'You're as nervous as antelope,' he said to me as we walked our horses parallel to the columns of Guardians. 'I haven't seen you like this.'
'We're being followed,' I said to him. 'By whom remains uncertain.'
Sajagax nodded his head and glanced behind us. 'I think it is Duke Malatam. To behold the Lightstone is to love it like life itself, but he loved it more than anyone should, if you know what I mean.'
I stopped for a moment and tried to feel through Altaru's sturdy legs for any shaking of the earth; I looked behind us for any sign of a dust plume rising into the clear blue sky. To Sajagax, I said, 'Do you ever grow tired of battle?'
Sajagax seemed to swell like a bellows ready to deliver a blast of air into a furnace. 'Ask me if I grow tired of living. Should I want to give up that which stirs the greatest life within me? I love battle as all men should: as the sun loves the world, as a man does a woman.'
At this, I looked off at Atara riding next to Karimah as the columns of my knights passed by us. The beating of my heart was a deep pain inside me. Sajagax followed the line of my eyes, and he breathed out a heavy sigh.
'Sometimes I do grow tired,' he admitted. For a moment he sat slumped on his horse, deflated and spent like an old man. 'There's been so much slaughter. Eleven of my sons. Seventeen grandsons. My first wife.'
'Isn't Freyara your first wife?'
'No, when I was a young man like you, I took a bride from the Haukut clan. Her name was Aliaqa.'
Sajagax wiped the sweat stinging his eyes, and a great sadness came over him.
'Was she killed in battle, then?'
'No, a Marituk warrior stole her from my tent,' He sighed again and then forced himself to sit up straight as a red rage began building inside him. 'Torok was his name. I swam the Poru and then followed his track a hundred miles to where his family had their camp. Four days I spent waiting for my moment. And then I took my Aliaqa back.'
'And Torok, his family - they didn't follow you?'
'No, I had driven off their horses. But when Torok saw me riding off with Aliaqa, he fired an arrow into her back. To spite me. To take from me my greatest treasure. He could have fired his arrow at me.'
I reached out and clasped his hard hand in mine. Tears filled his eyes. He squeezed back with such a fierce grip that I feared my hand might break.
'After I gave Aliaqa back to the world,' he continued, 'I waited four more days. I returned to their camp. When everyone was sleeping, I cut through their tent, which belonged to Torok's brother. His name I never learned, but I put my sword through him first. I woke up Torok so that he knew who it was that killed him. The noise woke everyone else up, too. The brother's wife was like a she-wolf: she could have been a Manslayer. She came at me with a knife, and I had to cut her down, too.'
Now the old rage that had tormented him for so long turned inward and began eating at his insides like a ravening lion. I sensed that he wanted to tell me more, so I said, 'And then?'
'And then I killed the brother's children, too. The oldest boy couldn't have been more than five; the youngest was a baby, a girl with milk on her mouth. I told myself that it was a mercy, that they couldn't have survived the jackals and wolves with their elders dead, thirty miles from any other Marituk encampment. But I know not, Valashu, I know not.'
Sajagax bowed his head as he stared at the grass. It was a terrible thing that he had told me. He sat beneath the hot sun sweating and blinking his eyes. Then he looked at me. In a deep, angry voice, he forced out, 'I didn't make the world! Battles all true men must fight. We try to work our will on the world, but it may be that the world works its will on us. Who can see the end of it all?'
Again, I looked off toward Atara, who now rode a couple of hundred yards ahead of us. Seeing this, Sajagax's fierce, old face suddenly softened. 'If battle should find us here, I want you to stay by my granddaughter's side. She's a warrior, the greatest of the Manslayers, but she is still the woman you love, and you must protect her.'
He clasped hands with me yet again as if to seal an agreement. Then he dug his heels into his horse and galloped back to where his warriors made their way across the steppe. I rejoined my company, riding side by side with Atara. Thus we proceeded for perhaps an hour before one of Sajagax's scouts came pounding over a rise behind us. He galloped straight past our columns and cried out, 'The Alonians! They have betrayed us!'
At this news, Sajagax turned his warriors and waited for us to catch up to him. Then he rode forward, with Thadrak and Orox. I joined them there, on a grass-covered knoll, accompanied by Atara, Lord Raasharu, Lord Harsha, Baltasar, Maram and Master Juwain. Then the scout, nearly breathless from his dash across the steppe, gasped out: 'Duke Malatam leads a great many knights - I saw his standard with the rose flowers!'
'How far behind us?' Sajagax asked.
'Five miles.'
'How many knights?'
'Nearly five hundred. And thrice as many remounts.'
At these numbers, Maram's face paled as if a demon had drained him of blood. And Lord Raasharu said, 'Duke Malatam could not have assembled such a force this quickly, not since breakfast.'
'No,' I agreed. 'The call must have gone out when he first had word that we had passed through the Long Wall.'
'Then he did try to delay us outside of Tiamar,' Baltasar said. My hot-blooded friend's face filled with all the color that Maram's lacked. 'He would have waylaid us there - like a filthy brigand!'
'He'll waylay us here if we don't ride!' Maram called out.
Atara, who had remained silent, faced back toward the line of our march, to the southeast. We all faced that way, too. The sun was bright above the wavering, golden grasses, and hurt all our eyes. We had to squint to make out the plume of dust rising from the earth into the sky.
'Let's ride,' I said. 'We have a good lead. Perhaps we can outdistance them.'
I turned my black warhorse toward the cloudless sky in the northwest. I looked at Atara sitting so peacefully on hers. Despite my hopeful words, I feared that battle would find us here, and that soon I would have to slay many man to protect her, as she would me.
Chapter 23
Sajagax and I led our warriors in a race across this vast, open country. The Sarni set a pace that would soon exhaust our horses, and our remounts, too, which pounded and panted behind us.
After while, as the sun rose higher and poured down its orange fire upon us, we saw that no matter how fast we rode, Duke Malatam's knights drew closer and the dust plume behind us grew larger above the horizon. We stopped by a small stream for a little water. As quickly as we could, we unbuckled our saddles from our sweating horses and slapped them onto the backs of our remounts. Altaru hated me riding another horse, but seemed to sense that he had to preserve his strength for greater exertions still to come. The Kurmak warriors who joined us by the stream likewise exchanged horses. Sajagax chose a gray stallion and rode up to me as I mounted my new horse.
'You Valari ride well,' he said to me, 'but you ride slowly.'
'Yes,' I told him as I sweated inside my casing of diamond armor. It seemed as hot and heavy as molten lead, 'Slower, at least, than your Kurmak warriors. Why don't you escape, while you still can?'
'You mean, forsake you?'
'This is not your affair,' I said to him. 'You haven't taken vows to protect the Lightstone.'
'No, we haven't,' he said to me. Then his heavy face split wide with a grin as he looked at Baltasar, Sar Jarlath and others of my knights. 'But you have told me that we should protect the weak.'
I smiled back at him, and clapped him on his bare shoulder. Then we resumed our flight across the wide, rolling plains of Tarlan. It grew even hotter. Our horses snorted and panted and coughed. They beat their hooves into the sun-baked turf and sent up dust devils of their own. The dry air sucked the moisture from our sweating bodies, parching us and cracking our lips and tongues. I worried that my knights who had been wounded in the battle with the Adirii would not be able to keep up this killing pace - m
uch less Estrella and Behira. But Behira, schooled by her father, rode determinedly and well. And Estrella surrendered to the torment of this long chase. Her slight body seemed to merge with her charging horse; as we sped along mile after mile, she rode near me, and her dark, wild eyes showed distress but no complaint.
And still the small army pursuing us gained on us, by inches, it seemed. I turned in my saddle many times to look behind us; I scanned the endless grasslands ahead of us, trying to calculate distances and time. Maram, panting almost as loudly as his horse as he rode beside me, suggested that we might last out ail the day and flee into the cover of darkness. But unless some clouds came up, it seemed that the rising moon would give Duke Malatam enough light to keep after us - especially once he and his men gained a clear line of sight as to our long lances and sparkling armor. And I did not want to be caught in the open at night.
'Atara!' I called out as she sat beside me urging on her horse. The pounding of hundreds of hooves was nearly deafening. 'Do you know what lies ahead of us?'
She shook her head back and forth. The cloth wrapped around it was powdered brown with dust?. She said, 'I've never been this way before.'
'Of course - but what can you see?'
She fell silent for a couple of hundred yards as we continued our jarring journey across the steppe. And then she said, 'What would you want me to see?'
'Is there any broken country about?'
'Yes,' she gasped out, coughing against the dust.
'Can you describe it?'
'Yes. Seven miles ahead of us - or eight - there is a line of hummocks, exposed rock and . . .'
Her voice died into the hot wind whipping at our faces.
'That might be perfect,' I told her. 'Tell me more of what you see.'
She patted the neck of her lunging horse and shook her head. 'It would be better if you saw for yourself.'
With all the skill of the Sarni warrior that she was, she gripped her bow in one hand while unbuckling her saddlebag with the other. She brought out her scryer's sphere and held it sparkling in the sun.
I called for a halt then. As Atara gave the kristei to me, the Guardians sat on their horses behind me, fighting to breathe against the cloud of dust enveloping us. Sajagax and his Kurmak warriors halted, too. He led them back to us as I peered into the clear crystal.
'What witchery is this?' he shouted out to me.
But this was no time for explaining the mysteries of the white gelstei. I stared into its shimmering substance. And there, preserved within like an ant inside amber, was a perfect image of the kind of topography that I had been seeking.
'We'll fight!' I called out. 'On the ground ahead of us, we'll stand and fight - if that's what Duke Malatam truly wants.'
'We'll fight with you!' Sajagax said, nodding at Orox and his other warriors. 'But tell me what you're thinking?'
'We'll set a trap within a trap,' I told him. 'Lead your warriors back the way we came. Ride past Duke Malatam's knights, keeping a good distance from them. Let the Duke believe that we have quarreled.'
'And what if he tries to stop and question us? What story would you have us tell him?'
'He won't try to stop you. So you won't have to lie to him. We'll take some blood, wrap a few of your men in bandages. The Duke will want to believe that the Sarni and the Valari can never ride together.'
'I see,' Sajagax said, nodding his head. 'Then the blood and bandages will lie for us.'
I said nothing to this remark as Sajagax barked out orders. The Sarni, when they are hungry and rations are scarce, sometimes open their horses' neck veins and drink their blood. Orox and Thadrak now came forward with knives and cut at the necks of two of the Kurmak's remounts. They caught the blood in their mouths, and then spat it onto some fresh bandages. These red-soaked cloths they wrapped around the heads and bare arms of three warriors, named Uldrak, Tringall, and Ragnax. Sar Kandjun, a fearless and clever knight from Pushku, then suggested a way to elaborate our ruse. I reluctantly agreed. And so he borrowed a few arrows from Orox. He forced the point of one of these down between his armor and his neck, leaving the feathered shaft sticking out. He called for more blood, which Orox smeared over him. Sar Jaldru and Sar Marjay volunteered to plant arrows about their bodies as well. Then they all lay down in the grass in awkward positions, playing dead.
'Do not,' I said to Sajagax, 'attack the Alonians unless they attack us first. We might yet be able to avoid a battle.'
Quickly, for Duke Malatam's men were drawing nearer, I led my knights forward across the steppe. And Sajagax and his warriors galloped off in the opposite direction.
After about a mile, we veered toward the west. The cloud of dust behind us grew larger as our pursuers gained on us. Now we could make out Duke Malatam's standard flapping at the front of the cloud: the red roses against the white field, like the blood against the bandages that bound three of my men. I no longer feared that the Duke's army would overtake us, but I did dread that they might trample Sar Kandjun and the other knights in their haste to waylay us.
Soon the terrain that I had seen in Atara's crystal came into sight Along the horizon, limned against the blue sky, a long sweep of bare rock topped with grass rose up before us. The rock looked like granite, for it showed streaks of pink and little silver flickers of various minerals. It was sheer, as if cut by the hand of man. In one place a huge notch, half a mile wide, was formed by the granite walls to either side of it. It seemed that it might once have been a quarry from which the ancient Alonians had cut the stones for the Long Wall. It seemed, as well, that it might be a break in the escarpment before us. I knew that it was not I led my columns of knights straight toward it.
And still Duke Malatam and his men gained on us. When I turned to look at them, I saw the Duke like a little bit of cloth and shining steel on top of a charging white horse, leading a mass of armored knights our way. We drew closer to the escarpment. Its curving heights would have prevented any easy retreat to our right or left. And so we continued on, riding into the mouth of the notch. Once, its ground must have been all bare rock, but now acres of sere grass grew over it. It was shaped like the wedge of a pie, its point pushing into the granite walls to either side of us. Now we could clearly see where it dead-ended only a few hundred yards farther on.
'Halt!' I cried out. I whirled my horse about and cupped my hands over my mouth. 'Change out horses, and lances ready!'
With Duke Malatam's force bearing down upon us, we again changed horses. I worked quickly to resaddle Altaru and mount him, as did my men with their best battle horses. Then I deployed a hundred and twenty of the Guardians in a single line two hundred yards long across the notch, anchoring our flanks by the sheer walls to either side of us. We all faced outward, toward the east where the Duke's retainers were thundering closer. Behira and Estrella, with Master Juwain, waited on their horses behind us, as did Baltasar and fifty other knights in reserve. One of them, Sar Juralad of Kaash, bore the Lightstone. I took my place at the center of our line. To my right, Maram sat on his horse gulping for air and muttering at the cruelty of life; to his right were Lord Raasharu, Lord Harsha, Skyshan of Ki and others. To the left of me, Atara calmly stroked her mare, Fire, whose mane fell about her long, lithe neck like a mass of flames. In Atara's sun-burned hand was clasped her deadly, double-curved bow. Karimah, likewise accoutered, sat close by her side, followed by Sunjay Naviru, Sar Kimball, Lord Noldru and nearly sixty others down the line: the finest knights in all the world. Their lances were all couched beneath their arms; the points formed a line of their own, drawn in triangular lengths of sharp, shining steel. Between their horses was a good spacing, not so much that Duke Malatam's men could easily force their way through, but enough for them to maneuver and swing their maces and long swords when the time came.
There was nothing to do now but wait, and wait we did. The blazing sun above us moved scarcely a hair's-breadth as the Duke's little army poured into the mouth of the notch and then ground to a halt before us. The D
uke rode about on a brown gelding calling out commands in his high, nervous voice; in short order, he formed up his five hundred men in lines facing us. Then one of his heralds hoisted the white flag of parlay. The Duke, with the herald and his stout captain, Lord Chagnan, rode forward to offer us terms of surrender.
I did not go forth to greet him. This was an insult, implying as it did that I did not trust him to honor the peace of the parlay. I did not. But more importantly, I wished for all my knights and his to know that I did not consider him to be an honorable man.
'Lord Valashu!' he called out to me. He halted his horse twenty yards from our lines. His dusty, feral face turned toward Atara and Karimah as he eyed their bows and quivers of arrows slung on their backs. 'Let us talk as one lord to another, as men who could be friends!'
I waved my lance at the lines of Alonian knights facing us. On their hundreds of surcoats and shields were emblazoned their various charges: boars and bears, lions and dragons and crossed swords. I called out to the Duke, 'Is this the hospitality of a friend? Treachery, it is!'
Duke Malatam's face reddened, as if I had slapped it. And he shouted back to me, 'You speak of treachery, you who have claimed the Lightstone for himself?'
'Nothing has yet been claimed,' I told him. 'We only guard it.'
'So you say. But for whom do you guard it? You took a vow, in King Kiritan's hall, to seek the Lightstone for all of Ea. And it is to King Kiritan that you must surrender it.'
'How do you know that isn't much of our purpose for journeying to Tria?'
'Is it really? I must tell you that it is my purpose to see that the Lightstone is placed in King Kiritan's hands. I have searched my heart, and I know that my king would ask this of me.'
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