cottonwood tree, sinking
its roots deep for water.

The encampment was not large - perhaps fifty tents in all, clustered on the banks of a
small river. But Jastom had not realized that there were still any dragonanny forces at
all so close to Solamnia, or anywhere for that matter. From the stories, he thought they
had all been driven clean off the face of Krynn. Obviously that was not so.

Most of the soldiers in the encampment were human, with deep-set eyes and cruel mouths.
There were a number of draconians as well, dressed in leather armor similar to that of the
human soldiers. Short, stubby wings sprouted from the draconians' backs, as leathery as a
bat's, but they seemed to flutter uselessly as the draconians stalked across the ground on
clawed, unbooted feet.

“This doesn't look like one of the friendlier audiences you've ever had to hawk potions
to,” Grimm noted as the wagon rolled into the center of the encampment.

Jastom had played to dangerous audiences before, unruly crowds of ruffians who were more
interested in breaking bones than in buying magical potions. But he had won even these
over in the end.

A gleam touched Jastom's blue eyes. “No, but they ARE an audience all the same, aren't
they?” he said softly, glad for the dwarf's reminder. “Let's not forget that, Grimm. They
think we're healers. And as long as they keep thinking that, we'll keep our heads attached
to our necks.” There was only one rule to remember when hawking to a nasty crowd:

never show fear.

Jastom shook the wrinkles out of his cape and cocked his feathered cap at an outrageous
angle. “You there,” he

called out to a man in the crowd, donning a charming smile as easily as another man might
don a hat. “Might I ask you a question? How did - ”

The lieutenant whirled his jet black mount sharply and rode beside the wagon. “If you have
questions, healer, address them to me.” Durm's voice was a sword's edge draped with a
silken cloth.

“You - You have so many soldiers in this camp,” Jastom gulped, doing his best to sound as
if he were simply making casual conversation. “How did they come to be here?”

A faint smile touched Durm's lips, but it was not an expression of mirth. Jastom fought
the urge to shiver. “What tales do the knights tell in Solamnia?” Durm asked. “That they
swept the dragonarmies from the face of Krynn? Well, as you can see, they have not. I will
grant the Whitestone armies this - they have won an important battle. But if the Knights
of Solamnia believe this war is truly over, then they are as foolish as the tales tell
them to be.” Durm gestured to the camp about them as he rode. A line of soldiers, holding
their swords at ready, marched by in formation, saluting Durm as they passed.

“In truth, this is but a small outpost,” Durm went on. “Far more of our forces lie to the
east. All the lands between this place and the Khalkist Mountains belong to the Highlord
of the Blue Dragonarmy. And the other dragonarmies hold still more lands, to the north and
east. Already the Dark Lady - my Highlord and master - draws her plans for a counterstrike
against the knights. It will be a glorious battle.” For the first time Jastom thought he
saw a flash of color in Durm's pale eyes.

“So do not despair, Jastom Mosswine, that the Dragon Highlord now owns you,” Durm went on
in his polite, chilling tone. “Soon she will own all of Ansalon.”

Jastom started to ask another question, but Durm held up a hand, silencing him. They came
to halt before a tent so large it might more properly be called a pavilion. A banner flew
from its highest pole, a blue dragon rampant across a field of black. Two soldiers stood
at the tent's entrance, hands on the hilts of their swords.

An ancient-looking cottonwood tree spread its heavy, gnarled limbs above the tent. A
half-dozen queer-looking objects dangled from several of the branches. Some

seemed to be no more than large, tattered backpacks, but a few of them had a shape that
seemed vaguely familiar to Jastom. Suddenly a faint breeze ruffled through the tree's
green leaves, and the dangling bundles began to spin on their ropes. Several pale, bloated
circles came into view.

Faces.

Jastom quickly averted his eyes, slapping a hand to his mouth to keep from spilling his
guts. Those weren't bundles hanging in the tree. They were people. Each seemed to stare
mockingly down at Jastom with dark sockets left empty by the crows.