Shards of a Broken Crown (3 page)

Patrick said,
“Patrol? That far east?”

Owen nodded and
said, “Erik?”

Erik’s
expression showed he was as perplexed as anyone else in the room.
“We’ve gotten reports from refugees that General Fadawah
might be pushing south again, or at least is making his presence
known. If Duko’s in Krondor, those rumors are true. But to have
patrols already that far east means they’re quickly deploying
to welcome us should we march home.”

Patrick said,
“It’s icy hell out there. What’s he up to?”

“If we
knew that,” said Dash dryly, “we wouldn’t have to
go slogging about in that icy hell.”

Owen smiled.
Duke Arutha tried to hide his own amusement, but failed.

Patrick said,
“True,” ignoring the breach of protocol. The winter
shared in close quarters had turned this group into a fairly informal
band of friends when court wasn’t in session.

The invaders had
been defeated at the Battle of Nightmare Ridge, but the destruction
done to the Western Realm of the Kingdom of the Isles was
unimaginable. As spring approached, and with it the ability to move
his forces, Patrick was desperately trying to imagine what had
happened to his principality.

Patrick turned
to Greylock. “How soon can you move?”

“Highness?”
asked Owen.

“How soon
before you can move to retake the city?”

Owen said, “I
can marshal the men and have them ready to march in under a week.
We’ve got some of the garrison scattered along the ridge and
down toward the Vale of Dreams, but most are near enough to muster,
though from what I’ve seen, we’ll need better information
than we have to know what strength we’ll face.”

Patrick sat
back. “I was hoping for better intelligence.”

Jimmy glanced at
his father, who shook his head slightly, warning him from making any
comment. Dash allowed his brother the confirmation that what the
Prince had just said was thoughtless by raising his eyebrows ever so
slightly.

Patrick said,
“We’ve got a massive front to the south, and all the
major units of the Army of the East are ready to answer any invasion
from Kesh, but we have limited resources to reclaim the Western
Realm.”

Jimmy said
nothing.

Finally the
Prince noticed Jimmy, nodded and waved his hand. “Dismissed.
Get some clean clothing and bathe. We’ll discuss this again at
length after the evening meal.”

Jimmy left,
finding his father and brother following him out of the room. They
paused just outside the door. Arutha said, “I’ve got to
get back inside, but I just wanted to see if you were all right.”

“I’m
fine,” said Jimmy, with a faint smile of appreciation for his
father’s concern. With the death of their grandparents,
Arutha’s features had taken on a drawn, haggard edge, from too
much worry and too little sleep. “Just some cold toes.”

Arutha nodded,
squeezed his son’s shoulder a moment. “Get some food and
rest. This isn’t half over, and while Patrick may be ready to
storm the enemy, we need a great deal more information.” He
opened the door and returned inside to the Prince’s council.
Dash said, “I’ll go with you to the kitchen.”

Jimmy said,
“Fine.”

The two brothers
walked down the long hall.

Erik entered the
kitchen. He waved across the large stone room to Milo. The innkeeper
from his hometown of Ravensburg had been put to work in the castle’s
kitchen, along with his wife, so they could be close to their
daughter, Rosalyn, mother of the next Baron of Darkmoor. She and her
husband Rudolph the baker lived in the castle where they took care of
the baby baron.

Erik’s own
mother now lived in one of the buildings close by the castle—the
long history of animosity between her and the Dowager Baroness made
it prudent to keep the two women separated. The Baroness had been
humiliated publicly for years by Erik’s mother Frieda over Erik
being the illegitimate son of the late Baron Otto. Erik’s
stepfather, Nathan, was furiously working in the Barony’s
smithy, readying weapons and other iron goods for the coming spring
campaign. It was a socially awkward situation at times, but Erik
enjoyed having his family close by. Erik sat. “You all right?”
he asked Jimmy. “Just tired. Came close to not making it once,
but it’s not much of a story. I had just lost my horse and had
to hide from a patrol for a while, and damn near froze hiding under a
log. The snow was falling so they didn’t track me after I had
crossed some rocks, but I could barely move when they finally left.”

“Frostbite?”
asked Erik.

“Don’t
know,” said Jimmy. “I haven’t taken my boots off.
My fingers are fine.” He wiggled them.

“We have a
healing priest here. The Temple of Dala, at Rillanon, sent one to
provide advice to the Prince.”

Dash grinned.
“You mean the King bullied them into having one close by in
case Patrick was wounded.”

“Something
like that,” admitted Erik as he returned the smile. “Have
him look at your feet. It wouldn’t do to have you going
toeless.”

Jimmy chewed,
then swallowed. “Why am I suspicious you’re motivated
more by my fitness for duty, Captain, than out of any concern for my
well-being?”

Erik shrugged
theatrically. “Because you have a reasonable comprehension of
how things work in court?”

Jimmy suddenly
looked very tired, as if letting down his mask. “How soon?”
he asked.

Erik looked
sympathetic. “The end of this week. Three, four more days.”

Jimmy nodded. He
stood and said, “I’d better find that priest.”

“Down the
hall from the Prince’s quarters, next to my own. His name is
Herbert. Tell him who you are; you look like a rag-picker.”

Dash watched his
brother leave and said, “As his feet thawed he could barely
walk. I think that priest is going to earn his keep.”

Erik took a cup
of coffee from Milo, said thanks, then turned to Dash. “He
already has. I’ve got a score of men fit for duty who would
still be laid up if it wasn’t for that priest. And Nakor.”

“Where is
that scrawny lunatic?” asked Dash. “I haven’t seen
him in a week.”

“He’s
out in the city, gathering converts for his new faith.”

“How goes
the summoning of the Blessed to spread the word of Good?”

Erik laughed.
“Recruiting those willing to work on behalf of good in the
midst of winter, after a war has reduced the population to near
starvation, is nearly beyond even Nakor’s conniving ways.”

“Any
takers?”

“A couple.
One or two are earnest, the others looking for a meal.”

Dash nodded. “Is
this next mission something I could do? Jimmy could use a rest.”

“We all
could,” said Erik. Then he shook his head. “But you’re
not being spared, my friend, for we’re all going.”

“Where?”
asked Dash.

“Krondor.
Patrick can’t sit here forever. And if what your brother has
reported jibes with the other reports we’re getting, the longer
we wait, the stronger Fadawah’s forces are going to get in
Krondor. We may have to hit them with everything we have s’ooner
than we’d like.

“With Kesh
threatening our southern border, Patrick’s been reluctant to
return the Armies of the East. Well, the King has ordered some
elements back. Seems some of the Kingdom’s eastern neighbors
are getting fractious now there isn’t a large standing army or
huge fleet there to keep them in line. So Patrick’s in a hurry
to retake Krondor before King Borric orders more soldiers home to the
East.”

Dash said, “So
how many of us are going to Krondor?”

“The
Eagles,” said Erik, naming the special command of soldiers that
had been gathered and trained by Dash and Jimmy’s grandfather
Lord James, the late Duke of Krondor. “We’ll have some
auxiliaries, Duga’s crew”—he named a large force of
former mercenaries who had come over to the Kingdom’s side
during the invasion—”and we’ll be working with
Captain Subai’s Pathfinders.”

“That’s
all?” asked Dash.

“That’s
all to start,” said Erik. “We’re not trying to
conquer all of the Principality in the first week.” He sipped
at his coffee. “We were going to find a likely place to hold so
we can stage, then we ride in and secure Krondor.”

“Sounds
easy,” said Dash in a sarcastic tone. “If there wasn’t
another army already there.” He studied Erik’s face.
“There’s something else going on. Why is Patrick in such
a hurry to secure the city? I can think of a half-dozen better places
from which to stage a retaking of the West if I didn’t care
about Krondor; we could cut it off and starve out whoever’s
there, staging from a camp to the east.”

“I know,”
said Erik, “but part of it is pride. It’s Patrick’s
city, the capital of his realm. He was Prince of Krondor for only a
short while before it was lost. And he followed a legend in that
office.”

Dash nodded.
“Growing up in Rillanon, Jimmy and I met Prince Arutha only a
few times; when I was old enough to appreciate him, he was getting on
in years. But what my father and others said about him made him
impressive, even then.” He looked at Erik a moment, then said,
“You think Patrick’s of the notion that Arutha would
somehow have held the city?”

“Something
like that,” said Erik. “The Prince doesn’t confide
in me. But there’s more to it than just wounded pride. The
other part of it is logistics. That harbor is going to be useless for
years. If we had the manpower and equipment we had before the war in
Krondor, all the workers, dredges, and a few cooperative magicians,
even, it would still take a year to clear the harbor, maybe more. As
it is now, I have no idea if Krondor will ever become the shipping
center it once was.

“But we
have a new port south of there, in Shandon Bay, Port Vykor, and for
it to be any use to us, we have to insure we have a clear trade route
between there and the rest of the West, which means Krondor needs to
be secured. We don’t need it, but we certainly can’t have
Fadawah’s generals using it as a base to attack us.” He
lowered his voice, as if not wishing for a perverse fate to overhear.
“If we get cut off from Port Vykor, we may never reunite the
Eastern and Western Realms.” Dash nodded. “That makes
sense.” Erik put down his now empty mug and said, “That’s
about all that does.”

Dash nodded in
agreement as Erik stood. Looking up at the tall, powerfully built
captain, he said, “I haven’t seen my sometime employer
about lately. How fares your friend Rupert?”

Erik smiled.
“Roo is hauling some ridiculous amount of goods through mud and
ice to be first into Darkmoor with what we need.” Then Erik
laughed. “He told me he’s the richest man in the world,
according to his accounts, but has almost no gold left, so his only
hope for recovery is to insure the Kingdom survives long enough to
pay him back.”

“An odd
kind of patriotism, wouldn’t you say?”

Erik smiled as
he nodded. “If you knew Roo as well as I, you’d judge it
entirely in keeping with his nature.” Pausing for a moment as
if considering a second cup of coffee, Erik looked with a faint show
of regret at the empty mug. After a moment of silence, he said, “I’d
best get back to see what Owen wants done.”

He departed.
Dash pondered what had been said there, amidst the bustle of the
kitchen, then rose to find Jimmy and see how he fared.

The priest was
just departing Jimmy’s quarters when Dash arrived.

Sitting on the
bed next to his brother, who lay under a heavy wool blanket, Dash
said, “That was quick.”

“He gave
me something to drink, washed my feet in an unguent, then told me to
get some sleep.”

“How bad
are they?”

“I was
going to lose toes, at least,” said Jimmy, “if he hadn’t
been here.” With a nod of his head he indicated the departed
priest.

“You paint
a pretty bleak picture of what’s out there.”

Jimmy sighed. “I
saw places where men had stripped the bark off of trees to make
soup.”

Dash sat back.
“Patrick’s not going to be happy.”

“What’s
happened here while I was gone?” asked Jimmy, stifling a yawn.

Dash said,
“We’ve got reports that things are stable up north,
though no one has seen sign of that bastard Duko lately.”

Jimmy said, “If
Fadawah is sending Duko south, Krondor could be very difficult to
seize.”

“Yes,”
agreed Dash. “Kesh is not happy about what went on down in
Stardock, and we’ve got elements of the garrison of Ran and
half of the King’s Own down near Landreth, just waiting for an
excuse to move south. Kesh has pulled away from Shamata, but they’re
a lot closer than Patrick likes, and the vale is once again a
no-man’s-land. Negotiations are underway, even as we speak.”

“The
East?” asked Jimmy, this time unable to stop the yawn.

“We won’t
know until the spring, but some of the smaller kingdoms may get
playful. Patrick and the King have exchanged messages, and I get the
impression Borric wants some of his Army of the East back as soon as
the thaw starts.”

“What’s
Father say?”

“To me?”
asked Dash. Jimmy nodded. “Not much,” said Dash with a
smile that reminded his brother of their grandfather in his more
playful moods. “He’s pretty close-mouthed about things.”

“Mother?”
asked Jimmy.

Dash nodded
again. “I get the feeling it may be a long time before Mother
visits us. She seems to find court life in Roldem preferable to
living in a tent in the burned-out remains of Krondor, irrespective
of the rank of Duchess.”

Jimmy closed his
eyes. “She and Aunt Polina are most likely shopping right now,
or having gowns fitted for a banquet or dance.”

“Most
likely,” agreed Dash. “But it’s hard on Father.
You’ve been away for most of the winter, and the few times
you’ve been here you’ve seen him when he’s busy.”