The two men nodded and trotted back along the trail, looking for another way down.
‘As long as we wait,’ said Nakor, opening his bag, ‘anyone want an orange?’ He grinned as he pulled out a large one and stuck his thumb in, squirting juice on Praji and de Loungville.
They found a trail down, a narrow rocky pathway as treacherous as the first one had been kind. Three men fell to their deaths when a ledge of stone, seemingly solid, had collapsed under their feet. Now the remaining sixty men huddled in a narrow defile, huddled around two campfires, vainly trying to withstand the cold as a sudden change in weather sent the temperature below freezing.
Calis and another three men had gone hunting, for the remaining rations were gone, but could only come back reporting no game was near. The company was too large, said Calis, and game was staying clear. He said he’d leave before first light and try to get as far down the trail as possible, to see if he could find a deer or other large game.
Praji said there were bison roaming the plains and many of them lived in the woodlands of the foothills. Calis said he’d keep that in mind.
Erik and Roo sat shoulder to shoulder, holding out their hands to the fire, while others huddled miserably as close together for warmth as they could.
The only exception was Calis, who stood a short distance away, unmindful of the chill.
Roo said, ‘Captain?’
Calis said, ‘Yes?’
‘Why don’t you tell us what’s going on?’
De Loungville, from near the next fire, said, ‘Keep your mouth shut, Avery!’
Roo spoke through chattering teeth. ‘Hang me now and get it over with, why don’t you? I’m too cold to mind.’ To the Captain he said, ‘You and Nakor have been thick as fleas on a beggar since you came back, sir, and, well, if we’re going to be getting killed, I’d like to know what for before I close my eyes.’
A few other men said, ‘Yes,’ and ‘That’s right,’ before de Loungville’s bellow silenced them.
‘Next man opens his gob will find my boot in it! Understood?’
Calis said, ‘No, there’s some justice in what he said.’ He looked at the men nearest him and said, ‘Many of you will not get home. You knew that when you were given reprieve from your sentence. Others of you are here because you’re loyal to the Lion Clan or because you’re old friends of Praji’s. And some of you are just in the wrong place.’ He glanced at Greylock, who smiled a little at the last.
Calis knelt and went on, ‘I’ve told you some of what we face, and I’ve warned you that should this Emerald Queen prevail, this world as we know it ends.’
The clansmen and Praji’s mercenaries hadn’t heard that, and several muttered disbelief. Hatonis silenced his own men, and Praji shouted, ‘He’s telling the truth. Shut up and listen.’
Calis said, ‘Long ago the Dragon Lords ruled this world. You may have heard legends of them, but they were not legends. They were real.
‘When the men of the Kingdom fought the Tsurani a half century ago, a door was opened, a door between the worlds. The Dragon Lords, who had left this world ages ago, tried to use that door to return. Some very brave and resourceful men stopped them.
‘But they’re still out there.’ He pointed into the night sky, and several men looked up at the distant stars. ‘And they’re still trying to get back.’
Nakor suddenly spoke. ‘This woman, the Emerald Queen, she was once someone I knew, a long time ago. She is what you would call a sorceress, a magician. She made a pact with the serpent men and they promised her eternal youth. What she didn’t know was that she would lose her soul, her spirit, and become something else.’
Nakor continued, ‘There is very bad magic under that mountain.’
Calis said, ‘You don’t believe in magic.’
Nakor smiled, but there was little humor in his expression. ‘Call it tricks, then, or spirit force or anything you like, but those serpent men, they use their powers in a very twisted way. They do evil things that no sane man would think to do, because they are not sane.
‘These are not the creatures that mothers tell children of, to make them mind. These are very bad creatures who think that one of the Dragon Lords, named Alma-Lodaka, is a goddess. More, they think she is the mother of all creation, the Green Mother, the Emerald Lady of Serpents. She created them as servants, living decoration, nothing more, but they think they are her “favorites,” like children she loves, and once they open a door for her return, she will elevate them to the status of demigods. They will never believe that if they do this terrible thing, this Alma-Lodaka will sweep them away along with everything else.’
Nakor fell silent a moment, then said, ‘Calis makes no stories. If this woman, this Emerald Queen, is behaving as I think she is, then things are very bad. Calis, tell them of your father.’
Calis nodded. ‘My father is called Tomas. He was a human boy as all here were. He came to own some artifacts of power, ancient armor and a golden sword once the property of a Valheru, by name Ashen-Shugar. My father wore that armor and carried that sword through the Riftwar, against the Tsurani, and over the years he changed.
‘My father is no longer human. He is something unique on this world, a human body changed by the spirit of the long-dead Dragon Lord who owned that armor and sword.’
‘Unique until now,’ said Nakor. ‘For this Emerald Queen may be another such as he.’
The men muttered, and Calis said, ‘For reasons I only half understand, my father’s nature is that of the human boy –’
Nakor interrupted again. ‘That is for another time. I know why, and these men don’t need to.’ To the men he said, ‘It’s simply true. Tomas is a man, with a human heart, despite his power. But this woman, this one who called herself Lady Clovis a long time ago –’
Hatonis said, ‘The Emerald Queen is Lady Clovis! It’s been nearly twenty-five years since she fled the city with Valgasha and Dahakon.’
Nakor shrugged. ‘It’s her body.’
‘The point,’ continued Calis, ‘is that if the Pantathians are using their magic to do with this woman what others did with my father …’
Calis spoke briefly of how his father, a boy from the Far Coast, had come to wear ancient armor that magically gave him the memories and powers of one of the ancient Dragon Lords. ‘Nakor is convinced,’ he finished, ‘that this Emerald Queen is a mortal woman he once knew, with magic ability, but still much like you, who is undergoing a transformation much as my father did more than fifty years ago.’
‘Then another Dragon Lord may soon be among us,’ finished Nakor.
Biggo said, ‘Why can’t your father settle her for once and for all – then we can all go home?’
Calis said, ‘There’s more to this than two Dragon Lords facing off. More than I’m willing to tell.’ He glanced at Nakor, who nodded.
Nakor said, ‘She’s not a Valheru yet.’ He nodded with certainty. ‘If she was, she’d come flying across the ocean on a dragon. She wouldn’t need an army.’
Calis said, ‘If you’re completely through?’
Nakor grinned, but without any self-consciousness. ‘Probably not.’
‘In any event, someone must return to Krondor and tell Prince Nicholas what occurs here.’
‘What if only one of us gets back?’ asked Luis. ‘What do we say?’
Calis was silent a moment, then told them, ‘You must say this: the Pantathians bring a host to take