Sorcerer's Moon

by Julian May

  Fight beside dragons?…Entrust their lives to hideous carnivores even more frightful than the Salka? Creatures with uncanny talents that human alchymists and shamans knew nothing about? How could the Morass Worms be trusted? What if they turned on humanity?

  ‘I trust them,’ Casya had said to the assembled battle-leaders. ‘They don’t want the territory where humans live, only the most remote part of the Green Morass, their natural home. I’ve promised that when I’m Queen of Didion, they shall have it.’

  ‘How do we know you’re the heir to Honigalus?’ Duke Nettos Intrepid had jeered, and many other Lords of the Southern Shore had echoed his skepticism. ‘You’re the Wold Wraith! Somarus put a price on your head.’

  ‘I have ways of proving my claim to the Didionite succession – but not now. There’s no time to waste. The Morass Worms trust my leadership because it was successful at Beacon Lake. They’re willing to fight the Salka down here as well, but they can’t win the war alone. We must work together with them. Will you do it or won’t you?’

  In the end they agreed. But only because the young hero, Prince Dyfrig, declared that he was ready to fight at Casya Pretender’s side and would willingly entrust his life to the dragons of the Green Morass.

  ‘You’ve just come back to me, and now you must go again,’ Induna said, squeezing her husband’s hand. Her eyes were dry but she wore a wistful, one-sided smile.

  Deveron looked down from the saddle. ‘I’m always with you, just as you will always be a part of me. You shared your soul and restored my life. All I can give you in return is my unending love.’

  The two of them were in the midst of a great mass of mounted warriors. The sun had come out after the rain and shone on a scene that was not as confused as it might have seemed. Three hundred Knight Commanders of Cathra and Tarn were poised and ready, each heading a closely grouped company of twenty men armed with lances six ells long. Also part of each group were gun-crews comprising ten grenadiers mounted on massive destriers, who towed compact tarnblaze mortars on wheels and small carts loaded with munitions.

  They waited.

  Meanwhile, numbers of their fellow-warriors not involved in the operation were gathered in a great mob at a safe distance, eager to watch the dragons take their mates away. How this maneuver was to be accomplished was known only to the nine thousand volunteers of what had been dubbed The Pretender’s Army.

  Thus far, only Vaelrath had come into the sprawling Direwold encampment. Impressive as her appearance was, many of the men were disappointed that she had no wings. How, then, would the great dragons carry off the troops? Bets (some of them bizarre) were being made…

  Casya, Dyfrig, and the battle-leaders sat their mounts in a small group at the edge of the formed companies, waiting for Deveron to deliver the windspoken message from Vaelrath signalling that the worms were on their way. The Royal Intelligencer and Induna had withdrawn out of earshot for a final conversation.

  ‘If this action is successful, it won’t take long,’ Deveron said to his wife. ‘But Vaelrath has warned me that we might have to lie in wait for hours in order to attack the foe most effectively. Keep alert for my windspeech. It may be faint if the Salka try to block it. You are the only one I can trust to inform Marshal Parlian of the outcome of this first encounter. I dare not let another adept have access to my mind. I know too many secrets, love, and my mental defenses are not as strong as I would like. My newly empowered sigils don’t exact a pain-price, but they do take a toll on my physical strength and the keenness of my talent. Whatever tidings I send you, no matter how dire or welcome they may be, you must tell Beorbrook and him alone.’

  ‘He’s concerned about Prince Dyfrig,’ she said. ‘But very proud, I think, that his son convinced our warriors to go with Casya and the dragons.’

  ‘His earlier experience with the Morass Worms gave credibility to Casabarela’s assertions.’ Deveron looked away as a worrisome thought struck him. ‘I wish our alchymists and shamans had been able to crack the Salka cover-spell. Still, the dragons seem to know where the brutes are, even if they can’t predict what they intend to do.’

  Induna said, ‘The earl marshal was also disappointed that his agents were unable to discover useful tracks through the heath, aside from the overly perilous game-trail the Lord Lieutenant and his men followed in their shortcut from Karum Port to Direwold. The heavy cavalry could never travel that way. He told me we now have no hope of outflanking the enemy without the help of the worms.’

  ‘It galls Earl Marshal Parlian, I think, that our strategy must rely so heavily upon such strange and fearsome creatures. He’s an old-fashioned warrior who would much prefer to fight in the good old-fashioned way.’

  ‘Tell it to the Salka!’ she said.

  Both of them laughed. Then Deveron gave a sudden start. ‘Leave me now, sweetheart. It’s about to start.’

  She ran off without another word. He kneed his mount and rode up to the Pretender, who was in close converse with Prince Dyfrig, and saluted them and the noble officers. They all wore helms and tough boiled-leather cuirasses but no mail, as did most of the troops. Vaelrath did not wish to overburden her people.

  ‘Here they come, Your Majesty,’ the intelligencer said. ‘I’ve heard them on the wind.’

  Casabarela Mallburn gave a command in a surprisingly resonant voice. ‘Sound the horn!’

  One of the aides lifted a silver trumpet. As the distinctive musical notes echoed over the heath, the watching crowd fell silent. Then thousands of throats uttered an earth-shaking shout as the Morass Worms abruptly appeared, gorgeous and frightful, a dozen or so of them suspended in the air above each company of human beings. They drifted to the ground as lightly as thistledown, opened the invisible portals to the subtle corridors that they had frequented from time immemorial, and gently shepherded the mounted warriors and their equipment inside.

  The process was swiftly done. Last of all, Vaelrath manifested herself above Casya and the officers.

  ‘You’re certain the Salka won’t see us coming?’ Prince Dyfrig asked with some sharpness.

  The Morass Worm laughed. Did you?

  She descended and pointed to the portal. When every human had disappeared the dragons followed suit, leaving an empty expanse of barren moorland and a strangely subdued throng of onlookers.

  A few minutes later other horns began to sound assembly. The troops of the Sovereign Army who were not already marching down the Wold Road toward Lake of Shadows began to break camp. Two hours later, they were on the way south.

  Ugusawn and Kalawnn swam or slithered as little as possible to conserve their stamina. Taking advantage of Eminent Privilege, they skipped short distances up and down the long column advancing up the Dennech, making use of the Subtle Gateway worn by the Supreme Warrior. The pain-debt was very small. In this way they were able to supervise the troop movement closely and make certain that the spell of dissimulation stayed firm. The earlier interference had ceased.

  This wing of the army, like the smaller one moving up the Shadow River, was in splendid shape, moving at top speed except during the infrequent rest stops. Adjacent wetlands supplied the Salka with plenty of fish and waterfowl. They had gorged themselves on man-meat as they overran Dennech-Cuva, but until they reached the Wold Road and engaged the Sovereign Army, they had to make do with less appealing fare.

  It was late afternon when the force reached a big bend in the river that was a relatively short distance from that great lake where a few thousand human warriors still tarried. At this point, a crucial decision would have to be made. Before long, the river would curve back to the west into empty country, then trend more directly northward again. The Eminences took their ease in a large marsh that spread along the eastern bank of the bend and discussed the situation. Thousands of warriors were already resting there.

  Kalawnn wanted to continue to follow the Dennech for another two days, all the way to its headwaters near the upper Wold Road. If the Salka took possession of that all-
important highway and the surrounding countryside, slaughtering whatever stragglers of the human army they encountered, it seemed likely they could force the human leaders to divert significant numbers of their men from the upcoming Battle of Shadows. If the humans swallowed the bait and came north again, their diverted warriors would be led a fatal chase into the bogs.

  Ugusawnn, on the other hand, favored going overland to Lake of Shadows immediately, linking up with Commander Rikalawnn’s army and forcing a climactic confrontation with the humans without any delay. To reach the lakeshore, the Salka would have to cross the marsh, then ascend a ridge that was mostly gravel and glacial till, sparsely covered with sedge clumps, low-growing herbs, and patches of heather. It was raining again and the Warrior’s windsight seemed to show that the going would not be too arduous.

  He and Kalawnn argued the pros and cons amiably for a short time before it occurred to them to scry a bit further up the lake and see what the small human army encamped there might be doing.

  ‘Ahroo!’ Ugusawn gave a howl of incredulous delight. ‘I don’t believe it. They’re on the march – toward the foot of the lake where the Shadow River outflow begins!’

  ‘Indeed,’ Kalawnn concurred. ‘How unexpected. Some are afoot and some on horseback, with a pitiful quantity of little wheeled tarnblaze cannons to augment their spears. Rikalawnn’s force outnumbers them by better than two to one. Still, the humans might be able to slow him down long enough to cause a bit of bother. Unless –’

  ‘Man-meat.’ The Supreme Warrior licked his slimy lips. ‘We give Rik’s bunch some help, he’ll have to share. And then, on to the great affray! What do you think?’

  ‘I won’t be able to climb that ridge,’ the Master Shaman admitted.

  Ugusawnn clasped Subtle Gateway. ‘I’ll whisk us to the top of it. There’s a single copse of small evergreen trees up there. We can squat amongst them and watch while the column crosses over. Thirty thousand of us…the vanguard will just about get to the lakeshore as the rear starts out of the marsh. You tell Rik we’re on our way, and I’ll bespeak our officers with the change of route.’

  Assume your assigned positions, Vaelrath said. Be as quiet as possible, although it matters little whether they hear you now. We will keep you hidden from them. They will be unable to understand what is happening until it is too late.

  The cloudcover had broken and the rain was over. Auroral pandemonium flashed and swirled in the clear portions of the Sky and illuminated the land below, where a broad stream of huge dark forms approached the highland summit above Lake of Shadows.

  The Pretender’s Army had waited impatiently up there for most of the day, concealed by the talent of the Morass Worms. Only Casya herself displayed no surprise when thousands more of the great dragons joined those who had led the mounted humans to this strange battleground.

  Two Salka – persons of importance from the comparatively large size of them and the gold and ivory accoutrements that adorned their bodies – had also stationed themselves atop the ridge, about two hundred ells from the place where the humans had picketed their mounts and waited in ambush. Deveron had scried them continuously, wondering whether they were Salka leaders. He had briefly considered using Concealer to approach them unseen, but in the end he decided that it was too risky.

  ‘What was that?’ Kalawnn said, his head swiveling apprehensively. ‘I thought I heard something.’

  ‘Of course you did,’ the Warrior grunted. He rolled his glowing red eyes in exasperation. ‘It’s the sound of thousands of our warriors advancing. Look: the first of them have reached the top of the ridge. Shall we go to meet them? It’s a glorious night.’

  They emerged together from the partial shield of the evergreens and watched proudly as the head of the column came into clear view. The troops came on twenty abreast in close ranks, wriggling easily over the gravelly ground and humming a deep-pitched martial air.

  ‘I think –’ Ugusawn began.

  Before he could say more, the first of the tarnblaze bombshells arced through the air like a low-flying meteorite and exploded with a stunning detonation amidst the advancing host.

  ‘Impossible,’ Kalawnn said, falling back in horror at the sight.

  Ugusawn could only curse and groan as he clutched the Gateway sigil. A second bomb exploded and then a third. After that, both of them lost count of the coruscant balls of death raining down upon the hapless troops. The things could not be deflected with talent. Some of them did not detonate, but instead gushed fountains of bluish-gold fire that clung to any flesh it touched and could not be quenched.

  The symmetry of the march disintegrated as frenzied Salka broke formation and began to flee in all directions through the roiling smoke. Shattered bodies lay on the ground in pools of blood that appeared black beneath the pitiless Light of the aurora. The wounded howled and cursed. A few courageous fighters brandished minor sigils, clashed their teeth ferociously, and cried out in frustration. ‘Where are they? Where is the foe?’

  ‘Where indeed?’ Kalawnn croaked. He was sidling along at some distance from Ugusawnn now, trying to avoid the flailing wounded who would have taken hold of him in their agony and pulled him down. ‘Use your windsight, colleague!’ he entreated the Warrior, bespeaking him because the noise of the bombs and the screams of the dying and the panic-stricken made normal speech impossible.

  ‘I continue to do so – and yet there is nothing. Nothing!’

  A sudden lull in the bombardment made it possible for the Eminences to gain an oversight of the rest of the column. The march had come to a precipitate halt. On the steeper slopes, scores of gigantic bodies crashed into one another and tumbled about in helpless confusion. Valiant officers on the flanks tried to restore order amongst knots of struggling troops and guide them into a proper retreat. They bludgeoned and hauled and roared commands, and in some areas it seemed that the chaos might be calming.

  And then the dragons appeared out of nowhere. Their eldritch shrieks and nightmarish appearance sowed fresh terror in warriors who had never encountered them before, and despair in veterans of the skirmishes around Beacon Lake. Taller than the great amphibians and infinitely more agile, their appalling tactic was to rend the tentacles of their enemies, leaving them helpless and bleeding to death. If a worm was cornered by superior numbers, it simply vanished.

  Last of all came the humans led by Prince Dyfrig, mounted on their war-horses and armed with long spears tipped with sharp steel points. They darted about dispatching the fallen and pursuing Salka who fled downhill. If the lances broke, the humans took up crossbows that shot deadly broadheaded bolts, or fought with two-handed swords as long as a man was high. Their clever mounts wheeled and dodged and kept the riders balanced in the saddle as they hacked Salka to bits.

  The carnage became so overwhelming that Kalawnn could no longer apprehend it. He called on the wind, pleading for Ugusawnn to fetch him and carry him to safety with Subtle Gateway, but there was no response.

  ‘Are you dead, colleague?’ he wailed. ‘Have they struck you down and drained your blood or slain you with fire? We have lost this battle. I think we have lost the war as well! The Great Lights have abandoned us, even though the insignificant minor sigil I wear still glows.’

  It was the end. If humans and great worms united in assailing the Salka, how could they ever hope to prevail in the new game? Their opponents could strike at them anywhere, when they least expected it. The Salka could only howl in pain and die. Or was there another choice?

  ‘Might we be allowed to return in ignominy to Moss?’ he whispered. ‘Humans will deny us the prime areas, but perhaps they’d let us keep the Great Fen and the Hungry Sands. No one else wants them…’

  Kalawnn began to laugh.

  After that, thinking gave way to a vast apathy. The Master Shaman viewed the scene on the ridge-slope as if it were taking place beneath murky water, and the fighting merely a kind of stylized dance. Even that slowed down to a quietus after a while. The human warriors an
d the worms went away.

  He stumbled to a heap of boulders and took shelter behind them. He slept without dreaming, and when he woke, a man was standing over him.

  ‘I’ve come for the Potency,’ Deveron Austrey said.

  Casya Pretender sheathed her broadsword and waved to Prince Dyfrig. He guided his mount through the bodies of the fallen monsters and saluted her by raising his bloody lance. The aurora was paling as the first light of dawn brightened the eastern sky.

  ‘Your Majesty of Didion, I think the field of battle is ours. The Salka are retreating full-tilt back toward the Dennech Valley, harried by Morass Worms. The very sight of our terrible allies seems to have broken their spirits.’ He reached behind his leather cuirass and produced a small velvet sack. ‘If you’ll permit, I wish to give you a token of my admiration. Never have I seen such bravery as yours.’

  She removed her gauntlets and opened the sack. At the sight of the necklace with its three great opals set in gold, she gasped. ‘Your Grace – Dyfrig – I cannot –’

  He closed her fingers over the gift. ‘You must. You deserve to be adorned as a queen, and this necklace once belonged to another royal lady of great courage. She’s dead now, and one day I hope to tell you her story. But believe me when I say that she would want you to have this.’

  Casya lowered her helmeted head and fastened the catch behind her neck. ‘Then I accept it with heartfelt gratitude, my prince.’

  ‘There’s something else I must tell you. It concerns your future in Didion. My father, the earl marshal, has in his safe keeping a considerable treasure that was stolen from your country by Kilian Blackhorse. It consists of gold and precious jewels, taken from Kilian by Beynor of Moss, that were finally retrieved from that villain by Sir Deveron Austrey. The treasure belongs to the rightful Queen of Didion. I pray it will help you regain your throne.’