Erik heard the sounds of the two men walking away and after a moment he could hear them speaking again, though he couldn’t understand what they were saying.
Erik lay awake a long time trying to puzzle out the significance of what he had overheard. He had never heard of those places, Hamsa or Kilbar, and didn’t know who the Jeshandi were. But there was a note in de Loungville’s voice he had never heard before. It was an overtone of worry, perhaps even fear. Erik found sleep came slowly, and when it at last found him, he didn’t rest well.
Nakor, carrying a travel bag slung over his shoulder, was waiting with Calis when Robert de Loungville called Erik and the others out of their room. The four guards said nothing but fell in behind Calis and the others.
Nakor kept up a nearly nonstop narrative of some of the things he had been involved in since the last time Calis and de Loungville had visited. From what Erik overheard, it sounded as if Nakor and Calis had known each other for a very long time. Erik remembered Nakor’s having said something the night before about a visit somewhere with Calis twenty-four years earlier, which hardly seemed possible to Erik, as Calis didn’t look much older than twenty-four. Then Erik remembered what Nakor said about “his race,” meaning Calis’s, and then the other remarks made in camp about Calis not being human.
Erik was so caught up in these reflections he hardly noticed when they climbed out of the vale and crested the ridge. He was surprised to see that the beach was covered with men, his own shipmates and the full company of soldiers who had been aboard the Freeport Ranger. They stood quietly waiting on the sand. Erik recognized a few faces from the Ranger’s company as guards who had served at the camp, but now they were dressed in all fashion of clothing, in the same manner as the Revenge’s company.
De Loungville motioned for Erik and the others to go over and stand next to their shipmates and he mounted an outcropping of rock next to the trail, so he could look down on the men. “Listen up!” he shouted.
Calis took his place on the rock and said, “Some of you know me well, and others here have never spoken with me. Most of you know by now who I am, or think you do.” He glanced from face to face. “I am called Calis. I serve Prince Nicholas, as I did his father before. Some call me the Eagle of Krondor, or the Prince’s Bird of Prey.” He seemed amused by these titles.
“Twenty-four years ago a great raid was launched against the Far Coast. Some here might remember the destruction of Crydee, Carse, and Tulan.”
A few of the older soldiers from the Ranger nodded.
“Those events led us to travel halfway around the world, to the land called Novindus.”
None of the men from the Ranger said anything, but Erik’s company looked at one another amid a few muttered questions.
“Quiet, now!” commanded de Loungville.
“What we found down there was a plot to destroy the Kingdom.”
Again there was some stirring among the men from Trenchard’s Revenge, but no one spoke.
Calis continued. “Twice since, I have traveled to this far land, the last time with some of you.”
The men from Trenchard’s Revenge, almost to a man, turned to regard the guards from the compound, veterans from many different garrisons around the Kingdom. Those looked at Calis with a steady gaze, as if they understood exactly what was being said.
“So you who weren’t with us know, I’ll tell you a few things. Ten years ago word reached Prince Arutha that a great army was massing in that part of Novindus called the Westlands. That army swept down from an unknown place along the shore of an ocean they call the Green Sea. The first city to fall was Point Pünt. In this land there is nothing like our Kingdom Army. Cities may have militia, but most fighting is done by mercenary companies. There are rules of conduct and established protocols for how they are treated by those who are victorious in warfare. The conquerors gave the defenders of the city called Point Punt the choice of serving or one day’s grace to withdraw. That is normal, but what wasn’t normal was that every man in the city was ordered to serve under arms or watch his wife and children, mother and father impaled before his eyes. After the first executions, the entire male population of the city joined that army.
“They then marched on the city of Irabek, and after bitter fighting it fell. Then Port Sulth, then all the towns along the Manstra River.”
Erik had never heard of any of these places, but he listened, fascinated.