Lord of Lies

by David Zindell

  'Sar Jarlath!' someone cried out.

  I turned to see this large knight beset by four Sarni warriors. I whirled Altaru about and charged into them. I struck out to the right and left trying to protect him. My sword split open leather and skin and sent founts of blood spraying into the air. When the four warriors lay dead in the grass, Sar Jarlath raised his red-tipped lance toward me in gratitude for saving his life.

  'Lord Valashu - behind you!'

  In the melee of our two forces crashing together, a Sarni warrior on a dappled mare tried to sneak up behind me Lansar Raasharu raced forward and intercepted him with a savage lance-thrust that tore through the man's eye. Other warriors screamed and descended upon us. Lord Raasharu, now shieldless, stabbed out with his lance again and again, even as I cut and lunged with my sword. A rage to kill leapt along my blood like fire. I felt it touch Lord Raasharu - or perhaps it was his own fury that burned into me. So it went all about us, my Guardians thrusting with their lances or whipping free their long kalamas in a rare rage to protect me and destroy our ancient enemy. Soon many of the Sarni lay hacked and pierced on the grass. Our horses trampled their bodies; to the sound of steel clanging against steel was added the sickening crunch of iron shod hooves breaking skin and bones. Those Sarni warriors not immediately engaged began racing back toward the position that the main body of their company still held on the rise. And then, one by one, any of these blue-faced savages who could broke off their engagements and joined the retreat. And we, of the long swords and the Morning Mountains, slaugntered the rest.

  'Val, are you all right?' Maram gasped out as he rode up to me. His sword was red, and his face was white as he gazed at the carnage all about us. 'Oh, Lord, what a day! These Sarni have courage - but no care for their brothers.'

  He pointed toward the hundred and twenty Sarni warriors watching from the rise, and he shook his head as if he couldn't understand why Trahadak the Elder, whoever he was, didn't order his men forward to aid their brethren. But if Trahadak had commanded such an advance of his reserve, so would I have done - as I still could.

  I turned back toward the two lines of Guardians still waiting behind us across the sun-streaked steppe. I cupped my hand around my mouth and shouted, 'Archers mount! First line, to us, and charge! Second line follow at half speed!'

  I nodded at Maram and at Lord Raasharu. To Baltasar and Sunjay Raviru and all the other knights who gathered about me in the middle of that bloody field, I called out, 'Let's break them!'

  Again, I urged Altaru to a gallop, and fifty of my finest knights charged with me toward the rise. The remnants of the Sarni that we had butchered reached their line in a confusion of shouting men and bounding horses. As we surged up the slope, arrows rained against us and off of us; a few found their marks and killed my men. And all at once, the Sarni broke. The entire company turned their horses to the north and galloped off as quickly as they could.

  'After them!' Baltasar shouted from my side as we pounded up the rise then reached its crest. His face was red from the heat of battle and bloodlust. 'Let's kill them all!'

  'No, hold!' I shouted at him. I reined Altaru to a halt, and called to all my other knights as they crested the hill as well. 'Hold here and reform our lines!'

  Our rearguard, with Sar Adamar, Sar Jarlath, Sar Hannu and Skyshan of Ki, finally arrived and joined the rest of us. Lord Harsha and Master Juwain were with them. My heart surged with relief as I met eyes with Estrella; she remained unharmed, as did Behira. The Sarni do not slay women or girls any more than they do horses. As before, we arrayed ourselves along the top of the rise in three lines facing north across the steppe. Our enemy had now halted about four hundred yards away. Their steel helms glistened in the last light of the day as they regrouped themselves and faced us.

  'Look!' Maram called out as he waved his sword at them.'Why don't they just go away? Don't they know when they're beaten?'

  We had lost sixteen Guardians killed and almost as many wounded; some forty of the Sarni lay dead or dying on the grass behind us. And yet, our enemy was certainly not beaten. They still had a good one hundred and eighty effective warriors, as did we. They still had their bows and arrows and their swifter ponies, and all the advantage of fighting in the open. I watched as they brought up their packhorses bearing sheaves of fresh arrows.

  'They are beaten, aren't they?' Maram said. 'If they attack us again, we'll ride them down again, cut them to pieces. Won't we?'

  I hated to utter any words that might dispirit my men, but the truth had to be told. And so I said to Maram, 'No, they won't come so close again. If we charge, they'll hold back and cut us down with arrows.'

  'So many dead, too many - too bad,' Maram said as he glanced behind us. His blustery optimism suddenly drained from him like blood into the ground. 'What have we gained, then?'

  'Time,' I told him. I looked along the rise where my Guardians made ready for another round of battle. I looked out into the sweeps and undulations of the Wendrush where our enemy gathered. 'And now we hold the high ground.'

  'Time to do what?' Maram muttered. 'Wait here on this rise and behold our doom?'

  I leaned over in my saddle and grasped his arm. 'Do not speak so. Do you remember Argattha?'

  'Ah, how could I forget?'

  'There's always a way,' I told him. 'Always a chance.'

  Just then the wind rose and seemed to carry on its currents a soul-shivering sound, like the cry of a hawk. My sword's silvery gelstei, now shaken clean of blood, caught the day's last light and cast it into my eyes. I turned away from its dazzle, turned to look out at the Sarni in the depression below us, and then beyond. Something moved just beyond the dark green curves of the next rise. The Sarni, from their vantage, could not see it. I barely could. I waited as it drew closer.

  'Val, what are you looking at?' Maram said to me. He held his hand to the edge of his helmet along his forehead. Then he cried out, 'Oh, no! More Sarni! They've brought up reinforcements! This is the end!'

  As my heart beat with an unbearable pain to the deeper rhythms of the earth, I made out a body of warriors on horses moving quickly toward us. I counted nearly a hundred conical helms; I caught glints of yellow hair against steel and black leather armor.

  Now Baltasar and Lord Raasharu, Sunjay and Sar Kimball and all the other Guardians cast their gazes beyond the enemy at this new band of Sarni bearing down upon us. My knights made no complaint or utterance as had Maram. But their black, silent eyes filled with the darkness of death.

  'What should we do, Val?' Maram said to me.

  Baltasar looked at me as if to ask the same question. Sunjay looked at me, too, as did Sar Kimball and Sar larlath and alt the rest of the Guardians. Lord Raasharu's noble face fell ugly with wrath and a spreading hopelessness.

  I shielded my eyes to gaze at this new company of Sarni. In the glare of the setting sun, their chiefs horse seemed almost red with fire. There was a white gleam about the chiefs face. Alkaladur gleamed brightly then, filling my eyes with its silver lightning, and my heart seemed to swell like the sun.

  'We'll charge,' I said to Maram, and to the others. 'Lances ready!'

  Maram, who thought he understood, spoke now with the resolve of a true Valari: 'Yes, better to die swinging our swords against this new enemy than stand here and be shot down one by one.'

  I smiled at him and said. 'Take courage, Sar Maram. You're not going to die. These new Sarni are our friends.'

  And with that I turned to issue my orders: 'First two lines, charge with me! Third line to follow in reserve! Hammer and anvil!'

  I struck my sword's diamond pommel against my fist and nodded at Lord Noldru the Bold and Sar Shuradan, who were in command of the second and third lines. Then I pushed Altaru to a gallop. Our entire company, in three long lines, flew down the slope through the long grass. Hooves beat the ground like a thousand mallets striking drums. Our enemy watched us approach and began shooting arrows at us. One of these shafts lodged in Sar Avram's arm, but no one was kill
ed. When we drew too close, Trahadak the Elder or some other chieftain gave the order for the Sarni's retreat. As I had said, they wouldn't engage us at close quarters again. And so they pointed their horses toward the rise behind them and raced away. They must have smiled to think that they were luring us to our doom out on the endless spaces of the steppe.

  A few moments later, however, the new company of Sarni burst over the top of the rise shooting arrows into the faces of our enemy. They had the advantage of surprise, and many of their whining arrows found their marks. Our enemy's chieftain, a large man whose face was painted entirely blue, looked upon these new Sarni and their chief, and he cried out, 'Imakla, imakla!'

  Seeing that his men were about to be caught between two forces, he veered sharply to the right, shouting at his men to follow him and to escape the hammer of my knights bearing down upon them. He and perhaps half his men managed to gallop off before I and my first line of knights closed with his brethren, driving them against the sabers and arrows of the new Sarni. What followed then, as steel cut at flesh and my knights cast their throwing lances into the bodies of our enemy, was a quick and terrible slaughter. Three of my men were killed with arrows. But all of our enemy who remained there on the field that day fought savagely and died. Their brethren left them to the fury of our long swords. And they disappeared into the darkening swells of earth to the west.

  'Thus to the treacherous!' Baltasar cried out. He pointed his bloody kalama at the bodies of our fallen enemy. He was weeping because his friend, Sar Viku, lay among them. 'Let us follow and kill all the rest!'

  But Baltasar's hot blood, as usual, clouded the reason of his brain. Our horses were nearly spent, as were we, and we could not have overtaken our enemies in any case. At least, it seemed, they were finally defeated.

  Lord Raasharu rode up to me and raised his sword in salute He called out, 'Lord Valashu Elahad! Lord of Battles! Lord of Light!'

  His son, Baltasar, picked up this cry, and so did Sar Jarlath and Sar Kimball and the other Ishkans. Then Sar Hannu of Anjo urged his horse closer and added his deep voice to the chant, as did Sar Varald, Lord Noldru the Bold and the Taroners. And then all at once, the Kaashans, Waashians, Atharians and Lagashuns joined in, and all the Guardians shouted as one: 'Lord of Battles! Lord of Light!'

  And then old Sar Shuradan called out, 'Victory is ours! Valari forever! Valari! Valari!'

  We all knew that the Valari hadn't fought together since the Tarshid an entire age before, and that battle had ended in terrible defeat.

  'Valari! Valari! Valari!'

  In truth, however, the victory was not ours - not ours alone. Across the field where the bodies of our enemy lay broken and bleeding on the grass, the new company of Sarni had halted facing us. Some wiped their bloody sabers; others gripped curved bows no different than the ones our enemy had turned on us. Their silence was deep and unnerving. But what shocked my men more than anything - Sar Jarlath and Sar ianashu, Baltasar and Tavar Amadan and all the rest - was that the faces of our saviors were smooth and unpainted and bore the softer, unmistakable lines of women.

  'What's this - women dressed as warriors?' Sar Jarlath cried out. Then he gazed upon their efficient and violent work, and shook his head. 'No, woman warriors, truly. But who has ever heard of such a thing?'

  As it happened, Lord Raasharu and Sar Shuradan had, and so had some of the other knights. Maram and Master Juwain knew of these terrible woman, as did I. They were of the Manslayer Society: Sarni women who lived apart from the rest of their tribe and trained at war as did men. They were fierce in battle, and they took vows to kill a hundred enemy men before marrying.

  'Oh, Lord!' Maram said as his gaze fell upon these Manslayers' chief.

  I, too, had eyes only for this woman. She sat tall and regal upon a great roan mare. A lionskin cloak draped from her shoulders. Her accouterments were those of the men that we had fought, and her hair was gold like the hoops encircling her bare upper arms. The golden torque protecting her neck was inlaid with the bluest of lapis. Her eyes would have picked up this bright color if it hadn't been falling dark - and if she hadn't been violently blinded. A white cloth was bound across her face just beneath her forehead. It was the glint of this cloth from across the steppe that had stirred my memory and ignited the fire of my heart. For this blind warrior, who had somehow found me in the middle of the Wendrush and saved my life, was Atara Ars Narmada, the woman I loved more than I did life itself.

  Chapter 16

  I wanted to race over to her,- to clasp hands with her and embrace her. I wanted to kiss her full lips and the cloth covering the hollows where her eyes used to be, I did not. I was the commander of nearly two hundred knights exhausted from battle. And she, it seemed was the chief of her sister warriors. They were Sarni, and we were Valari, and although we had fought the same enemy that day, there was yet no love between us. All gathered there beneath the darkening clouds stared at Atara and me as they waited to see what we would do. 'Atara!' I called out to her. 'Atara Ars Narmada!'

  She shook her head slightly and called back to me: 'Here, I'm just "Atara the Blind", Lord Valashu - Lard of Light.'

  She smiled at me as she always had when playing with words or having fun. But beneath her welcome was a formality that I was unused to and a hint of coldness that immediately chilled my heart. 'How did you find us here?' I asked her. 'Why were we attacked?'

  'Good questions, Lord Valashu. But why don't we answer them after? There's much to be done if you don't want to leave your fallen for the wolves.'

  With night coming on, the rich greens of the steppe and the sky's patches of blue bled away into a solid gray that spread across the heavens and covered the earth like a shroud. Soon it would be too dark to see our companions where they lay in the long grass. We must find them and bury them before the wolves and other scavengers swarmed around them. And, it seemed, we must also bury the bodies of our enemy.

  'We must have slain a hundred of them,' Lord Harsha said, 'so it will be hard work. But the dead are dead, Sarni or no. and they must be buried.'

  'No, they must not he buried,' Atara called out to him. She nudged her mare, whose name was Fire, closer to us. It unnerved Lord Harsha, I sensed, to see the blind Atara unerringly guide her horse around the bodies of the slain Sarni, 'At least, they must not be buried as you Valari bury men. Here we have different ways.'

  The Sarni, in fact, do not dig graves in the very tough turf of the steppe, instead, they divest their dead of all weapons, ornaments and clothing, and lay them on the grass with their eyes open to the sky and their arms opened outward as an offering to any beast who would take them. Naked a man came into the world, and naked he must go out of it.

  'Barbaric,' Lord Harsha said to Atara when he discovered this. 'It's wrong to let your companions be devoured by wolves.'

  'Is it better,' Atara asked him, 'to let them be devoured by the worms?'

  Lord Harsha, who was unused to being faced down by women, particularly not one so young as Atara, allowed his hand instinctively to rest on the hilt of his sword. And almost instantly, the bows of ninety of Atara's sister Manslayers were raised and their arrows pointed at him.

  'Come,' I said, riding over to Lord Harsha, I rested my hand on his arm and watched as he relaxed his fingers. 'We've enough burying to do already, however we're to do it. Let the Valari bury the Valari, and the Sarni attend the Sarni.'

  We worked far into the night. While Atara and her Manslayers rode about the steppe looking for the enemy we had killed and six of their own, we of the Morning Mountains located our companions and bore them across our horses back toward the river. There, in hard soil bound with many roots, we began digging graves: twenty-one altogether, for two more knights had died from their wounds. We drew the arrows from the bodies of our companions. We bathed them and anointed them in oil. After placing their hands around their swords, we wrapped them in their cloaks and laid them in the ground. Then we gathered and gave voice to songs of mourning, to exalt and rem
ember and sing their souls up toward the stars.

  And all this we had to accomplish in the deepness of night with wood fires blazing so that we could see, with Guardians posted in case our enemy should return. The Manslayers made camp fifty yards from ours. Our own camp that night we had to lay out without the tradi-tional moat and stockade. With the sky clearing toward midnight, we erected only one tent: the pavilion where Master Juwain went to work on the wounded. He drew many arrows, and filled many holes in flesh, with his healing powders and the light of his green gelstei. It was a miracle that no more of my men died. But in addition to the twenty-one Guardians who would remain here forever by the river's bend, at least four more would keep them company until they were well enough to ride again. When it finally came time for sleeping, it seemed that many of us needed company and talk even more. I sat with Atara and a middling-old woman named Karimah by a fire stoked with logs of deadwood. lord Raasharu and Baltasar joined us there, with Sunjay Naviru, Lord Harsha and Maram. Lord Harsha held an old bottle of brandy, which he poured into cups and gave out to us. Baltasar watched with amaze-ment as Atara reached her hand straight out and grasped her cup with all the precision of a diamond cutter. But his wonder at this feat quickly gave way to anger, for he was was still wroth over the death of Sar Viku, who had been as a brother to him.

  'Alter we've visited this lake of yours, Val,' he said to me, 'we should lay waste Trahadak's encampment and slay those who escaped us today.'

  Atara laughed at this in a voice that was clear and clean and sweet. She said to Baltasar, 'if you rode into Trahadak's encampment with lances and drawn swords instead of gold, it would be you who was slain. Trahadak is Kurmak, and Zakut at that.'