Kalvan was awakened by a loud banging noise that at first he feared was coming from inside his head until Jaklon opened the door and told him he had a visitor. He dressed quickly in the same jerkin and slops as yesterday and exited his sleeping quarters. It was Warlord Sargos looking disgustingly wide awake for a man-if Kalvan's memory served him right-who had drank the lion's share of three jugs of Ermut's brandy. "What?" Kalvan asked.
"Great King, I had a vision last night!"
Kalvan stifled a groan. What demons had the brandy conjured forth in Sargos' drunken wits? And why was he so determined to share this hallucination with him? "Yes?"
"I dreamt that I was flying again, in the guise of a raven."
Ahh, the spirit of Edgar Allen Poe returns, Kalvan mused. He kept his thoughts to himself, knowing how superstitious the tribesmen were about visions, omens and portents.
"As I flew closer to the earth, I saw this, our own encampment, with the hills that lay before us. Only the hills were on fire, belching clouds of smoke and ash. As I flew closer, I saw that the hills were alive with soldiers running out of the tunnels and pits, like termites fleeing a burning mound. Then I woke up!" Sargos looked expectantly at Kalvan as though he expected him to give him a Freudian dream analysis of this nightmare.
Kalvan shrugged his shoulders, experiencing another round of pounding headache. He felt as though the Hostigi drum corps had taken permanent residence in his head. "Go on."
"Then I thought back to my youth, when my mother used to bake whole boars for the First Day Feast. She would wrap the whole pig in leaves and then bury it in a clay mound beneath hot rocks. When we dug it up that evening, the cooked flesh would fall from the bones." Sargos smacked his lips, as if reliving the memory.
"We called that a luau, where I came from," Kalvan said, suddenly remembering that Sargos wouldn't have the faintest idea of what he was talking about. "Beyond the Cold Lands a luau is a great feast of welcome in the Kingdom of Hawaii. Oh, I see what you're getting at. Why don't we roast the Knights out of those tunnels?"
Kalvan jumped up, his headache forgotten, and wrapped his arms around the Warlord. "Yes, yes, this is a vision from the gods."
Ranjar Sargos tried to jump up and down, found he couldn't, and began grinning so hard Kalvan was surprised his cheeks didn't split. Suddenly Kalvan was very aware that neither man had bathed in a month of Sundays. It was astounding what a man's sense of smell could grow accustomed to!
Kalvan disengaged from the nomad's embrace and said, "Let us have something to eat and then we will call a Council of War! Jaklon is my breakfast ready?"
"Yes, Your Majesty. Should I heat up the last of the chocolate?"
"Capital idea. Sargos your idea is absolutely inspired. It'll take time to get the wood we need, but nothing compared to what it would take to starve these stubborn iron heads out of those mines!"