“Let him look into our minds. He will be surprised by what he finds there,” Dogah said dryly, moving forward, saluting his superior.
“So, Galdar, it is good to see you again,” Targonne said, speaking pleasantly. The last time Targonne had seen the minotaur, he had lost his right arm in battle. Unable to fight, Galdar had hung around Neraka, hoping for employment. Targonne might have rid himself of the useless creature, but he considered the minotaur a curiosity.
“You have come by a new arm. That bit of healing must have cost you a pretty steel piece or two. I wasn’t aware that our officers were so highly paid. Or perhaps you found your own private stash. I suppose you are aware, Galdar, of the rule that states all treasure discovered by those in the service of the Knighthood is to be turned over to the Knighthood?”
“The arm was a gift, my lord,” said Galdar, staring straight over Targonne’s head. “A gift of the One God.”
“The One God.” Targonne marveled. “I see. Look at me, Galdar. I like eyes at a level.”
Reluctantly, Galdar lowered his gaze to meet Targonne’s. Immediately Targonne entered the minotaur’s mind. He had a glimpse of roiling storm clouds, fierce winds, driving rain. A figure emerged from the storm and began to walk toward him. The figure was a girl with a shaved head and amber eyes. The eyes looked into Targonne’s, and a bolt of lightning struck the ground in front of him. Dazzling, shattering white light flared. He could see nothing for long seconds and stood blinking his eyes to clear them. When he was able to see once more, Targonne saw the empty valley of Neraka, the rain-slick black monoliths, and the storm clouds vanishing over the mountains. Probe and pierce as he might, Targonne could not get past these mountains. He could not take himself out of the accursed valley. He withdrew his thought from Galdar’s mind.
“How did you do that?” Targonne demanded, eyeing the minotaur and frowning.
“Do what, my lord?” Galdar protested, clearly astonished. The astonishment was real, he wasn’t feigning. “I didn’t do anything, sir. I’ve just been standing here.”
Targonne grunted. The minotaur had always been a freak. He would gain more from a human. He turned to Captain Samuval. Targonne was not pleased to find this man among the officers greeting him. Samuval had once been a Knight, but he had either quit or been drummed out; Targonne couldn’t remember the details. Most likely drummed out. Samuval was nothing but a draggle-tail mercenary leading his own company of archers.
“Captain Samuval,” said Lord Targonne, laying nasty emphasis on the low rank. He sent his gaze into Samuval’s brain.
Flight after flight of arrows arched through the air with the vicious whir of a thousand wasps. The arrows found their marks, piercing black armor and black chain mail. Black-fletched arrows struck through men’s throats and brought down their horses. The dying screamed, horrible to hear, and still the arrows flew and the bodies began to mount, blocking the pass so that those behind were forced to turn and fight the enemy who had almost made it through the pass, almost ridden to glory.
An arrow was fired at him, at Targonne. It flew straight and true, aiming for his eye. He tried to duck, to flee, to escape, but he was held fast. The arrow pierced his eye, glanced through to the brain. Pain exploded so that he clutched at his head, fearing his skull might split apart. Blood poured down over his vision. He could see nothing except blood, no matter where he looked.
The pain ended swiftly, so swiftly that Targonne wondered if he had imagined it. Finding himself clutching at his head, he made as if to brush back his hair from his face and made another attempt to look into the mind of Captain Samuval. He saw only blood.
He tried to stanch the flow, to clear his vision, but the blood continued to pour down around him, and eventually he gave it up. Blinking, having the strange feeling that his eyelids were gummed together, he glared frowningly at this annoying captain, searching for some signs that the man was not what he appeared to be—not a bluff and ordinary soldier, but a wizard of high intelligence and cunning, a rogue Gray Robe or mystic in disguise. The captain’s eyes were eyes that followed the arrow’s flight until it hit its target. Nothing more.
Targonne was vastly puzzled and starting to grow frustrated and angry. Some force was at work here, thwarting him, and he was determined to ferret it out. He left the captain. Who cared about a blasted sell-sword anyway? Next to him stood Dogah, and Targonne relaxed. Dogah was Targonne’s man. Dogah was to be trusted. Targonne had walked the length and breadth of Dogah’s mind on previous occasions. Targonne knew all the dark secrets tucked away in shadowed corners, knew that he could count on Dogah’s loyalty. Targonne had deliberately saved Dogah for last, knowing that if he had questions, Dogah would answer them.
“My lord,” said General Dogah before Targonne could open his mouth,
“let me first state for the record that I believed the orders I received telling me to march to Silvanesti came from you. I had no idea they had been forged by Mina.”
Since the orders commanding Dogah to march to Silvanesti had provided the Dark Knights of Neraka with one of the greatest victories ever in the history of the Knighthood, Targonne did not like to be reminded of the fact that he was not the one who had given them.
“Well, well,” he said, highly displeased, “perhaps I had more to do with those than you imagine, Dogah. The Knight Officer who issued those orders may have indicated that she was acting on her own, but the truth was that she was obeying my commands.”
The girl was dead. Targonne could afford to play fast and loose with the truth. She was certainly not going to contradict him.
He continued blandly, “She and I agreed between us to keep this secret. The mission was so risky, so hazardous, so fraught with possibilities of failure, that I feared to mention it to anyone, lest word leak out to the elves and put them on their guard. And then, there is the dragon Malys to be considered. I did not want to raise her hopes, to give her expectations that might not come to pass. As it is, Malystryx is astonished at our great triumph and holds us in even higher regard than before.”
All the while he was speaking, Targonne was attempting to probe Dogah’s brain. Targonne could not manage it, however. A shield rose before his eyes, a shield that shimmered eerily in the light of a blazing sun. He could see beyond the shield, see dying trees and a land covered with gray ash, but he could not enter the shield nor cause it to be lifted. Targonne grew increasingly angry, and thus he became more bland, more friendly. Those who knew him well were most terrified of him whenever he linked arms with them and spoke to them as chums. Targonne linked arms with General Dogah.
“Our Mina was a gallant officer,” he said in mournful tones. “Now the accursed elves have assassinated her. I am not surprised. That is like them. Skulking, sneaking, belly-crawling worms. They are too cowardly to attack face to face, and so they resort to this.”
“Indeed, my lord,” said Dogah, his voice grating, “it is a coward’s act.”
“They will pay for it, though,” Targonne continued. “By my head, they will pay! So that’s her funeral pyre, is it?”
He and Dogah had walked slowly, arm in arm, across the field of battle. The minotaur and the captain of archers followed slowly after.
“It’s massive,” said Targonne. “A bit too massive, don’t you think? She was a gallant officer but only a junior officer. This pyre”—he indicated the immense stack of trees with a wave of his hand—”could well be the pyre of a leader of the Knighthood. A leader such as myself.”
“Indeed it could, my lord,” agreed Dogah quietly.
The base of the pyre was formed of six enormous trees. The work crews had wrapped chains around the logs, then dragged them into position in the center of the battlefield. The logs were soaked with any sort of inflammable liquid the men had been able find. The place reeked of oils, resins and spirits, and the fresh green blood of the trees. Atop this pile of logs, the men had thrown more logs, huge amounts of brush, and dead wood they had scavenged from the forest. The stack was now almost eight feet in height and ten feet in length. Climbing on ladders, they laid willow branches across the top, weaving them into a latticework of leaves. On this platform they would lay Mina’s body.