The man did so, and the door opened to the sound of lapping water. At a landing beneath the old citadel, the central part of the palace of Krondor, an underground waterway wended from the city into the bay. The stench of the place told every man what they already knew: this was a section of the great sewers of the city, which emptied into the bay a mile or more away.
A new longboat waited, tethered to an iron ring in the stone dock, and the eight soldiers entered, leaving a place in the middle for the Duke. James stepped into the boat. ‘Let’s go,’ he said.
The boat was pushed off from the dock, and the men began to row, but rather than head for the bay, they swung the boat around and headed against the flow of the water, into the sewers of the city.
As they came to the entrance of a large culvert, one twice the height of a man, James whispered to himself, ‘Jimmy the Hand goes home.’
SIXTEEN - Battles
Erik signaled.
‘Over there!’ he shouted.
Men turned their horses and charged. The battle for the city had been raging outside the northernmost gate in the east wall since the day before. The invaders were disorganized as they came ashore.
Erik’s detachments had been struck twice, once at sundown, and again in the morning by a large detachment of Saaur horsemen. Erik had been pleased to discover that, despite their size, the Saaur horses were just as subject to the travail of travel as were the smaller animals humans rode. Also, for the first time in their memory, the Saaur weren’t facing human mercenaries but true soldiers, Kingdom heavy lancers, and the impact of a disciplined foe with twelve-foot-long, iron-shod lances and a willingness to conduct an orderly charge had routed the Saaur. Erik had no idea what good this would do for the overall campaign, but the lift it gave his men to best the huge lizardmen in their first confrontation was incalculable.
Now they were engaged with a company of mercenary humans who, while not as individually threatening as the Saaur, were proving more difficult for their sheer numbers, and because they were relatively fresh, while Erik’s men had fought two engagements in the last twelve hours.
But as the fresh Kingdom riders approached from the south, Erik found his units able to roll back the invaders, who fled at last into the woodlands to the north. Erik turned and looked for his second in command, a lieutenant named Gifford. He signaled the man and said, ‘Ride after, but halt a bowshot from the tree line. I don’t want you riding into traps. Then bring the men back and re-form. I’m heading to the gate to see if there are any more orders.’ The lieutenant saluted and rode off to carry out his orders.
Erik hurried his tired horse down the road toward the gate, past boarded-up houses, as if the owners expected to return to find them intact, as if this were only a storm striking Krondor. Other homes were obviously abandoned, with doors left open. A steady stream of refugees hurried along the road, moving in the direction from which Erik came, and he had to shout several times to get people to let him pass.
Already the tone of the flight was edging toward panic, and Erik knew that this would be his last trip to get any new orders. It took him nearly a half-hour to ride a distance he could normally travel in a third that time, and when he reached the gate he saw the activity was up to a frantic pace.
He saw two other wagons pushed off the road, one into the small river that ran along the road into the city, through the sewers, and into the bay. Erik absently wondered if it might be one of Roo’s. He suspected most of Roo’s wagons had gotten clear of the city before the fighting at sundown, and were now safely on their way to Darkmoor.
Getting within hailing distance of the gate, Erik shouted, ‘Sergeant Macky!’
The sergeant in command of the gate turned to see who called, and when he spied Erik, he shouted, ‘Sir?’
‘Any orders?’
‘No, sir. As before,’ was all he said before turning back to hurry along those trying to crowd through the gate, while maintaining order.
Erik shouted, ‘Good luck to you then, Sergeant!’
The soldier, an old man who had shared a drink or two with Erik and the other members of the Crimson Eagles, turned and said, ‘And to you, sir. Good luck to us all.’ Then he went back to his tasks.
Erik wished for a fresh mount, but he couldn’t risk heading into the city. He would ride back to his command position and see if there was time to secure a remount. He had ordered the fresh horses kept far enough from the most likely points of combat that they were safe - but not convenient.
He forced his way back through the mob fleeing the city. He knew what the plan was, yet this frantic sea of humanity made him wonder if he could be as cruel as the Prince and Duke, for many of those he passed would be hunted down and killed by the Emerald Queen’s raiders as they fanned out along the highway. Erik couldn’t protect them all.