Feathered Dragon - Douglas Niles [114]
“An army camped on the field!”
“I see a thousand campfires, all come to life at once!”
“There are twenty thousand men there!”
What they actually saw were the campfires, some six hundred in number, made by the desert dwarves, the Little People, and the Itza warriors out on the savannah. But the dark night made exaggeration easy. In a few moments, the overly observant lookouts had spotted a hundred thousand men, with elephants and chariots and huge catapults, all gathered before the fortress of Helmsport.
“Seize him! Stop him!” Don Vaez’s command urged his men toward the charismatic captain-general. Panic made the man’s voice shrill.
Beside the silver-haired adventurer, Cordell saw the cringing figure of Kardann in the lamplight. It figured, he thought, that the assessor would be on hand when the effort to dig up the gold was made. Now, in the midst of the confusion, Kardann groaned in fear. He took a long look at Cordell and then spun wildly, racing down the outer slope of the rampart to disappear into the darkness of the savannah.
Good riddance thought Cordell with dark satisfaction. It would suit him if he never saw the little maggot again
One man decided to take action in the face of chaos. Pryat Devane leaped onto his flying carpet, darting into the air. He began to mouth the words to a potent clerical spell, a casting that could have masked Cordell from all who tried to see and hear him.
But another form lurked in the sky. As the cleric raised his hand, his carpet soaring toward the captain-general, a great eagle swooped toward him from above. The priest screamed as talons ripped across his face, and his carpet twisted beneath him.
The eagle dove away but the cleric had already lost control. As his carpet careened toward the rampart where Cordell stood, the pryat desperately struggled to maintain his balance. He could not.
With a terrified cry, the priest slipped from his carpet and fell heavily to the ground, perhaps twenty feet below He
groaned and thrashed his arms, one of his legs twisted unnaturally beneath him.
“Men of the Sword Coast, hear me! These are my allies camped on the field beyond the fort!” cried Cordell, his voice pounding through the vast courtyard. “Join with me, with us, and we will stand against the foe and claim the victory and the treasure that we all deserve!”
The men working at the excavation scowled at Don Vaez, then looked again at the many fires twinkling across the field. They looked, to the imaginative watchers, like a sky full of stars,
Immediately several of the workers grabbed their erstwhile captain and dragged him forward. Don Vaez protested loudly, until one of the men cuffed him soundly.
“Cordell!” A shout rose from the men among the tents.
”Hail, Cordell!” It was echoed by the workers on the rampart above.
In the meantime, the captain-general descended from the rampart and crossed to the injured cleric. The groaning Pryat Devane struggled to straighten his leg out so that he could cast a spell of healing upon it.
“Wait,” ordered Cordell, standing above the terrified priest. “There’s somebody else I want you to heal first. Pick him up,” he ordered several of his loyal legionnaires.
With the sputtering Don Vaez in tow, they started toward the cell where the injured Eagle Knight, Katl, still lay.
** * * *
From the chronicles of Coton.
In thankfulness to the god who has seen so much of our journey completed.
We arrive in the plain before Ulatos late at night, exhausted from the last stage of our march. We make camp on me savannah, building our cookfires, though the hour is Past midnight.
Later we learn that these fires, seen by the men in Helmsport, gave them fear of Cordell’s army. The joke is a good
one, on all save the hapless Don Vaez. Cordell is indeed a charmed soldier, it would seem, for now he takes a fort of fifteen hundred men with the help of twelve legionnaires and two dozen Eagle Knights.
Already, at first light, the twenty-five ships of the new. comers are sent to the south under the command of a veteran navigator. They intend to sail around