'A hole!' I heard Lord Tomavar call back to Yrniru. 'If we must slay a thousand men, we'll make a hole big enough to march an army through!'
I blinked then, and the vision of the earth opening to a deep splendor vanished before my eyes. I felt, however, a terrible new strength flowing into me. Its fire drove back the burning of the kirax and the agony of men dying near me. I sensed this same onstreaming force in Kane, and in Lord Avijan and Joshu Kadar, and in all the Guardians drawn up close behind me. It seemed that the earth was pouring into us her very life.
'Look!' Sar Shivalad cried out as he pointed with his lance ahead of us. 'They have broken the line!'
To the dreadful sound of iron-shod clubs crunching in armor and kalamas chopping through bronze and bone, the wedge of warriors ahead of us worked if the hole they had ripped into the Hesperuk Phalanx. Yrniru and his men fell against one end of the ragged Hesperuk line, while Lord Tomavar directed our Meshians against the other. In the course of two minutes, as our enemy fell in tens and twenties screaming to the ground, the wedge widened to a
funnel into which I might lead my fight hundred knights.
'Now!' I cried out to the men behind me. 'Let us ride!'
And ride we did. Altaru's great muscles hurled us forward almost without my prompting him. It was dreadful working through the hole in the Hesperuk lines for Altaru's hooves crunched against the bodies of the dying and the dead. Too many of my men, I saw, had been compelled to sacrifice themselves, and they lay on the bruised grass like lumpy carpets of diamond or white fur. When I came to the point where the funnel of my still savagely fighting warriors opened out behind the Hesperuk lines. Ymiru pointed with his bloody borkor, and cried out, 'This is hrorrible, Val! I didn't know it would be so hrorrible!'
When Altaru and I burst into the space beyond the killing zone, fewer corpses littered the ground. Few men, for the moment, opposed us, but those who did fought for their lives. A hundred skirmishers came running at us and casting their javelins. And three score of the Hesperuk infantry who had panicked and broken, suddenly ceased their wild flight across the grass to turn and make a desperate stand. One of these - a giant with blood and brains dripping from his bronze fish scales - planted the butt end of a long pike in the grass in hope of impaling either Altaru or me. I cast one of my throwing lances straight through his eye, and I screamed as he died. Sar Shivalad and the Guardians close to me fell upon other Hesperuks, running them through with their long lances or using their kalamas to cut them down.
Archers, gathered nearby, loosed their bolts at us. Many broke against my knights' armor. But many, at this range, ripped through the diamond seams and found out the places where our mounts had no covering. Men gasped at arrows sticking out of their faces or embedded in their chests; horses screamed and stumbled, crushing their riders under. Then my men fell into a rage. They charged the masses of archers, and soon killed all of them, for the archers had but leather tunics to protect them against our terrible swords.
There came a moment when no enemy stood nearby to threaten us. My knights milled about, sticking their lances through the bodies of our wounded enemy, and I did not stop these executions. I looked off to the left; it seemed that King Hadaru's cavalry and the battalions of Ishka and Anjo might have pushed back the Uskadans, but it was hard to see, for clouds of dust obscured much of the battlefield. Likewise, I could not tell what was happening on our right flank. But at the field's center, the Hesperuk phalanx had pushed deep into the Alonian and Eanna lines, just beyond that place where Lord Tomavar's and Ymiru's men still fought savagely to keep open the hole they had made, and widen it, if they could.
Then I looked up to the right at the Owl's Hill ahead. Bemossed hung upon his cross like a carcass drained of blood. Breath still stirred within him, however, for somehow he managed to lift up his head and gaze out toward me. I sensed within him, even deeper than his pain, an immense disappointment. And a fear for me. I thought I saw his throat working and his lips moving as if to tell me: 'Go back, Val! It is a trap!'
A pack of Blues, thirty strong, stood at the top of the hill around the cross as if waiting for me. Their broad-bladed axes gleamed in the sunlight.
Where is Morjin? I wanted to shout. Where is the filthy Crucifier?
Just then, to our left, from behind the ridges of rocky ground close to the Detheshaloon, men in great numbers began to pour forth. They bore bright, steel-jacketed shields, long spears and good armor, of mail and plate. Two thousand more Blues marched out with them, and light and heavy cavalry in the hundreds. I recognized the hawk and bear standards of men that my companions and I had fought at Khaisham. I did not want to wait as the forty or fifty battalions of Yarkona formed up. I knew that Morjin would throw most of them against the hole that my warriors had torn in his lines, and so block our retreat.
Where is the Dragon Guard? I asked the wind. Where are Morjin's best men?
As if in answer to my question, more cavalry burst forth from around behind the Owl's Hill. The famed Red Knights bore a heavy burden of thick, crimson-tinted armor that weighed down their huge horses. Although they could not move very quickly, Zahur Tey and their other captains at the front of their column were closer to Bemossed than my knights and I. I remembered Atara putting the count of the Red Knights at three thousand.
'We must reach the Maitreya before they do!' I cried out to my men, pointing ahead of us. 'Charge!'
Altaru, in a surge of mighty muscles, leaped forth almost to a full gallop in a single bound. Wind whistled through my helm, and my eight hundred knights and their mounts thundered across the ground behind me. Our course took us nearly straight up the gende slopes of the Owl's Hill. The Red Knights had to work up and around the curving sweeps of grass to our left.
Even so, the foremost of them cut across our line of assault. They should have been able to intercept us and throw us back. But a rare spirit blazed through our hearts. Perhaps the earth fires that the Seven unleashed with their gelstei filled us with a terrible joy for killing perhaps we all knew that only the most desperate hope remained of saving Bemossed - and the world. In the first seconds of this battle,
I hurled five throwing lances at our enemy, and five of the Red Knights fell dead or dying with wooden shafts sticking out of their eyes, mouths or necks. So it was with Kane, loosing his lances with a terrifying aim, as with the hand of an angel - and with Lord Avijan, Lord Noldashan. Sar Jonavar, Sar Shivalad and my other Guardians who came forward to try to protect me. But it was the Red Knights, at that moment who needed protection from us.
I drew Alkaladur, and our enemy before us on the slopes of the hill seemed to shudder at the sight of this brilliant blade. I cut down a huge Red Knight, then thrust Alkaladur's point through another's chest. I wrenched my blade free, and crimson blood spurted from the hole in his crimson armor. A thrown lance slammed into my side, but did not pierce me. Then three more men rode at me, and I killed them with three lightning slashes, and I gritted my teeth against the sounds of silustria tearing through steel and men shrieking in agony. Kane, to my right, with a single sweep of his sword, struck off the head of a captain of the Dragon Guard, then sliced through the arm of a Red Knight trying to push a lance through my side. And then, unbelievably, as if Kane could sense the movement of every man on the field with an impossible precision, he whipped about to thrust his sword's point straight through a third knight's eye.
Close around us, my Guardians fought with scarcely less fury. Their diamond-tipped long-lances drove through the plate armor of our enemy; their kalamas flashed forth, and keen steel edges cut through steel and bone. Founts of blood filled the air, and rivers of pain. Men screamed and died in hundreds as metal clanged against metal and horses collided and whinnied horribly.
Where is Morjin?
There came another moment when all the enemy knights closest to Kane and me either lay dead on the grass or hung back in fear. A brightening of my sword caused me to look uphill again at Bemossed. And there, just beneath t
he cross where the pack of Blues gathered, I saw Morjin standing and looking down at me. I knew him as I did the smell of death itself. My sword flared even more brightly, and the kirax burned up my blood. Morjin held the Lightstone shimmering like the sun in one hand and a lance in the other. His golden eyes fixed on me, in challenge and in hate.
'Why does he let the Mitreya live?' Joshu Kadar called out. He sat on top of his panting horse, which bore my standard of the silver swan and seven stars. 'Why does he give us this chance?'
Even a child, though, I thought, could see that we had almost no hope of continuing our charge uphill and taking Bemossed down from his cross. The Blues stood in a tight formation and shook their axes at us; more hundreds of Red Knights streamed out from behind the hill to ride up and put themselves between Bemossed and my companions and me. Farther away, toward the Detheshaloon cavalry led by Count Ulanu galloped out to join them, even as his infantry marched forth at double pace to reinforce the Dragon Army's broken line and fall against Ymiru's and Lord Tomavar's men.
'A chance!' I cried out. 'A single chance - if we ride now!'
But even as we made ready to renew our charge, or at least fight our way uphill I felt Bemossed's strength failing him. And Morjin's power grow. Suddenly, high in the air over the Detheshaloon, a black spot appeared. At first I thought it might be the Ahrim coming for me one last time. Then the spot began to widen and deepen, like a whirl of dusty wind eating up sky. I thought I could see little lights twinkling from its inky center.
'So, it is the true Skadarak,' Kane said, pointing up with his bloody sword. 'The stars reach their moment. Morjin opens the way to Damoom!'
From behind us, one of my knights cried out: Sorcery!'
'Illusion!' another said, looking up toward the cross where Morjin stood holding up the Lightstone. 'Morjin is the Lord of Illusions!'
As we attacked the Red Knights and our swords began their terrible work once more, a new enemy rose up before us. With a horrible ripping sound, our kalamas cut through flesh and bone, even steel, but they could not touch the dreadful things that Morjin sent to destroy us. I heard my men scream out that demons had joined our enemy. Sar Kanshar loosed a throwing lance against a monster, half horse and half man, that galloped toward him shooting arrows - or so he said. Siraj the Younger was trying to cut down a Red Knight whose face and limbs were made of sand. I looked on in a helpless rage as Siraj's sword passed right through this phantasmagory even as a very real Red Knight thrust a lance through Siraj's neck. I felt a terror seize hold of my men, not just upon the Owl's Hill, but for five miles all along our desperately struggling lines, from King Hadaru's cavalry in the west to King Mohan and Sajagax's Sarni in the east. I could almost see what my warriors cried out in panic at what they desperately did not want to see: twelve huge dragons appearing from behind the rocks of the Detheshaloon and soaring toward us as they roared out their disdain and spit fire into the air; winged tigers and apes in hundreds that flew after them; a pack of Blues whose faces were those of wolves;
elephants with scales and serpent trunks; and a great beast, bigger than ten elephants, which was spotted like a leopard and had the feet of a bear. Out of each of its seven, lionlike heads there grew ten horns, each of which bore an iron crown set with seven fire-stones casting out black flames. These burned my men, their minds if not their bodies, but not so badly as the worst of the illusions Morjin sent to madden us. It infuriated me to see great warriors such as Lord Jessu the lion-Heart hesitate to strike at our enemy because they perceived the Red Knights as having the faces of their fathers or mothers - or even as Bemossed or me. How long could they go on fighting, I wondered, if they couldn't tell what was real from what was not?
'Don't lose heart!' I cried out.
Beside me, Kane's sword split the helm of a Red Knight who had tried to brain me with a mace. Then he drove his horse into the mount of another man, nearly knocking him from his saddle. With the man unsettled, Kane reached out to grab hold of the joint in the armor covering his shoulder and threw him down from his horse. Immediately, the hooves of Lord Avijan's horse trampled him, and so with Lord Manthanu's mount and many others.
'Let us do our work,' I called to my warriors, 'and the Seven will do theirs!'
Then, as before, the ground beneath us seemed to grow transparent. The wheel of light turning deep within the earth grew brighter. I could almost feel it drawing down the rays of the sun and the much stronger radiance of the Golden Band as the stars and planets approached their moment of alignment. I could almost behold the splendor that spread out across the steppe and drove Morjin's illusions away.
"They are gone!' Sar Vikan shouted with a shake of his head. He suddenly leaned forward to thrust his lance through the face of a Red Knight who had slain Sar Yulmar, who had been Sar Vikan's best friend.
'All gone!'
'No - one of the dragons remains!' Jurald Evarshouted back to him. 'Look! It comes!'
No power of the Seven could cast back the thing of crimson and fire that flew out from the Detheshaloon roaring in malice, for ¥ormungand was made of flesh and blood, even as were my men. The dragon beat the air with a thunder of wings, and streaked straight toward Maram where he now stood on top of the Hill of Fire.
'So,' Kane growled out with a savage thrust of his sword He had less care for the man he had just killed than for the blackness growing in the sky. 'The Dark One comes, too!'
The Seven likewise could do nothing to stop Morjin from tearing open a great hole in space that Kane had called the Skadarak -certainly not so long as Morjin commanded the Lightstone.
'Let us at least finally kill him!' Kane said to me as he glowered up the hill at Morjin.
Now Kane and I made circles of death around us with our swords. None could stand against Kane's kalama, for in his hands, it became almost a thing of light: spinning outward to cut through a Red Knight's neck; streaking like a ray of the sun straight into another's eye; flashing through flesh and steel as if no man or material thing could withstand it, I wielded Alkaladur with no less terror, for the Sword of Flame burned past my enemy's defenses and cut through good plate armor to strike home death. As the battle drew on and the sun climbed higher in the sky, Alkaladur flared ever hotter and brighter until it shone a hellish fire-white. Men screamed to feel it cutting them open or even just to behold it. In my wrath to slash and slay, the Red Knights began to hesitate and hang back from me, muttering beneath their breaths that I was a demon. So it went with Lord Avijan and Lord Vikan, who battled near me, and with Sar Kanshar and Sar Shivalad and Joshu Kadar and many others. They fought that day, if not like demons, then as lolling angels whom nothing could hold back.
And yet I did not think that we could cut our way through our enemy to reach Morjin. In the thirty yards between us and the hill's top, hundreds of Red Knights now massed and pointed their lances down at us. Those highest up near Morjin had begun dismounting and standing together, shoulder to shield, to form a wall protecting him. Behind them awaited the howling, murderous Blues with their axes. And soon the hundreds of Red Knights still riding out from the Detheshaloon would fall against my warriors' flank and begin working up behind us.
'Damn you, Morjin!' Kane suddenly cried out. 'Damn you and the one you call master!'
Morjin, however, must have feared that we might reach him -or at least fight our way to free Bemossed as Morjin led a retreat down the backside of the hill. And so, smiling at me in utter triumph, he raised up his lance and plunged its gleaming point into Bemossed's side. He twisted it, causing Bemossed to writhe on his mount of wood and to cry out in agony. Blood flowed from the mortal wound torn into his naked flesh. Morjin caught the red stream with the Lightstone, then pressed the golden cup to his lips.
'Every abomination!' Kane thundered up at him. 'Everything that fouls the human spirit!'
Then he wept to see Bemossed so helpless against the anguish tearing through him.
'Come!' Morjin suddenly called to Kane and me, with lips stained
carmine like his armor. At the sound of his voice, the Red Knights nearby hung back in their assault on us, waiting. 'Come to him now - if you can!'
Bemossed, looking down from his cross, pulled like a madman at the spikes nailing his hands to the crossbeam. More blood ran in rivulets from his palms and down his arms. He stared at the Lightstone in utter desperation, and I felt him burning to take hold of it for just one moment.
'Valashu!' he cried out to me. 'I am sorry! I thought I was so ...'
His words died into the spasm of writhing that tore through his naked body. What had he wanted to tell me? That he had thought himself untouchable? And blessed and beloved, of the angels and men?
'I thought I was ... beautiful!' he finally gasped out. 'I thought Morjin could see me ... and so himself. But I was wrong. I am nothing.'
Another spasm seized hold of him as more blood ran out of the hole in his side. Then, with the last of his strength, he raised up his head like a king so that he could gaze out above the masses of men and horses gathered on the hilltop to meet eyes with me. 'It is all for nothing, Valashu. It is all nothing ... so dark.' Those were the last words he spoke to me. I watched the light go out of his eyes. Then, as if an axe had cut the muscles at the back of his neck, his head dropped down toward his chest. So died Bemossed, the man I had called the Shining One and Lord of Light who was no blood of mine, but in spirit was truly my brother. 'NO!' I cried out as my heart broke open. Flame and lightning flashed to the south, from the Hill of Fire. High above us, the spinning black thing blighted the blueness of the sky. It grew vaster and even darker, like a funnel cloud's whirl-. wind about to descend and sweep everything away. A freezing cold fell down upon the earth.
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