Raymond Feist - Rage of a Demon King

His smile vanished. ‘No, the problem I speak of is we’ve been infiltrated.’

Erik said, ‘Infiltrated? A spy?’

‘Several, I suspect. It’s a hunch, nothing more. Those we face are occasionally heavy-handed, but they’re never stupid.’

Erik thought it time to broach his own unease. ‘Is that why the Prince’s guards are ensuring no one sees the Royal Engineers building supply roads along the rear of Nightmare Ridge?’

‘Nightmare Ridge?’ asked Calis. His expression was clear to Erik. He wasn’t being disingenuous, he didn’t recognize the name.

‘That’s what we call it in Ravensburg,’ answered Erik. ‘It’s probably called something else up north.’ He glanced around. ‘I ran a company up into the north and took them farther than usual. We ran into a company of Pathfinders and a bunch of Prince Patrick’s Household Guards. I could hear the sound of tools coming from the other side of the valley we entered, echoing from behind the ridge: trees being felled, anvils striking steel, and spikes being driven into rock. The Prince’s corps of engineers is building a road. That ridge runs all the way from the Teeth of the World down through Darkmoor, and halfway to Kesh. It’s almost impossible to cross anywhere there isn’t a road, and more than one traveler’s been found dead up there. That’s why we call it Nightmare Ridge. You get lost anywhere up there in cold weather, you’re a dead man.’

Calis nodded. ‘That’s the place. You weren’t supposed to be there, Erik. Captain Subai was not pleased, nor was Prince Patrick. But yes, that’s why no one is permitted to go there, in case the enemy does have agents snooping around outside Krondor.’

Erik blurted, ‘You’re going to abandon the city.’

Calis sighed. ‘I wish it were that simple.’ He was silent as he watched the sunset. Brilliant orange and pink faced by black clouds far away, over the sea, gave an unreal quality to the approaching evening, as if nothing that beautiful should exist in the same world as the coming evil.

Calis looked at Erik. ‘We have several plans in place. You need worry only about the disposition of soldiers under your command. You’ll be told where to take them and what your options are. Once you are in the mountains with your soldiers, you’ll have to make the decisions, Erik. You’ll have to judge what is best for both your men and the overall campaign. A great deal will ride on your judgment.

‘But until the Prince and Knight-Marshal are ready to brief you on the overall operation, I will not give you details you might blurt out to the wrong person.’

‘The infiltrators?’

‘That, or if you’re abducted and some agent of the Pantathians doses you with some potion to make you speak, or if they have mind readers like the Lady Gamina in their employ. We have no idea what might happen. That’s why whatever you hear you share with no man, and you’re only to be told what you need to know.’

Erik nodded. ‘I’m worried …’

‘About the girl?’

Erik was surprised. ‘You know about that?’

Calis motioned they should start walking after the departing soldiers, and said, ‘What sort of Captain would I be if I didn’t know about my Sergeant Major’s life outside the barracks?’

Erik had no answer for that. He said, ‘Of course I’m worried about Kitty. I’m worried about Roo and his family, too. I’m worried about everybody.’

‘Now you’re starting to sound like Bobby, though he would never have voiced it that way.’ Calis smiled. ‘He’d have said, “We’ve got too damn much work to do and half the time needed, and a bunch of incompetent fools doing it.”’

Erik laughed. ‘That sounds like him.’

‘I miss him, Erik. I know you do, as well, but Bobby was one of the first I picked. The first of my “desperate men.”’

Erik said, ‘I thought you fetched him from the Border Barons to work for you.’

Calis laughed. ‘Bobby would have put it that way. He failed to mention he was going to be hanged for having killed another soldier in a brawl. I had to beat him a half-dozen times to get him to control his temper.’

‘Beat him?’ asked Erik, negotiating his way over a large rock, as they followed the gully downward.

‘I told him each time he lost his temper I’d strip to the waist and we’d have at it. If he was standing and I was not, he was a free man. It took that fool six beatings before he finally realized I was a great deal stronger than I look.’

Erik knew that was the truth. The Captain’s father was a man called Tomas, some sort of lord or another up in the north. By all rumors, his mother was the Elf Queen. But whatever the truth of his parentage, Calis’s strength was unmatched by that of any man Erik had run across. The former smith from Ravensburg had been the strongest man in his village, and of all those soldiers who had served with him on his first voyage to Novindus, only the huge man named Biggo was his equal. But Calis had done things that Erik could only judge impossible. He had once seen the Captain easily pick up a wagon so Erik could replace the wheel, when Erik knew from experience he would have needed the help of at least two other men to duplicate the feat.

Considering Bobby de Loungville’s nature, Erik said, ‘I’m surprised you didn’t have to kill him.’

Calis laughed. ‘I came close, twice. Bobby wasn’t a man to take defeat easily. When I came back from that first trip to Novindus, and we came limping into Krondor harbor like whipped hounds, Prince Arutha called me the “Eagle” because of the banner on our ship.’ Erik nodded. He knew as well as any man that in that distant land Calis played the part of a mercenary captain, and his company was called the Crimson Eagles. ‘Bobby elected to call himself the Dog of Krondor. Prince Arutha seemed less than pleased, but said nothing.’

Calis stopped and restrained Erik. ‘Don’t say anything to anyone about what you suspect, Erik. I don’t want to lose another Sergeant Major. Bobby may have fancied himself a dog, but he was a loyal and tough one. You’re just as loyal and just as tough, though you don’t know it yet.’

Erik nodded at the compliment. ‘Thank you, sir.’

‘I’m not through. I don’t want to lose another Sergeant Major because Duke James hanged him to keep him silent.’ He looked Erik in the eyes. ‘Do I make myself clear?’

‘Very.’

‘Come along, then, we’ve got to march this lot back to Krondor and hand them over to William to turn into garrison rats. If they somehow find themselves in the mountains, they may survive a little longer than the average soldier, so we’ve done them a favor, but none of these men will be of service to us.’

Erik said, ‘That’s the truth.’

‘Go find me some more men, Erik. Desperate men if you must, but get me some men we can train.’

‘Where should I seek them?’ asked Erik.

Calis said, ‘Go see the King before he leaves Krondor. If you ask him nicely, he may give you a warrant so you can steal the Border Barons’ best men from them. The Barons will not be happy when you do this, but if we lose this war, invasion from the Northlands is the last thing we’ll need worry about.’

Erik, remembering the map of the Kingdom in William’s office, said, ‘That means a journey to Northwarden, Ironpass, and Highcastle.’

‘Start with Ironpass,’ instructed Calis. ‘You’ll have to move fast, and while you’re bringing the men south, march them through the Dimwood and avoid Sethanon. Get them here as soon as you can.’ Then with what Erik had come to think of as Calis’s evil grin, he said, ‘You have two months.’

Erik suppressed a groan. ‘I need three!’

‘Kill some mounts getting there if you must, but you have two. I need another six hundred good men, two hundred from each of those garrisons here in Krondor in two months.’