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DragonLance
Ergoth Volume 2
The Wizard’s Fate
Paul B. Thompson
Tonya C. Cook
Chapter 1
Soldiers and Diplomats
Raising a tin cup to his lips, Tol of Juramona took a sip. The water was warm and brackish, but it
cut the thick coating of dust from his throat. He spat, noting it was tinged with red.
“Are you well, my lord?” asked his comrade, Darpo.
“Well enough.”
Tol had taken a hard knock from an enemy horseman. The blow had left his jaw black and blue and
loosened a couple of teeth. The plainsman who landed the blow was with the gods now. Tol had
separated his head from his shoulders.
During this brief lull in the battle, Tol and his men had ridden into a shallow draw to down bread
and water. Wine would have been more welcome, but after ten years on campaign, wine was in
short supply.
Tol removed his helmet. Beneath the heavy iron pot his long brown hair was soaked with sweat. He
untied the thong at the back of his neck, letting the breeze blow through his hair. The wind off the
bay was cool—too cool. Winter was coming, and life in the open on the Tarsan coast would soon be
even more difficult.
Through the swirling dust, Tol spied a rider galloping toward them. His company drew swords and
interposed themselves between their commander and the approaching stranger. When they saw he
wore Ergothian trappings, the warriors relaxed.
“Dispatch coming,” Frez announced. A spearman of great repute, Frez was one of Tol’s companions
from the early days in Juramona.
When Tol first came to that provincial town as a mere boy, twenty years before, Frez and his fellow
foot soldiers had been in the pay of the Marshal of the Eastern Hundred. Since then, they’d all come
far, in station and location. Tol, the farmer’s son, was now Lord Tolandruth, Champion of the
Empire; Frez and Darpo were his chief lieutenants.
The young dispatch rider hauled his mount to a skidding stop. “Message from Lord Regobart!” he
cried, voice cracking.
Tol dismounted and made his way to the rider, parting his men’s horses with easy shoves. Not a big
man, he was compact and very strong. Taking the dispatch from the messenger, he saw the youth’s
hands were shaking.
“Nervous, boy?” he asked, not unkindly.
“The enemy has sortied, sir!” The messenger’s fist spasmed, drawing the reins tighter and causing
his sweat-streaked horse to prance in a half-circle. “They mean to break Lord Regobart’s position!”
Tol studied the missive. His reading skills had improved over the years, but the abbreviated script
used by Regobart’s scribe was hard to decipher. Frowning, he held the square of parchment up to
Frez and Darpo.
“Does that say twenty thousand, or thirty?”
Frez, less literate than his commander, merely shrugged. Darpo, a well-traveled former sailor,
pushed blond hair from his face and peered at the writing. “Thirty thousand,” he said firmly.
Tol’s face split in a fierce grin. “They’ve come out at last!” he said, spirit rising in his voice.
“Anovenax has committed the garrison—the Tar sans have come out!”
He strode back to his horse and leaped into the saddle. “To your positions, men! At last we can
carry out the plan!”
By the dispatch rider Tol sent message to Lord Regobart to hold on. Tol and his men were coming
hard and fast.
Before departing the young warrior bared his dagger in formal salute. “My lord! I have long prayed
to Corij for this day!”
“So have we all, son.”
Tol’s retinue broke up, each man riding out to resume command of his horde of one thousand men.
Only Frez remained close by his commander’s side. The two of them rode down the ravine, toward
the battlefield where eighty thousand warriors and sixty thousand horses had churned, screamed,
fought, and died.
The Imperial Army of Ergoth had battled its way to the very gates of Tarsis. Behind its thick white
walls, the city’s thousand spires gleamed, despite the haze of dust drifting overhead. Beyond the
spires lay the Bay of Tarsis, dotted with numerous ships of the Tarsan fleet. The normally placid
blue water of the bay was dotted with whitecaps. A strong offshore wind churned the water and kept
the great galleys, crowded with highly paid Tarsan marines, from reaching land.
Tol squinted against the sunlight. Three, perhaps four, hours of daylight remained. The battle must
be concluded before sunset or their great gamble would fail.
He and Frez guided their mounts to the ridge above the ravine. On their right, battle raged between
Lord Regobart’s thirty hordes and the city’s army. The Tarsan commander, Admiral Anovenax, was
bold and brave but not much of a tactician—very like his opponent, Regobart. The admiral had
marched forth from the city with his entire garrison thinking to smash the Ergothian army and
enable the Tarsan fleet to dock. With the Tarsan forces thus united, the imperial hordes would be
outnumbered and cut in two. All that would be left to them was ignominious retreat.
However, the admiral’s plan had not brought him the swift victory he’d expected. Foiling his
triumph were the inhabitants of a cluster of tents set up on the rolling dunes two leagues from the
city. There, priests employed by the empire worked the powerful and prolonged wind spell that held
the Tarsan fleet at bay. Twice the Tarsans had tried to destroy the clerics; first, in a night raid that
failed, and then with magic of their own. Their hired magicians had called forth a flock of fire-
ravens, living birds made of flame. Imperial spellcasters countered with torrential rain, and the fire-
ravens were extinguished before they could do serious damage. Now Anovenax was concentrating
his attack on the tents.
Sixteen hordes were under Tol’s command, the six thousand horsemen and ten thousand infantry
which made up the Army of the North. All lay flat on their bellies, the riders’ horses likewise down.
Rolling dunes screened them from the sea and from sharp-eyed city sentinels.
The preponderance of foot soldiers in Tol’s command was unique in an empire forged by the Riders
of the Great Horde, hut Tol had made a specialty of leading men on foot. He and his tough, well-
trained, highly loyal force had won many signal victories. In the past decade they had marched all
the way from Hylo in the north, fighting eleven battles large and small, to arrive at this place, where
they hoped to end the war that had raged so long between Ergoth and Tarsis.
Tol drew his saber and lifted it high. “Rise up!” he cried. “Now is our time! For Ergoth!”
Sixteen thousand men rose as one. Shouting “Ergoth! Ergoth!” they came streaming over the ridge.
The horsemen spread out to confuse the enemy about their true numbers; the footmen marched in
close order to convey overwhelming strength.
As the first block of spearmen reached him, Tol got down from his rawboned gray mount and tossed
the reins to a surprised Frez. “I’ll fight this battle on my own two feet,” he said.
He accepted a spear from a nearby warrior, telling Frez to remain in the saddle, the better to bring
the news from other fronts. Frez dismounted anyway and sent both their horses cantering away.
“After the battle, you may flog me for disobedience, my lord,” Frez said to his glowering leader.
“But now, shall we fight?”
The going was hard—the soldiers had to slog through loose sand while burdened by the weight of
scale shirt and leggings. In addition, each man had an eight-foot spear ported on his right shoulder
and a brass and wood shield slung on his left arm. Tol was glad he’d taken the time for water,
brackish or not.
The din of combat grew louder with each dune they crossed. A vast melee was boiling under the
walls of Tarsis. Regobart’s force, nearly all cavalry, had been bent backward like a huge bow.
In the center of the battlefield was a bizarre sight: four enormous turtles, each six paces high, and
each carrying upon its back a tall wooden hoarding. The Tarsans had bought the creatures at great
expense from the breeders of Silvanost, where they were used to tow ferries across the Thon-
Thalas. From the makeshift platforms on the turtles’ backs, Tarsan archers showered the Ergothians
with arrows. No weapon in the imperial army could penetrate the shells of the giant turtles.
“Quarter turn, right!” Tol shouted.
The marching block of men slanted off, avoiding the slow-moving, implacable turtles. Arrows fell
on them like a deadly squall. Men toppled, pierced in the head or shoulders. The phalanx closed the
resulting gaps and kept going. They had no choice but to ignore wounded comrades; if they paused,
more men would fall. The surest way to save Ergothian lives was to come to grips with the enemy
as quickly as possible.
Riderless horses galloped past, eyes wide with pain and terror. Broken weapons cracked underfoot,
and the sand was stained with large scarlet patches. At Tol’s order, spears were leveled. A section of
Regobart’s cavalry scrambled to steer clear of the approaching block of warriors. Catching sight of
the banner of Juramona, Tol’s hometown, the cavalry let out a roar of approbation.
“Tolandruth! Tolandruth!” they chanted, raising high their bloodied sabers. Tol’s footmen pushed
through open lanes between the cheering horsemen.
The Tarsan soldiery grouped behind the spearhead of giant turtles was composed mainly of
mercenaries, with a few city dwellers pressed into the ranks. The mercenaries were a mixed lot:
leather-clad plains nomads, Thoradin dwarves wielding double-axes, and a few wild elves from the
forest lands, their faces painted with red, blue, and green loops and lines. Tarsan officers led this
contingent. Their bright golden headgear made them easy targets for the Ergothians.
Tol swung his phalanx smartly in a half-turn left. The leading ranks of the Tarsans, long-haired
sailors now serving as spearmen, recoiled at the sight of five hundred Ergothians maneuvering with
such unity and precision. Tol watched them brace themselves for the inevitable collision, setting
their feet firmly as inexperienced soldiers were wont to do. To his expert eyes, the Tarsans with
their spears couched looked like a picket fence standing in the path of an avalanche.
For the last few paces the quick-moving Ergothians leaned forward, now almost running. Arrows
flickered in from the platforms atop the creeping turtles. One creased Tol’s cheek. He ignored the
sharp sting, blinking away involuntary tears. The clash of arms was at hand.
Iron spearheads, backed by the weight of a full phalanx, hit the Tarsan line. They went down like
grass before a scythe, hurled backward into their comrades and knocking them likewise flat. Tol’s
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