Dalamar The Dark (classics)

by Nancy Varian Berberick

  Shuddering, Tellin gasped, "Thank you."

  Dalamar bent to pick up the pouch Tellin had let fall. His hand shook, but bending and reaching hid that. Out from the top of the pouch peeked Lady Lynntha's embroidered scroll case, a hummingbird in flight above a ruby red rose. He poked it back down and returned the pouch.

  "Have a care, my lord," he said, his mouth still dry with the sudden fear. "It would be a shame to lose you before the army gets to use you."

  Lord Tellin laughed weakly. They went the rest of the way in silence, down into the glen where they parted ways, each vanishing into the restless crowd of white robes.

  In the tent of the Highlord, the scent of leather and steel and sweat mingled with stinging smoke and the remains of Phair Caron's breakfast. Food depots had been moved in the night, and all the stores hauled around the back of the nearest tor. The forges were still, their fires low, the smoke that had hung over the camp dissipating on the morning breeze. On the tors dragons woke, stretching long necks, their red scales shining in the sullen light of a sunless day. One sounded a long bugling cry-Blood Gem, eager for the day and the battle. Outside, the army moved, battalions of ogres forming, squadrons of humans taking up their swords and barbed lances. They sounded like a distant avalanche, stone rolling unstoppable down a mountainside, sweeping all before it into death.

  Phair Caron smiled, liking the image. She heard the voices of draconians, their language like cursing, as they belted on their harnesses and took up their swords, but she saw no goblins. That was because two nights before they had ranged out in small troops, her spies and her scouts.

  One goblin had come to her in the first hour of the day to tell her he'd sensed a great commotion in the Silvanesti Forest, elves marching north. "But I don't know where the griffins are, lady," the goblin had said, sniveling as all its kind do, scuffling the dirt and looking at her out the corner of its eye as if it were the third hound in a hard pack. "Sky leaves no track, wind tells some things and not others." Goblin-talk, but she took his meaning. Griffins and Windriders were near, but not seen. Well, Garan of the Silvanesti was no fool. He had his griffins secreted somewhere and never mind the stink of them.

  Outside, one sharp voice shouted an order, and another responded. Phair Caron looked around at the bare essentials of her camp-life-a small coffer in which she kept her clothing, the table upon which her breakfast lay scattered in grease and bones, the map still pinned to the tent wall. No more did she have but her war-gear, and that lay ready upon the lid of the coffer. With careful, precise motions, she lifted her mail shirt of shining steel and pulled it over her head. It settled comfortably on her shoulders, the weight of it like the hand of an old friend. She drew on her trews of red leather and belted on a long, tooled leather scabbard. She took up her hair and braided it, winding those braids round her head like a golden crown. She lifted her dragon helm and placed it on her head. Last, she reached for her sword. The grip, made of one whole ruby, fitted perfectly into her hand. Sliding the blade into the scabbard, she whispered, "I am yours, Dark Majesty. Lady of Death, Lady of Dread, my soul is yours, my heart is yours."

  Her prayer made, she walked out into the young day beneath an iron sky. If the sun rose, it rose far away and behind a gray curtain of storm waiting to be born. Outside the tent, two human soldiers snapped to sudden attention. On the ground before them lay the dragon saddle, a hulk of leather and straps and steel. She gestured to it, and one of the two hefted it onto his shoulder. The other she dismissed with a curt word, sending him into the mass of the army to find his troop, his captain, and his place in the battle. She went to a clear place near the tors and bid the soldier wait. He did, his eye on the Highlord and the dragons on the heights.

  "Stand easy," she said, and she didn't blame the man for his unease. She asked a lot of her soldiers, but not the impossible until the impossible was necessary. For some, like this one, it was only barely possible to stand still and not flee the great beasts on the tors.

  Phair Caron lifted her head, smelling the damp breeze, the stink of sweat and leather, the musk of dragon, the weary odor of campfires being doused. These things she smelled as one who encounters a favored perfume. On the tors the dragons roused, their cries contentious, the beasts growing restless. Hawks and eagles and the gulls from the sea had abandoned the sky. Even ravens kept low, hiding in the shadows of the tors, waiting.

  "It is good," she said to the day and to the soldier beside her.

  A scar-faced youngster from Nordmaar by the blond look of him, one of those who'd early seen the wisdom of running with the strongest wolf, he said, "Milady, it is." He looked to the tors again, the red dragons preening. He swallowed hard, but managed a grin. " We'll carve those elf bastards to ribbons."

  She slapped his shoulder-he staggered a bit-and said, "Go now, back to your troop-unless you'd like to help me haul the saddle onto the dragon."

  Color mounted to his face, a flush of embarrassment because he'd like to have gone away, or one of pride for being asked to help the Highlord at this important task. The youngster held his ground. "I'm at your command, Milady."

  Phair Caron's laughter rang out against the tors. He, and thousands other. Nearby, soldiers stopped what they were doing, some curious, others moved to cheer. She raised her arm, circling her fist in the air. Blood Gem lifted up from the stony height, wide wings spread. The soldier went white, but he stood firm as the dragon sailed down to the clear place where Phair Caron waited. At the Highlord's request, Blood Gem bent his knees, bringing his bulk closer to the ground. Together, the guard and his commander hefted the saddle, shifting it onto the dragon's broad back.

  "Enough," she said when that was done. "Go now and find a good place for the battle."

  He saluted, and then he bowed, his eyes on hers, a little in love with her, but mostly terrified of her. "The Dark Queen go with you, Milady," he said.

  "She always does. Now, go!"

  Phair Caron completed the task of saddling the dragon herself, and no one in her army had the temerity to offer to help. She had long ago learned that in battle she must harness herself and harness her dragon. No one else could do that so well as she. No one else could be counted on. The dragon lowered a wing for her to climb, lifting her when she was steady and letting her clamber into the saddle.

  Her heart found a rhythm unlike any other she knew, thundering on the brink of battle. She looked around at the other dragons spiraling down from the tors, her captains saddling their steeds, her army spreading around her, finding the shape of their battle formations. Her blood ran in her, racing through her veins, slamming through the chambers of her heart, sounding like the drums of war. Somewhere Lord Garan of the Silvanesti waited, his army in place, his Windriders ready to take the griffins into battle.

  "It's strange we don't smell the griffins," she said. "I usually smell those things no matter if they are upwind or down."

  Blood Gem turned his head, his long neck snaking back so that he and his rider were eye to eye. He opened his mighty jaws wide and the dull light of the gray morning slid lazily along fangs that were as long as Phair Caron's forearm. Never worry, lady. I have a taste for griffin today. We'll flush them out no matter how deeply they hide.

  She looked back over her shoulder to the dark shadows of the tors. The wind came from the east, and she imagined that she could smell the sea so far away. She looked at her five commanders. Each sat ready upon his own crimson steed with five wily warriors ranged behind, ready to support the legions on the ground. Beside her, Tramd rode upon Doom. The mage's handsome face shone lively with anticipation, cheeks flushed, blue eyes glinting. Seeing him like that, it wasn't easy to remember that here was simply unliving flesh made animate by the will of a mage who resided in a place that he'd not chosen to reveal to Phair Caron.

  "All right," she said, her right hand gripping the hold on the saddle, her left filled up with her ruby-gripped sword. "Let's do what we do best, my friend."

  With a wild cry, Blood Gem l
ifted from the ground, and in the moment his roaring began, the sky filled up with a concerted shout like war-horns winding as the rest of the red dragons leaped into the sky. Wide wings outspread, they sailed from the tors, each with a helmed and armored rider, the Highlord and her mage and four of her strongest, most canny commanders.

  Screaming his joy, Blood Gem thrust downward with powerful wings, surging ahead of all. Upon his back Phair Caron matched his battle cry, her voice the rough song of all her rage. She pumped her fist in the air, saluting her dragon riders. One after another, the mage and her commanders returned the salute.

  Below, her army had found its shape, five legions of ogres and humans and the dark-spawn of Takhisis's heart- the fierce dragonmen who were neither human or dragonkind, but a hideous combination of each. They went like an arrow, the dragonmen at the fore to make the arrow's point, the other companies spreading out behind so that, from this cold height, they looked like the arrow's shaft.

  This glorious arrow she would loose right into the heart of the Silvanesti nation.

  The speed of her flight took her out past the foothills, out where her raids had blackened the forest with burning. Nothing grew there now, nothing lived. All the game was dead or had fled, and the vegetation was burned to the root.

  Phair Caron laughed, and her laughter echoed in the roaring of her dragons.

  "They will starve in winter, those elves, and they will sell their souls to me for food if ever they want to eat again!"

  Blood Gem banked and turned, taking her back over the army, the roaring mass of warriors who now longed to loose every horror of war as though setting a feast table for their Dark Queen. Phair Caron lifted the visor of her dragon helm. Sword high, she flung back her head and loosed her wild war cry again. The cold wind of the heights stung tears from her eyes and tried to snatch the breath from her lungs. That no wind could do, for it seemed to Phair Caron of Tarsis that from the day she'd scrabbled in the gutters of the city for a copper tossed by an elf complaining of his supper, she had been aimed like a weapon in the hand of the Dark Goddess herself, right at this killing moment.

  "For Takhisis!" she shouted. And on the ground, the dark tide of her army echoed her roaring charge.

  In the very moment the cries reached her, as her heart was rising, her blood running hot with the lust for killing, Phair Caron turned and saw what had become of the griffins.

  They were behind her.

  Chapter 7

  Dalamar stood in the glen, far down in the stony bed where the last shadows of night still clung. All around him the damp air hung with the heady scent of magic. He stood hand in hand with those mages chosen by Ylle Savath to surround the circle of nine spell-crafters who now joined their minds and hearts in order to weave a grand tapestry of illusion. One by one, Dalamar felt the joining, the forging of invisible threads in the building of a web of magic. Strong as steel mesh that web, but Dalamar knew-they all knew-that in only a little time the web would weaken as the makers did, steel changing to gossamer. As if by magic.

  Sandalwood oil and mimosa and wisteria oils mingled with burned bloodroot and the bitterness of wormwood, even the scent of dried rose petals. At the surface of consciousness, Dalamar was aware of these sensory messages. Another level down, he heard the chants of mages like himself who worked to support the strength of the illusion-crafters, the dreamweavers.

  Earth and bone, bone and earth, my strength your own, there is no dearth. Earth and bone, bone and earth, my strength your own, there is no dearth. Earth and bone, bone and earth… Earth and bone…

  In the deepest part of him, there was only magic, power running like a river spinning in spate, and he, in every part, every cell, every fiber of his heart, felt that power as the sky feels lightning. It belonged in him! It was part of him, the part he was born knowing and feeling and longing to nurture. He embraced the lightning, the power he took into himself and let run out from himself and gathered back in again.

  Ah, gods-!

  On the lip of the glen, Wildrunners stood, looking outward, arrows nocked to bowstrings, keen eyes moving restlessly. Dalamar felt their presence, their wild hearts, their eagerness for battle. They are killers, he thought, eager for their work.

  That thought echoed along the chain of mages, rolling like thunder in the hearts of his fellows. The young woman on his left and the middle-aged man on his right, each clasped his hand tighter, then loosed a little.

  Be still, they said in silent gesture. Don't think.

  Swiftly he banished all thought and gave himself again to the work of reaching out to the small knot of dream-crafters, standing in the heart of the larger circle.

  Earth and bone, bone and earth, my strength your own, there is no dearth. Earth and bone, bone and earth…

  Strength flowed out from them, and Dalamar, with the eyes of magic, saw that strength, that power, as bright bursts of light that faded the farther it ran from them. This light all the mages in the larger circle called to themselves, embracing and tending and pouring it back out, not to the dreamweavers but into the stony earth itself. From there it would return to the ones who needed it, as ground-lightning leaps up to the sky. It was, not a little, like making love, the giving and the taking and the fiery magic made from each. The young woman on his left pressed his hand again, but not to hush, for that thought of love-making had been hers. She lifted her head, eyes alight, chestnut hair flowing all around her in the winds of magic.

  She was, Dalamar thought, like a woman in the throes of passion.

  His body responded to the thought, to the power running as though to a woman's fevered touch. The eyes of each woman he'd lain with shone before him, in all layers of his consciousness he felt their touch, smelled their sweet breath, and the sound of their hearts was like the sound of the sea-

  Groaning, he shut out all thought of love-making, all consciousness of the woman beside him. He demanded utter stillness of himself, for the magic running in his blood burned now. He no longer felt it as sparkling, but as a thin stream of fire running, little flames leaping like the wild manes of crimson horses. He burned, he burned, and those in the chain burned with him, their faces bathed in sweat, their eyes wide and dark, like the eyes of demons.

  The griffins dropped into the sky from nowhere. They came not from the east nor from the west, not from the north nor from the south. They were simply there, screaming their eagle-screams, golden wings beating the sky like thunder. Upon the back of each, an archer, a keen-eyed Windrider, loosed bolt after bolt.

  Phair Caron shrieked in rage, shouting to her commanders. "Defend the ground! Defend the ground!"

  On the ground, the sound of the army changed from the lusty war cries of soldiers certain of victory to the confused and swirling shouts of panic. Out from the shadows of the hills where once the dragons had found themselves sunny places to warm their cold blood, legions of Wildrunners came pouring. Like a river, they flowed down the slopes, shouting defiance; they poured in from the west, from the east. Thundering prayers to gods whose names fell upon the hearts of the Dark Queen's army like curses and pain, the elves roared up from the shadows of the forest in the south.

  "E'li!" they screamed. "Kiri-Jolith! Matheri!"

  The red dragons formed a deadly phalanx across the sky, Blood Gem at their head. Gouts of flame burst from their jaws, fire pouring down on the closing armies. The first acrid stench of burning flesh drifted up almost instantly. One dragon roared with glee, then another. Doom and Slayer banked and turned, soaring high after the griffins and the Windriders, leaving the ground forces to the others. Talon dropped low, Red Death coming in after her, eyes alight, jaws gaping. These two loved the game of grab and snatch, ripping soldiers from the ground and flinging them out over the backs of their companions.

  I have a taste for an elf! Red Death roared.

  I have a taste for two! Talon bellowed.

  Blood Gem said nothing. He only banked and turned again, flying low over the army, the dark hordes of Takhisis
turning and turning, trying to fight an army that came at them from all sides. Curses drifted up from the ground, howled in agony, sobbed in terror; the sky filled with the stench of blood and bowels loosed in death. Like a small storm ground-born, great clouds of dust rose beneath trampling feet. Beneath the iron sky, above the dying and the bleeding, the dragon and his Highlord saw the truth of the battle all in the same cold instant of clarity. Talon, snatching for an elf, got instead the ogre she thought was engaged with the Wildrunner.

  There were no elves! There was only illusion!

  Spitting out ogre bones, gagging on ogre guts, Talon roared in fury. In fury she slashed wide with her tail, shattering the bones of three humans who failed to flee. She took out four more before her rider got her under control.

  Over the field the dragons roared, loud in voices mortals could hear: "Magic! Magic! You fight shadows!"

  On Blood Gem, Phair Caron shouted to her captains, cursing them, driving them, demanding that they get the dragons off the field and out of the sky so that the ground leaders could control their forces. She ordered in vain. Her army shattered into a confused mass of warriors trying to defend themselves against foes from all sides. Foes who were not there, who were no more substantial than ghosts, no more real than a child's threat.

  Doom rose upon the currents, flying near now, almost level with Blood Gem. Tramd, red in his armor, his golden hair braided in two thick lengths and his beard in one, shouted, "They only know what they see and feel, Milady! This is magic that goes deep into the mind!"

  "Then dig it out!" the Highlord shouted. Below, her warriors died of nothing, of imagination, and bled where they fell, so powerful was the image in each mind. "Dig it out!"

  He tried, roaring spells, with wrenching strength strapping himself to his saddle and using his hands in the dance of gesture that makes the most powerful magic. On the ground, nothing happened to suggest Tramd's magic was more than the shouting of a child. Ogres and draconians, humans and goblins, they died, each believing himself in hand-to-hand combat with mortal enemies. Some jerked in the death-dance of the arrow-struck. They bled and bled though no arrow pierced them. Others fell with blood pouring from their mouths, streaming as though a dagger had loosed it from their hearts. To change this, the mage would have to ferret the illusion from every mind on the battle-ground.