The Serpentwar Saga: The Complete 4-Book Collection. Raymond E. Feist

Dawar’s body and hoisted it across his shoulder.

      ‘What are we going to do with him?’ asked Erik.

      ‘Why, we’re going to take him back to the camp. It wouldn’t be the first drunk carried out of here by his friends, I’m certain.’

      Erik nodded, picked up the fallen wine cups and bottles, and motioned for Biggo to leave. Erik set the cups and empty bottle down next to the door and hurried after the large man.

      For a tense moment Erik expected a challenge at the gate, but as Biggo had predicted, the guards thought nothing of one drunk cheerfully carrying another back to the camp.

      They rode out at first light. Erik had told de Loungville and Calis of the encounter with Dawar. They had disposed of the body down in a wash, not too far from their campsite, making sure it was fully hidden by rocks. There had been a brief discussion after that and Calis had said whatever they chose to do, they’d do it far from the Saaur and the other mercenaries.

      The only attention they received as they got ready to depart was one Saaur warrior who came down to ask what they were doing. De Loungville merely repeated they had been ordered to rejoin the host and the warrior grunted and returned to the fortress.

      As Calis had suggested, this fortress was as much for keeping deserters from heading south as it was to keep the main army’s flanks free from attack.

      At noon, while the men rested and ate trail rations. Calis told Erik to get five of the men from Nahoot’s company and bring them over to where he waited with de Loungville. When they appeared, Calis said, ‘One of your companions, Dawar, got into a fight last night over a whore. Got his neck broken. I don’t want to see any repeat of that stupidity.’

      All five men looked baffled, but nodded and left. Another group of five was brought up to Calis, then another. At last the final four men were fetched to Calis and he repeated the admonishment. Three of the men looked blank, but one of them tensed at news of Dawar’s death and instantly Calis had his dagger out at the man’s throat.

      De Loungville said, ‘Take them away,’ to Erik as he and Calis, with Greylock, led the man away to be questioned.

      As Erik escorted the two men back down the line, several of the men asked what was going on. Erik said, ‘We caught another spy.’

      A moment later a scream cut through the air, from behind a small rise some distance away. Erik looked over while the scream lingered, and when it ceased, he let out his breath.

      Then it started up again, and Erik found every man looking off at the ridge. A few minutes later, de Loungville, Calis, and Greylock returned, all with grim expressions. De Loungville looked around and quietly said, ‘Get them mounted, Erik. We have a lot of ground to cover and little time to do it.’

      Erik turned. ‘You heard the sergeant! Mount up!’

      Men scrambled and Erik found the sudden motion a release. The sound of the spy dying under torture had set his nerves on edge and made him angry. The sudden movement seemed to lift that anger from him, or at least give him a place to focus it.

      Soon the column was moving, heading toward the main army of the Saaur and the assault on Maharta.

       • Chapter Twenty-Three • Onslaught

      Erik blinked.

      Acrid smoke filled the air for miles, making it difficult to see any distance. Stinging wind carried the smell of charred wood and other less aromatic victims of the widespread fires.

      Nakor rode back to where Erik brought up the rear. ‘Bad. Very bad,’ he commented.

      Erik said, ‘I haven’t seen a lot that wasn’t bad in the last week.’

      They had been traveling for more than four weeks, heading across the plain toward the host surrounding Maharta. As they approached the site of battle, the area began to teem with all manner of passersby: patrols from the invading host, small companies of mercenaries who had decided to quit the city rather than fight – they tended to give Calis’s company a wide berth, though two had chanced a parley. When it was clear that Calis wasn’t interested in a fight, both companies had agreed to share a camp, and news.

      The news was sobering. Lanada had fallen by treachery. No one was certain how, but someone had managed to convince the Priest-King to send his host north, leaving the city under the care of only a small company. The leader of that company had proved to be an agent for the Emerald Queen, and he had opened the gates of the city to a host of Saaur riding in from the southwest. The population had gone to sleep one night after a grand parade. The Priest-King’s war elephants, with their razor-capped tusks and iron spikes ringing their legs, had lumbered out the gate, the howdahs on their backs filled with archers ready to rain death down on the invaders. At their side had marched the Royal Immortals, the Raj of Maharta’s private army of drug-induced maniacs, each man capable of feats of strength and bravery no sane man could achieve. The Immortals had been promised great glory and a better life when reborn if they died in the service of the Raj.

      The next morning the city was in the hands of the Saaur and the populace awoke to the sounds of wailing as the invaders turned each household out, herding everyone, to the last man, woman, and child, to the central plaza, to hear the Priest-King. He had been marched out under guard and had informed the citizenry that they were now subject to the rule of the Emerald Queen. He and his cadre of priests were taken back into the palace and never heard from again.

      The host of Lanada that had been sent north to face an army already behind them returned under orders from the Priest-King’s General of the Army, who handed over command to General Fadawah, then joined his lord in the palace. Rumors flew through the city, ranging from the Priest-King, his ministers and generals being quickly executed to them being eaten by the Saaur.

      One thing was clear, this conquest was coming to a head. With Lanada’s downfall a near certainty, General Fadawah had held back a token force at his position north of the city and sent the entire bulk of the host in a circling move around Lanada and down the far side of the river to Maharta. They had moved out only days after Calis’s company had deserted.

      The benefit to the Queen’s army had been a swift strike south with almost no opposition. The detriment had been finding themselves on the wrong side of the river. Now the northern element from Lanada was moving down the main road between the two cities while engineers were throwing temporary bridges across the river some miles north of the mouth.

      Erik looked at the blackened landscape; some locals had fired the dry winter grass to avoid being captured by the Saaur, he judged, for the brush fires had been started in several places. Only a cold rain had prevented a major conflagration on the plain.

      Erik reflected on the cold weather and realized it was after midsummer back home. By the time they left Maharta, if they left Maharta, it would be nearly a year since he had fled Darkmoor.

      One benefit to Calis’s company from the swift mobilization of Fadawah’s host southward was that most of the invading army was in the grip of turmoil and confusion. Moving closer to the front was surprisingly easy.

      A day earlier an officer had tried to demand passes from Calis, who had said simply, ‘Nobody gave us anything on paper. We were told to move to the front.’

      The officer had been totally baffled and simply waved them past the checkpoint.

      Now they were at the crest of a rise overlooking the river valley below, where the Vedra emptied into the Blue Sea. Erik squinted at the scene below.

      Maharta was a city of white stone and plaster, bright in the summer sun, now reduced to grey by weeks of falling ash. It spread across two main islands, while several suburbs had arisen on smaller islands in the delta. The main city was surrounded by a high wall on the northwest, north, and northeast, while the remaining sections were flanked by river, harbor, or sea. Several estuaries and inlets provided a variety of anchorages in