Douglas Niles: The Crown and the Sword

The warriors in the gorge seemed evenly matched, perhaps two hundred ofn each side, and they faced each other in the center of the little swath of level ground. Even with his first quick glance, the man took in how those companies arrived at such a place. The humans had descended through a narrow ravine, a passage barely wide enough for single file, that snaked up to reach the plateau nearly a mile away from the river gorge. The goblins had marched down a narrow trail carved out of the very side of the cliff. That path twisted out of sight to the man’s right, but he could clearly see the lower half and imagined that it continued up to reach the crest of the bluff some distance up the gorge.

Another company of riders appeared on the plain above the canyon, horses trotting around the pillar of smoke marking the oil fire. They numbered perhaps a dozen men, many wearing full plate armor of gleaming steel. One, a herald, held aloft a standard from which a proud banner flew-a white crown on a field of black. It matched the sigil displayed by the company down by the river, though it was a much larger and more ornate emblem-for it was the banner of General Dayr himself.

The general broke away from his entourage to ride, alone, toward the man who still sat astride his horse at the brink of the precipice. The escort of Freemen withdrew to a discreet distance, so the two commanders could speak privately.

“My Lord Marshal,” Dayr said as he drew up to Jaymes. “I hope you are satisfied with the fruits of our victory.”

“Yes, General,” said the marshal. “We have broken Ankhar’s army in the north. I understand that, even now, he is pulling the bulk of his horde back to the east side of the river.”

“True. But there is a new development. One of his men, a sergeant of the Dark Knights, has come forward under a banner of truce. He says that Ankhar himself would like to have a parley with the officer in command.”

“The half-giant would so expose himself?” asked the marshal.

The general nodded. “He says he will come forward alone, to meet a lone human, on that spit of land there, above the river. There is a narrow gorge, some ten paces wide, that would divide the two leaders. Of course I am more than willing to go, Marshal Jaymes, but I thought that I should give you the option of making the parley yourself.”

The rider nodded. “I’d like that. After two years of fighting this barbarian, I should like to meet with him face-to-face to take his measure with my own eyes.”

“As you wish,” the general replied.

“What, do you imagine, is the purpose of this parley?”

“I suspect he will bargain for mutual withdrawal of those troops you see down there by the river. The battle, of course, is over, yet the potential for slaughter remains. You see, our men-that’s the Second Company of the Vingaard Arms-might make their escape through yonder ravine, but a hundred ogres have been posted upon the far rim. If our men try to withdraw, they could be crushed by the rocks dropped by the ogres from above. At the same time, Ankhar’s goblins are likewise trapped. If they withdraw up the cliffside trail, our archers will be able to cut them to pieces. In either case it is likely that no more than a handful of the enemy troops will survive to escape the gorge.”

“But Ankhar’s army is already retreating. I presume there is a reason why we cannot simply wait him out, bring out the company when the ogres have left.”

“The rains, my Lord Marshal. Up in the Garnet range it has been pouring for several days, and the river is rising by nearly a foot with every passing hour. If we don’t pull the men out of there, the matter is moot; by tomorrow morning, they will all have drowned.”

The marshal nodded, taking in the scene again with those sharp, penetrating eyes. The cliffs, the river, the ravine, and the trail were all as the general had described. If the men in the gorge were not soon plucked to safety, they were doomed.

“Very well,” said Marshal Jaymes Markham. “Send word to Ankhar through his messenger; tell him that I will meet him and parley.”

The half-giant was an impressive creature, standing nearly twice as tall as the man glaring at him across the gulf of the narrow crevice. Ankhar was unarmed, as was Jaymes; this had been a fundamental condition of the parley. Still, the creature’s mere fists looked capable of crushing the skull of a human soldier, and the glower on his face suggested that crushing a man’s skull was a very tempting notion right now.

Jaymes studied the hulking barbarian who had been his adversary over the past two years. Ankhar’s brow loomed over his eyes like the craggy outcrop of a cliff, accenting the bestial features of the ogrish face. The eyes were small in comparison to the overall size of the huge face, but they glittered with a certain cold, appraising intelligence. The man had the unsettling awareness that the half-giant was studying him with the same curiosity he himself felt.

“You are called the Lord of the Rose?” asked the half-giant in a voice like the growl of a bear.

“Some call me that, but I claim no such title for myself.”

“You fight under the white banner, with Crown and Sword and Rose all woven together. That seems to me like you claim the sign.”

The man shrugged. “You can take it any way you like. I don’t see a banner over your own army, yet your troops shed blood aplenty, just the same.”

The half-giant’s broad mouth curled into a cruel, tusk-baring smile. “They have killed many men, in the name of the Truth. I am the Truth. They rejoice in drinking human blood, in taking human women-and miles of land!”

“Yet you have given many lands back, this last year. Three times you have faced my army and three times been defeated.”

Ankhar shrugged. “The war goes on. Many more men will die. This is Truth.”

“Right now, the truth is that your company and mine are trapped together on the bank of the river,” Jaymes noted. “If we hold our positions, neither group can escape-each would be destroyed by troops on the heights if they try to make higher ground.”

Ankhar snorted contemptuously. “Let them stay where they are.”

“Was it not you who requested this parley? What, then, was your purpose?”

“Perhaps I want a face for my enemy,” growled the half-giant. “You fight well… for a human.”

“I fight when I must-and when I fight, I fight well.”

“I will kill you soon enough. For now, I see you, and spit upon you!”

“You’re a creature of the mountains, I am told,” Jaymes replied evenly. “Do your agents tell you of the storms in the Garnet range? It has been raining, hard, for days. The creeks and streams are full, spilling down toward the plains.”

The glowering brow furrowed for a moment in thought. If he was surprised by the information imparted by Jaymes, he gave no indication. “So the river rises? All our men will drown?”

“It looks that way to me,” Jaymes said. “I prefer my men to die bravely, not drown ignominiously, and I am willing to let your troops live also, in fair trade.”

The half-giant hawked and turning his head to the side, spit noisily. “A fair trade? So that your men can take more of my mountains? Drive my people from the plains? Kill them?” His voice had dropped to an angry snarl.

“I make no apologies. Nor will I enumerate the list of crimes committed by your ‘people’-the wrongs that make it necessary for us to wage war against you.”

The half-giant bellowed then almost instantly grew calm. “What do you suggest?”

“I offer to pull my archers back from the rim of the cliff, so that your company can march up the trail and rejoin your army as you cross the river. In return, your ogres will withdraw from the heights over the ravine, so that my own men can file out of the deathtrap that the gorge will soon become.”