Douglas Niles - Lord of the Rose

Coryn also set that talisman aside. Holding the small crown, she now produced the image of the burly Duke of Thelgaard-Jarrod Yorgan. The big man sat beside a bed in which a sickly looking woman resided. The big man touched the woman’s forehead with a cloth, then stiffened. A glow began to emanate from the mirror on the wall beside the bed, and it was then the wizard realized who du Chagne intended to harangue.

Next she moved to pick up the tiny sword. She watched for a moment with a wry smile as Duke Rathskell of Solanthus, a slender and fit man of more than fifty years, was slowly undressed by his much younger wife. When the sultry woman knelt to unbuckle her lord’s boots, Cory quickly set down the tiny sword talisman.

For a long time she looked at the miniature of the swordsman. She felt a twinge of guilt when she used that spy, a reluctance that never bothered her with the others. The focus of this particular talisman was special, in so many ways… she remembered his strong arms, the fire she felt in her belly when he held her… and the anger, the unquenched-possibly unquenchable-thirst for revenge that still burned inside of him. He craved… what? Justice, certainly, but justice on his own terms. Coryn, of course, wanted justice for all of Solamnia.

He was not a bad man. He was in such terrible danger, and he had suffered so much. He needed her, she knew, while the others merely feared her.

Her reluctance overcome, she took up the miniature of the warrior, and allowed another picture to swirl within the bowl.

T he two horses raced through the night, the struggling gully dwarf’s complaints notwithstanding. Galloping over the rutted mountain track, the dwarf and human riders urged their mounts to nearly reckless speed, relying on the light of the white moon, Solinari, to illuminate their path. When that moon set a few hours before dawn, they were many miles from the stronghold of Cornellus. Finally the warrior reined in his gelding, Dram Feldspar doing the same with his mare.

The little gully dwarf had fallen asleep some time earlier, belly down over the withers of the swordsman’s steed, but now he awakened and pushed himself up, looking around in confusion.

“Lemme go!” he insisted, started to squirm. “I gotta go home!”

This time the rider pulled his horse to a halt, lowering the little fellow to the ground by the scruff of his neck.

“Are you sure you want to go back to Cornellus?” asked the man. “He might not welcome the Aghar that opened the gate for us.”

“Hmmph!” snorted the gully dwarf. “Big Fat Guy not know one gully dwarf from one!”

“Suit yourself,” Dram said, “but we could take you to a city. We’re going to Garnet. Nicer place than that mountain fort, that’s for sure. You’ll find some other Aghar living there, as I recall.”

“You gives me one steel, and I go back to Big Fat Guy house!” insisted the gully dwarf.

With a shrug, the man flipped him the shiny coin, which the grimy Aghar caught and quickly stuffed down into his pants. Sniffing dismissively at the humans, he stomped back up the trail.

“He’s headed the wrong way,” Dram whispered, as the Aghar tromped determinedly along a fork in the track they had just passed. It connected to a side road leading into the south Garnet Range.

The rider shrugged. “Yes, I took that into consideration. He’ll get lost up here, and it’ll be days or weeks-if ever-before he finds his way back to the Big Fat Guy.”

Dram Feldspar nodded, impressed with his companion’s thinking. As the sun paled the eastern horizon, they set their own more leisurely pace before eventually stopping for a mid-morning camp. For three more days they made their way through the foothills and green valleys of the Garnet Mountains. Finally they emerged on the western slope of the range, descending on a good, straight road to the flat Vingaard plains. Within sight, though still eight or ten miles away, loomed the walls and towers, the temples and taverns, of a gleaming, prosperous city.

“Welcome to the Free City of Garnet!” proclaimed a herald as the two riders passed under the wide open gate. “Bring your goods here to sell-or come here to buy! You want to work, we’ve got a job-you want to hire, we’ve got skilled hands and strong backs looking for work!”

“Sounds like a perfect world,” Dram muttered as they passed through the gate and joined a throng of travelers on the crowded main street. “I’ll believe it when I see it.”

His companion shrugged. “Garnet’s better’n a lot of places across these plains. No Solamnic dukes in charge here, at least.”

“Maybe we can shop out our services, then,” the dwarf said. “Make a few coins. Since we never got the bounty from Cornellus, we’re down to about three steel pieces. If we picked up some extra, we could while away the nights in one of these fancy-lookin’ drinking houses,” he concluded hopefully, gesturing at a whole street of decorated taverns and inns. Colorful signs advertised the Dragon’s Flagon, the Knight and Maiden, the Kaolyn Hole, and other inviting establishments.

“Why, look there-the Kaolyn Hole-makes me think of my own home, under the mountain. Ah, how I miss it.”

“You miss the dwarf spirits, that’s f’sure,” the man said. “But you’d go crazy in a fortnight if you tried to live underground again.”

Dram sniffed with the air of one who’d been greatly insulted then sighed, squinting at the sun as it slid downward through the late afternoon sky. “Never did think a mountain dwarf could grow so fond of that ol’ ball of fire,” he admitted, “but yer right-I get a kinda creepy feeling if I’m stuck in the dark too long, these days. That’s what hanging around with humans too long’ll do to a fellow!”

They rode along in companionable silence, enjoying the friendly bustle of the city after their long ride. It was the end of the business day, and merchants were folding up tents and awnings across several great marketplaces as people drifted away from the centers of commerce. A few vendors hawked the last of their fish, while others carted away wagonloads of woolen garments, kegs of beer, and casks of wheat to be saved for the next day of selling.

The taverns and inns sprang to life as the sky grew dark. The riders passed one called Granny’s Garter, where a number of scantily clad women danced on the upper balcony. Music, in the forms of drums, lutes, pipes, and mandolins, echoed in every street.

“This city was kind of a scum-hole when the Dark Knights ran the place,” Dram said approvingly. “I thought it was the Solamnics who’d got the place back on its feet again-you say it ain’t so?”

“Hardly,” replied his companion. “You heard what the crier said. This is a Free City. Pledged by compact to none of the orders of knights. Rose, Crown, Sword-they all buy and sell here, but they don’t get to tax the commerce.”

“There are some knights now,” the dwarf observed. He gestured toward the front of a gilded building on a side street, nestled between an inn and a dance hall. “Recognize them horses?”

The man peered in the direction of the dwarf’s pointing finger, seeing two large war-horses and a scruffy mule lashed to a hitching rail.

“Yep,” said the warrior, reining in and dismounting. He lashed the gelding’s reins to a handy railing while he studied the huge horses.

The two steeds were easily distinguishable as knightly mounts, but it was the scrollwork on the saddles that marked them as the same two horses that had been tethered outside of Cornellus’s tavern high up in the mountains. The two companions settled themselves on a bench outside an inn on a porch that allowed them to keep an eye on the pair of warhorses.