Touched by the Gods

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

  “Oh, good, you're awake,” someone said.

  He turned his head and found Orzin standing beside the cot, smiling down at him. Behind him Onnell could see a heaped blanket on Timuan's bunk.

  “What happened?” he asked.

  “You took a whack on the head,” Orzin replied. “We don't know what hit you, but it wasn't a blade – maybe an armored fist, or a club of some kind. They found you lying there when we cleaned up the mess. You're lucky you didn't have any visible wounds, or they might've chopped your head off just to be sure – none of the men sorting corpses came from Grozerodz.”

  “We won? It's over?”

  Orzin's smile vanished.

  “We won,” he said, “but nothing's over. That was just a beginning – something to shake us up, the officers say. A few score of nightwalkers came over and started hacking, and we hacked back and killed them all – or destroyed them all, or re-killed them, or whatever's the right way to describe what you do to nightwalkers. We lost a lot of men doing it – I don't know how many – but we cut the head off every nightwalker that crossed the river.”

  “Good,” Onnell said, managing to sit up.

  “It's good, yes – but the main body's still out there on the other side, stacked up like firewood in autumn.”

  Onnell looked up at the cloth over his head. It glowed with sunlight.

  “They're all asleep? Or dead, or dormant, or whatever?”

  Orzin nodded. “That's right.”

  “We should go destroy them while we can, then. Before sunset.”

  Orzin grimaced. “Of course we should,” he said. “Everyone knows that, from General Balinus down to the whores up in Drievabor. The trick is getting across the river to do it.”

  Onnell blinked in confusion; his head was still not entirely clear.

  “Not all the rebel army is nightwalkers, Onnell,” Orzin reminded him. “We'd have to swim across the river, or use boats, and either way they'd see us coming. We'd have archers shooting at us the whole way, and we'd have to fight through their men to get ashore. We can't just walk across underwater!”

  “Oh,” Onnell said, feeling stupid. Then he asked, “Can't we go downstream and cross at Drievabor, then come back here along the other side?”

  “Lord Duzon's taken a dozen men and horses to check on whether that might work,” Orzin said.

  “Oh,” Onnell said again. “So we might try it?”

  “We might,” Orzin agreed. “But it's a long march, and we'd be outnumbered if we did.”

  “Would we?” Onnell asked, startled. “Are there that many of them? I mean, living rebels, not nightwalkers.”

  “So the magicians say.”

  “I didn't see that many tents,” Onnell said. “Did more of them arrive after dark, or something?”

  Orzin sighed. “No,” he said. “I mean, yes, there were stragglers, and they're still arriving over there, but a lot of those men don't have tents – they're just sleeping on the ground. They're not a real army, after all.”

  “Then we ought to be able to beat them even if we are outnumbered!”

  “Maybe,” Orzin said. “But I don't know how much of a soldier I really am, even if I did have a few triads of training and I do have a tent and a uniform. They've already fought their way all the way across the plain from the far side of Govya, Onnell.”

  “The nightwalkers fought their way across the plain!” Onnell protested.

  “The mortals fought, too,” Orzin said. “You know General Balinus harassed them from Ai Varach halfway across the plain, right up until the first snows – don't you think he'd have had the sense to attack by daylight?”

  “But he didn't have enough men.”

  “But the men he did have were professional soldiers, not farmboys and street-sweepers who volunteered a few seasons ago and got sent out here half-trained, then sat through the winter in Drievabor getting fat and lazy.”

  Onnell glared at his friend. “We hardly got fat on what they fed us there,” he said. “You make it sound like you think we'll lose.”

  “No,” Orzin said. “No, I don't think that. But I don't think we'll win until the whole Imperial Army gets here. When we can send the entire army at them, and not just six regiments, I think we'll be able to cut right through them. So our job is to hold them until Lord Kadan marches the main body out from Seidabar.”

  “When will that be?”

  Orzin shrugged. “Do I look like an officer?”

  “I want to see,” Onnell said. He looked about and spotted his helmet at the foot of the bed; he reached over and picked it up, then got to his feet.

  He wasn't quite as steady as he had expected; he stood for a moment, recollecting himself, before he crossed the wheat-straw matting to the tent-flap.

  The sun was bright, and the water of the Grebiguata glittered in its light. A lone picket stood at the water's edge, staring across at the camp on the far side – where, as Orzin had said, the nightwalkers were stacked like firewood.

  Onnell stepped out and looked around. The lines of golden-yellow tents stretched off in either direction, and he could see a few other sentries... but no one else. There were no troops drilling, no soldiers lolling about.

  “Where is everybody?” he asked aloud.

  No one answered. Onnell turned and stuck his head back through the flap.

  Orzin was on his own cot, clearly settling in to sleep.

  “Where is everyone?” Onnell demanded.

  “Sleeping,” Orzin said. “You probably should be, too, if you can get back to it after being out for so long.”

  “But it's the middle of the day!”

  “We were fighting all night,” Orzin said, “and we'll probably do it again tonight, so we're resting while we can.”

  “But... then why were you up?”

  “I was on watch,” Orzin said. “Bousian just relieved me, and when I came in I saw you were waking up.”

  “But what...” Onnell looked around the tent, and realized for the first time that the blanket on Timuan's cot had Timuan under it. The boy was sound asleep.

  Bousian's bunk was empty.

  Onnell decided that he wanted to talk to Bousian. “All right, then,” he said. “Sleep. I'll see you later.” He dropped the tent-flap and turned away.

  The camp was eerily quiet as Onnell marched along the riverbank; he could hear the wind in the stubble of the abandoned wheatfields that still stood around the perimeter. Shading his eyes with one hand he looked eastward.

  The enemy camp wasn't as still; people were moving about, and cookfires were burning. A group of men was digging at something near the center of the camp – Onnell would have assumed it was a latrine, if not for the location.

  The wind was from the northwest, carrying away the stench of the nightwalkers' decomposing flesh, but their stacked bodies were quite gruesome enough without it. Onnell shuddered; where had the Nazakri gotten so many corpses to reanimate? Had he killed that many?

  Something caught his eye, and he stared, trying to make it out. One of the bodies, one near the top of one heap, was dressed in red and gold...

  The red and gold of an Imperial uniform.

  Onnell hadn't noticed that before, but now he began looking for them, and quickly spotted three more.

  It shouldn't be a surprise, he told himself. After all, the nightwalkers were stolen corpses, and the rebels had been fighting General Balinus for seasons, and a dead soldier was no different from any other cadaver. It wouldn't be pleasant in battle, though, to find himself facing a nightwalker who had once been an Imperial soldier like himself.

  The possibility that not only might he die fighting, but his own body might wind up in those stacks over there, was more than just unpleasant. It was nauseating. He leaned against a tent-pole, suddenly unsteady. He tried to tell himself that it was just the after-effects of the blow on the head he'd received, and perhaps that was truly all it was. When he had recovered sufficiently he walked on, through the camp.

  A
s he walked he noticed a buzzing sound, and followed it, curious as to its origins.

  When he found the sound's source, though, he had to stop and, since he could find nothing to lean on, sit down. He sat, legs folded under him, and stared out at the field behind the camp.

  Again, it was something that shouldn't have surprised him. Orzin had said the previous night's battle was over and that the mess had been cleaned up, but he hadn't said everything that had to be done was done. He had also said everyone was resting.

  Apparently the officers had considered rest more urgent than burying the dead. The buzzing came from swarms of flies that seethed around the corpses left by last night's fighting.

  At least they weren't stacked up like the nightwalkers across the river – but on the other hand, at least the nightwalkers over there were still each in one piece. Here, the bodies were laid out in rows, and the heads were in separate rows.

  It wasn't just the remains of the nightwalkers that had been so treated; the bodies of the Imperial soldiers who had died in the fighting had also been decapitated, presumably to ensure that they would stay dead and not themselves become nightwalkers.

  Onnell stared at the rows of the dead, and realized that with their heads removed he couldn't even tell whether he had known any of them. He couldn't bring himself to look closely at the sagging, distorted faces of the severed heads.

  This was ghastly, far more horrible than he imagined war would be – but then, this was no ordinary war. They were fighting nightwalkers and black magic.

  This wasn't something for ordinary men, Onnell told himself. He should be home in Grozerodz, working the family farm and courting little Sezuan, not sitting here on the plain among headless corpses awaiting a night of horror.

  Someone had to stop the nightwalkers, of course, or someday the village square in Grozerodz might be strewn with the dead just as this place was – but it shouldn't be him, Onnell told himself. This was a job for the New Magicians, or the priests, or the divine champion, not ordinary men.

  The magicians were here, some of them, and doing their best – Onnell could see someone with a glowing staff in the sky to the east, keeping an eye on the enemy camp, even now. The priests were undoubtedly praying and working their own magic, as well. But the champion – why wasn't Malledd here? Was he that determined to reject his appointment?

  Maybe he didn't know, didn't believe, just how dangerous the Nazakri and his nightwalkers were.

  Someone had to tell him. Someone had to.

  Onnell looked up to the west.

  If he slipped away and began walking, he thought he could reach Seidabar in six or seven days, and Grozerodz in five more. He could go to Hmar's forge and tell Malledd that he was needed here. Malledd might not listen to priests or recruiters, but if he, Onnell, told him, surely the champion would heed the call?

  Onnell had always respected Malledd. The chosen of the gods was quiet, slow to choose sides, reluctant to involve himself in other people's business, but he was a good man, strong in more than just body. Surely, if he knew he was needed, he would come.

  Twelve days to Grozerodz – at least; it might be more. That was assuming he wasn't caught and punished for desertion.

  In twelve days the entire Imperial vanguard might be destroyed – or the main army might arrive and wipe out the rebels. Even the vanguard might find some way to defeat them, if it could be done by daylight.

  Malledd might already be on the way here, Onnell realized. Slow to decide, yes – but he might have reached his decision, and seen that he was needed.

  Meanwhile, the vanguard needed every man it had. Onnell couldn't desert his friends.

  But he thought that, when he had the chance, he wanted a word or two with a priest about when a man might break a promise without shaming himself, and after that a word or two with Lord Duzon about just who the true divine champion was.

  Chapter Forty

  Malledd followed Darsmit through the huge gold-plated doors into the Great Temple warily. He didn't like this; the temple was the domain of the gods, and right now he didn't want to attract the attention of any divinities. He had a feeling his presence in Seidabar wasn't what the gods wanted – though he couldn't say why he thought so. After all, hadn't he helped the Empire by fighting the fire in the Imperial Palace?

  He was probably just letting all the stress of the past few days get to him, he told himself. He should be home with his wife and children, not here in this great roaring city of strangers, talking with princes and battling blazes.

  “Where are we going?” he asked, as Darsmit turned down a side-passage.

  “The wedding hall,” Darsmit replied. He pointed to a small crowd ahead. Malledd heard high-pitched laughter echoing from the stone walls. “It's right next to the marriage altar.”

  The feasting hall in Biekedau wasn't in the temple itself; it was a separate structure owned by an enterprising townsman. Couples who couldn't afford to rent it held their wedding feasts at home. For anyone from Grozerodz a home celebration meant a ten-mile walk for the bride and groom, so Malledd and his sisters – the four who had gotten properly married, at any rate – had all used the hall in Biekedau, despite the expense.

  Apparently things were different in Seidabar, and the feasts were held right in the temple.

  Next to the marriage altar? “The altar's not under the central dome?” Malledd asked.

  “Not the one Berai is using.” Berai was Darsmit's sister.

  “There's more than one?”

  Darsmit didn't bother replying, and Malledd didn't blame him; it was a stupid question. This was the Great Temple at Seidabar – of course it had more than one marriage altar in it! There might be dozens in a place this size. After all, if there was room for a feasting hall...

  “Darsmit!” someone called. “You made it!”

  “Of course!” Darsmit shouted back, smiling. “You think I'd miss my own sister's wedding?”

  “Not without a pretty reason,” came the reply.

  “She'd have to be more than just pretty,” Darsmit said. He didn't have to shout any more; he and Malledd had reached the crowd at the door of the wedding hall.

  “Who's your friend?” someone else asked. “Or is this your bodyguard, to fight off all those outraged husbands?”

  “Ah, this is Malledd,” Darsmit said, reaching up to clap Malledd on the shoulder. “He's one of the other smiths training as an armorer with me – and he's a brave man and a hero; he organized the bucket brigade at the Palace.”

  “Ah, I thought I'd seen him before!” a woman called as she sidled nearer through the crowd. “Malledd, you say? I'm Breduin.”

  For the next few minutes Malledd was the center of a circle of faces. Introductions were made all around, but Malledd was quite certain he wouldn't remember most of the names. In the press of people he wasn't entirely sure when or how he got through the door, but he found himself inside the hall where a golden cloth covered a long table, awaiting the feast. Barrels were tiered along one wall. A small shrine at the far end held small statues of Vevanis and his sister-wife Orini, similar to those found on the marriage altar in Biekedau – and presumably on the marriage altar here in Seidabar, as well. A dozen vases of red flowers were arranged around the shrine – not roses, as Malledd was accustomed to seeing at weddings back home, but an unfamiliar variety, with very large, open blossoms. Other vases, holding various red flowers, were set here and there throughout the room.

  The food wouldn't be brought out until the happy couple made their entrance, but a preliminary keg of wine had been tapped; Malledd accepted a glass, and endured a dozen more introductions as Darsmit worked his way down the table toward the shrine, pulling Malledd along.

  They had almost reached the end of the table when a white-robed priest stepped out from behind a curtain near the little shrine; that was clearly a signal that the ceremony at the altar was almost over, and the real party about to begin. The babble of conversation died away, and the guests turned to watc
h the priest.

  The man in the white robe raised his hands and began the invocation, first of Orini, goddess of love and beauty, and then of her brother Vevanis, god of love and duty – not that anyone actually expected the deities in question to manifest themselves, but they were presumed to be listening.

  “We understand it to be the will of this Holy Pair that Gharman and Berai shall be bound together in marriage, and we have seen Gharman and Berai pledge themselves accordingly,” the priest concluded, “and so it is as husband and wife that they join us here now, to celebrate their union!”

  The guests shouted their approval as the bride and groom stepped out through the curtain, both of them grinning foolishly. Berai was brushing nervously at the full skirt of her crimson gown; Gharman's wedding robe, made of the same fabric, didn't seem to fit him terribly well.

  That didn't matter, of course. Friends and family rushed forward to embrace them both, and on cue a piper began playing the traditional Domdur wedding song.

  Malledd wondered whether anyone ever remembered the lyrics to that cheerful tune; he had heard them sung once or twice. He didn't recall all the words, but he knew they included something about breeding new Domdur to serve the gods. That seemed a bit archaic now.

  Guests moved away from the door to allow the delivery of the feast itself – a hired baker and his apprentice, alerted by the music, had appeared with trays of cakes and filled pastries. A man who bore a strong resemblance to the groom – probably a brother, Malledd guessed – led a group of men in tapping the waiting barrels of wine and ale.

  “Come on, Malledd,” Darsmit said. “I want Berai to meet you!” Reluctantly, Malledd allowed himself to be dragged over to meet the bride.

  She was a comely young woman, despite a definite resemblance to her brother; she was smiling, happy and nervous, constantly fiddling with her red dress and darting glances around the room.

  “Berai, I've got someone I want...” Darsmit began.

  “You're Malledd,” she said, interrupting him and grabbing Malledd's hand. “Darsmit's told me about you. I thought he'd exaggerated, but you really are as big as he said!”