Chapter Thirty-seven
The bevy of crimson Mages approached the shuttered gates of Pardatha, displaying the white flag of truce. They all had heavy cowls covering their heads and shadowing their faces, and their steeds were identical in size and color, snorting and steaming as they pranced in place, leaving deep cleavages in the soft, vine covered soil upon which they walked. The guards on the battlements locked the visors down on their helmets and leaned over the high, stone walls.
One of the riders broke from the group and trotted right up to the wall, dropping the hood from his head to reveal a hairless pate and a ghostly white face. His lips were blood red as if painted onto his skin and his eyes were like solid black orbs, lifeless and forsaken. His voice chilled the very bones of the guards.
“We come at the bequest of our Lord and Master, Colton dar Agonthea, King of Sedahar, Emperor of the Southlands, and Liege Lord of the Forgotten Realms. We ask on his behalf for a parlay with your leader, Baladar of Pardatha. We come unarmed and our Master wishes us to express that he wants to avoid a long and costly war, and he hopes that Baladar wants the same. He asks that we speak directly with your Lord and convey his special messages,” he said in a voice hollow and dead, as the Pardathan guards looked on in horror. “Tell Baladar that we await him on the plain,” the rider concluded, and then he turned his mount around to return to the assembled group.
The lieutenant on watch, the highest ranking of the guards who heard this diatribe, gave orders for the others to remain steadfast and observe the movements of these messengers of death, while he ran to the bell tower to advise Lord Baladar of the arrival of the Dark Lord’s emissaries.
Elion heard the bell chime three times, and immediately jumped up from his pallet and dressed as quickly as he could. With a regretfull glance, he left his dagger on the table next to his bow and quiver, and headed for the door. Filaree too heard the bell and she sprang up from her slumber as well, already prepared to depart, leaving her weapons behind, though feeling quite naked without them. As they emerged from their chambers, they met in the broad hallway and descended the stairway together on their way to the courtyard to meet Baladar and the others.
They spoke no words on that short journey but they felt a kinship that they could not explain, a bond between the two of them that developed the instant that they met and would henceforth remain between them always, Filaree smiled at Elion and he bowed his head in return, embarrassed but grateful for the closeness. Together they crossed the cobblestone courtyard and walked to the designated meeting place to await the arrival of Bishop Anwel and Baladar.
When the bell tolled, Baladar was already standing at the wide window, staring down at the plains stretching out before the closed gates of his beloved city. He was dressed in a simple tunic of white wool, with the crest of Pardatha embroidered in gold upon its chest. A brown leather belt cinched his waist, unadorned, and a cape of a darker brown velvet was draped over his shoulders. He took his large signet ring from the strong box on the shelf and placed it on the index finger of his right hand. The gold ring still hung from the chain beneath his shirt, and he felt its heat as he walked to the door. He carried no weapons when he left the study for the courtyard to meet the others. The Bishop was waiting at the bottom of the tower steps for him when he emerged from the shelter of the doorway. Together, they walked the short distance to where Grogan and the guards readied the horses.
“Greetings, Lady Filaree, Prince Elion,” the Bishop said as he saw them standing by the guards. “It seems our ‘friend’ wasted no time in dispatching his messengers. I assume we must meet with them for the sake of propriety, if nothing more,” he continued.
“I have seen the Dark Lord, your eminence, and it is not propriety he admires, I can assure you,” Elion replied.
“What good can possibly come of this meeting? Do you think that he has any interest in a peaceful solution here? For that matter, do we? How can we ever be at peace with him? We are like oil and water, and the only way to deal with him is to burn him off of our surface. We cannot live side by side with Colton dar Agonthea!” Filaree spit the words.
“We must meet nevertheless, and hear what he has to say,” Baladar spoke, his voice calm.. “Perhaps we will learn something about his intentions. At least we will have the satisfaction of telling his couriers that the heir is not in the city. They will not want to bring him back that news! How he reacts to that information will determine what we do next. It is beyond expectation that he will turn around and go home. However he ultimately responds, we will feel the brunt of his furor in the short term, of that I am sure.”
“May the First guide us through these dark days,” the Bishop said, as the guard helped him onto the back of his horse.
“Indeed! We could use the aid of the Lalas now. We have no Chosen in Pardatha any more,” Baladar noted with a certain melancholy, reminding himself of just how dear his wife, the last one, was to him.
“We can fight just as well without the trees to aid us…” Filaree commented proudly, “… if we must,” she concluded.
“I fear that today we must!” Elion said gravely. “If Caeltin has to leave here empty handed, it will be at this city’s expense,” he said as he pulled himself atop his pony. “What I am concerned about is treachery! I saw his army. I witnessed the horrors that he has created and nurtured to serve him. An enemy such as this will not behave as we would.”
“We must be vigilant, but we cannot sacrifice our values because our enemy has none!” the Bishop replied.
“Enough talk now, my friends,” Baladar chimed in. “We must not keep our guests waiting. Let us get on with this ‘parlay’, but keep your eyes open, all of you! Pray for the best, but expect the worst,” he said and he spurred his stallion ahead, crossing the threshold of the castle with his friends close behind.
The people of the city were lined up on either side of the avenue that lead from the castle to the Noban gates. They were solemn and looked up at the riders with hope and expectation in their eyes. Silently they each raised their right fist, one by one, as a sign of solidarity and fealty to their Lord, and he nodded in acknowledgment, feeling a deep respect and affection for them all as he rode past. The golden ring pulsated beneath his tunic and gave him courage as he marched through the city streets.
Everyone was captivated by the gravity of the moment, and the riders continued on in silence until they reached the sealed gates. The shadow of the Ghost Tower stretched out beyond the walls, creating an ominous, darkened swath of ground upon which the enemy’s entourage assembled.
The Pardathan guards who had marshaled by the tower’s base, parted so as to let the riders approach the small door that they would open in order to allow the horses out, one by one. Baladar was to be first, followed by Bishop Anwel, the Lady Filaree and finally Prince Elion. A single horn sounded atop the battlements signaling the start of the meeting, and the heavy latch on the door was sprung, allowing it to open inward.
Baladar emerged into the partial sunlight beyond the walls, and without hesitating, he walked forward with the other three close behind, lining up abreast of one another once they cleared the small passage. They trotted their horses into the middle of the plain, past the cobblestone pathways and paved roads that led out from Pardatha, toward the demonic group standing some hundred yards ahead. The new arrivals remained illuminated by the sunlight in stark contrast to the shrouded assemblage they came out to meet.
Once they were within speaking distance, Baladar wasted no time before beginning the inevitable interaction.
“You have entered our lands uninvited with a substantial armed force behind you. You come to the city in the name of Colton dar Agonthea asking for parlay, but you do not state your reason for invading our country. In good faith, we assemble hear to listen to your ‘requests’, and we expect that you are here in good faith as well,” Baladar said earnestly.
The leader of the group stepped forward on his black steed, emerging menacingly from the shadows. All of his companion’s cowls were up, covering their heads and faces, and as the speaker approached he let his own hood fall back, revealing a cadaverous face, expressionless, with empty eyes and pallid skin. The sunlight upon his skin made him appear almost translucent and hardly alive. They could literally see the liquid coursing through his veins in spastic bursts.
Baladar stepped forward once more on Porta and stood head to tail with this ambassador of evil. He watched him closely and was overwhelmed for a slight moment by the deathly stench of his breath, which issued from his mouth in gasps, through blackened and rotted teeth.
“Our master requests that you surrender unto him the boy that you hold hostage. He claims guardianship of this whelp, and he desires to retrieve that which is rightfully his,” the sickly sweet voice said.
Baladar was offended by the preposterous assertions, but he remained calm expecting no less, and he replied to the leering beast before him.
“First of all, I fail to understand why your esteemed leader believes that he has a claim of any kind to the child. He was sent here for protection and learning. His parents are dead. He is no relation of your master’s.”
“His father, King Garold of Gwendolen, proffered custody upon my Lord on his death bed. I have the contract here. There can be no denying it!” his voice boomed, as he pulled a small parchment out from his belt and flicked it open so that Baladar could see the seals and signatures. “Now, please respect the covenant of the father and produce the son for us to take back to our Master,” he said with finality, as he handed the paper to Baladar.
Baladar’s fury rose, knowing that good King Garold would never have given his consent to such a contract of his own free will. He could only imagine the terrible death that the poor man suffered at the hands of Colton and the suffering that he must have endured before he was compelled to place his signature upon that evil piece of parchment. If the inscription was in fact Garold’s, it was coerced out of him and Baladar felt no obligation to honor it.
“I am not sure that I can abide by this document,” he said. “I will need to take it back to my scribes in the city to authenticate the seals and signatures. After all, Garold is no longer here to testify to your claims, and unfortunately he did not die in his sleep, as one as noble as he deserved,” he said, stalling for time in order to absorb the consequences of this unexpected disclosure, while making clear his contempt for the circumstances that surrounded Garold’s demise.
The envoy’s face twisted with impatience, having hoped that no further discussion would have been necessary, and he reacted visibly to Baladar’s subtle allegations.
“You dare to doubt the truth of what my Lord tells you? I demand that you surrender the boy immediately! You have no choice. The signatures are real and the boy belongs to Colton now!”
He spit the words through his rotten teeth and grabbed the parchment from Baladar’s hand.
“He belongs to no one! And, if he was here in Pardatha, I would not surrender him to you or your Master,” Baladar said with a steel hard voice, standing up straight in his stirrups.
The Dark Lord’s envoy sat up in his saddle too and looked at Baladar, venom in his hollow, black eyes, and surprise clearly imbuing his anger.
“You say the offspring is not here in Pardatha? You lie, Baladar!” he hissed through his ruined lips.
Filaree rose in her seat, affronted by the turn of the conversation, her ire building dangerously. Elion could see the agitation she felt and he reached over and placed a calming hand atop her own. The Bishop sat sternly in his saddle, revealing no emotions.
“I speak the truth!” Baladar said in a hushed voice, and he could feel the golden ring burning a hole in his chest beneath his shirt. “He was kidnapped from here and he has been gone from this city for some time now. Your spies have misinformed you if they told you otherwise, emissary,” he responded pointedly.
The ring seemed so hot, he was afraid it would reveal itself through the very fabric that concealed it.
“This cannot be so! You deceive us and you insult the Dark Lord in so doing! He will wish to speak directly with you, Baladar,” the skeletal being said as he drew a long, thin blade from underneath his voluminous cape.
The others in his group immediately encircled Baladar, pulling out concealed weapons as well, two of them facing him and the other two confronting the Bishop, Elion and Filaree.
“What manner of treachery is this?” Baladar said, outraged as they forced him away from the rest of his friends. “You violate the rules of war! Has your master no honor at all?” he asked.
The envoy bent his ugly head back and laughed a ghastly laugh. Baladar’s reference to honor amused him.
“It is you who deceive, my good Lord, with your lies about the boy. Do not speak to me of honor. And now you must come with us,” he said as he urged him forward with the tip of his blade.
Filaree had no weapon with which to strike back, certain she was more than capable of besting this ‘animal’ with her hands alone. She surveyed the surroundings quickly then jostled Elion slightly, indicating with her eyes that he should take the guard on the left and that she would disable the one on the right. She was not going to allow them to leave with Baladar as their prisoner.
As she was about make her move, the leader of this hellish enemy looked at her sharply as if he knew her thoughts. He thrust his right hand in the air, colorless palm upward and long, pointed fingernails extending toward her. A ball of blue fire formed, and he grasped it with his thin fingers as she watched. As he propelled it toward her, Bishop Anwel swung his horse around and leapt directly in the fiery missile’s path. It burst into his chest, sending him careening to the ground. He lay still, his white robes charred and smoldering, while a circle of crimson blood began to spread slowly outward across the front of his tunic.
Robyn dar Tamarand watched from the top of the hill as the opposing parties assembled on the plain below. He could not hear what was being said from his vantage point behind the trees, but it was obvious to him that the white flag the red robed riders presented earlier indicated that they wanted to talk to those within the garrisoned city.