Touched by the Gods

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

It seemed almost as if Malledd was deliberately hiding that he was the chosen one.

  But was he? Why would he arrive now? Why hadn't he been here all along? Walking in now, after Duzon and Balinus and the others had fought and bled and died for so long... that was unfair. If this Malledd was the divine champion, and he defeated Rebiri Nazakri, he would receive all the credit, and Duzon's own efforts would be forgotten – he'd be just an obscure noble who had fought unsuccessfully, only to be rescued by the champion.

  That wasn't fair.

  But maybe he wasn't the champion at all; maybe his evasiveness was all a maneuver, an assumed modesty intended to make his eventual “revelation” more effective. Many nobles assumed that commoners were incapable of such subtlety and intrigue, but Duzon knew better.

  Well, there was always a way to put an end to the evasion game, one that many people had found by asking Duzon outright whether he was the gods' choice; he had always answered honestly that he didn't know.

  “Malledd,” he said, “are you the gods' chosen defender of the Domdur Empire?”

  Malledd grimaced, and didn't answer immediately; Duzon met his gaze and stared, waiting for a reply.

  “What makes you ask that?” he said at last.

  “Don't play with words,” Duzon snapped. “Answer me! Are you the divine champion?”

  “Why? What answer do you want me to give?”

  “I want the truth!”

  “What if I don't know the truth?”

  “Then tell me what you do know.”

  Malledd sighed. “I am,” he admitted.

  For a moment Duzon couldn't parse that simple statement. “You are... are what?”

  “I am the chosen of the gods,” Malledd said. “I was born with the mark of Ba'el's claw across my face, and three of the oracles in Biekedau told the priests there who I was. A priest named Mezizar was sent to verify the birthmark and inform my parents, so of course everyone in Grozerodz knew.”

  “Onnell, for example,” Duzon said, two fingers stroking his chin thoughtfully.

  Malledd nodded. “Onnell, and Bousian, and the others.”

  “But Apiris claimed he didn't know anything of the champion's whereabouts,” Duzon said.

  “He didn't,” Malledd said. “The temple at Biekedau kept it as quiet as they could, and Dolkout, the high priest there, died before informing Apiris. Telling people didn't seem important; after all, nobody cared about the champion then, and the priests all assumed that when they needed to know they could ask an oracle.”

  “But some of the priests in Biekedau knew,” Duzon said. “When the search began, why didn't they speak up?”

  “I...” Malledd began. Then he paused, took a deep breath, and said, “I'd ordered them not to.”

  Duzon's fingers stopped their stroking, and he blinked, once.

  “Ah,” he said.

  Malledd looked desperately unhappy, but said nothing.

  “Would you care to explain that?” Duzon asked.

  “I have a letter Dolkout had left with my parents,” Malledd said. “It says that any priest anywhere has to obey me, because I'm the gods' chosen. So when Vadeviya came to see me, when the first trouble began in the east, I ordered him to make sure that none of the priests told anyone.”

  “But why?”

  “I didn't want to be bothered,” Malledd said.

  Duzon lowered his hand and leaned forward, elbows on his knees, staring at Malledd.

  “You didn't want it known you were the champion?” he said.

  “No,” Malledd said. “All it ever brought me was trouble.”

  “What sort of trouble?”

  Malledd almost blushed. “My sisters teased me,” he said. “Everyone in Grozerodz treated me as if I were some sort of freak, like Nedduel's six-legged hog. I just wanted to be left alone to be myself and do as I pleased. Everyone always said that the wars were gone for good and I'd never be called on, and I'd believed that. That made it possible that I could live a normal life, if people would just forget about the whole thing.”

  Duzon marveled at that. “But you didn't want to be something more, something greater?” he asked.

  Malledd shrugged. “Why should I?”

  “So you might have anything you wanted,” Duzon said. “So that men would look at you with respect and envy, and women with desire.”

  “I'm married,” Malledd said. “I have the respect of my neighbors – I'm a good smith already, and in time I'll be as good as my father. What more do I need?”

  Duzon realized he had reached a point of mutual incomprehension; if this man didn't understand ambition, Duzon had no idea how to explain it to him. For himself, Duzon couldn't imagine not wanting more, more power, more status, more women. Satisfaction was fleeting, and greed the normal state of being.

  But Malledd plainly didn't see it that way.

  “Look at me,” Malledd said. “I'm big and strong; strangers stare when they first meet me, and no one ever dares insult me or trouble me. My wife doubts there's a woman alive who doesn't think about what a man my size would be like in bed. With all that, why would I also need to have the gods' favor?”

  Duzon smiled wryly. “I suppose I see your point,” he said, and in fact he did – a man Malledd's size didn't need any competitive instinct in order to flourish. Duzon was reasonably tall, reasonably muscular, reasonably handsome, reasonably rich, with a title and a proud, ancient family. He knew himself to be a very fortunate man in many ways – but he was not so outstanding that strangers stopped to stare at him. At least, not unless he had dressed even more flamboyantly than usual.

  “Still,” he said, “you have the gods' favor.”

  Malledd shrugged. “I didn't ask for it,” he said.

  “You're here to fight for the Empire,” Duzon said. “But why are you here, if you've no interest in being the champion of the Domdur?”

  Malledd frowned. “I thought it was my duty, if I am truly the chosen. I'm a Domdur born and bred; I was raised to honor the gods and the Empress, and if there's a danger to the Empire, and the gods want me to fight it, then I thought I should fight it.”

  “Fair enough,” Duzon acknowledged, “but why are you only arriving now, when we've been fighting for so long?”

  “Because I don't want to be here,” Malledd retorted angrily. “I said that if the gods want me to fight, I'll fight; well, it's taken this long for the gods to make their will known clearly enough to coax me here.”

  “The gods?”

  “Yes, the gods!” Malledd shouted. Then he subsided and added quietly, “Some of them, anyway.”

  “Are you claiming to be an oracle, then? I hadn't heard that that was a gift the champions received – ”

  Malledd cut him off with an angry chopping motion. “I'm no oracle,” he said. “I met Baranmel at a wedding.”

  “Ah,” Duzon said, with sudden understanding. That made sense; the gods no longer spoke to humanity through the oracles, but Baranmel still danced at weddings. If the gods truly wanted to give orders to their servant, that would be a way to do it without breaking their self-imposed silence.

  But if this man was the divine champion, why had he needed those orders?

  Obviously, because he was reluctant to fulfill his appointed role. He had said as much.

  That was so horribly unfair! Hundreds of men, Duzon himself among them, desperately wanted to be champion, yet the one man the gods had chosen would have preferred to have declined the honor.

  Duzon tried to conceal every trace of bitterness as he said, “So Baranmel told you to come here and take command?”

  “Baranmel told me that if I didn't fight, Rebiri Nazakri stood a better chance of bringing down the Empire. That's all. Nobody forced me – and I'm not about to take command of anything! I'm a blacksmith, not a general. General Balinus is in command, isn't he?”

  “He is indeed,” Duzon said.

  “Then let him command. I'd rather not have anyone else find out I'm anything but another volunteer.
I'm here, and I'll do what I can, but don't expect miracles.”

  Duzon considered that. He studied Malledd's face closely.

  The man was incomprehensible. At first appraisal Duzon would have said he was a coward, bereft of honor, to have refused to declare himself – yet he was here, ready to face the foe. He was willing to fight, and presumably to die, yet he still didn't want it known that he was the Empire's divinely-appointed defender.

  The very rewards that Duzon sought – recognition, glory, power – seemed to be what Malledd feared more than he feared death or pain.

  Duzon hardly knew what to make of such a man, and such a champion; he wondered whether the gods were displaying a streak of cruelty, or perhaps just a twisted sense of humor, in their choice.

  But he didn't think Malledd was what the Imperial forces needed right now. Another sword-arm was welcome; a reluctant champion who refused command and proclaimed himself no warrior was not.

  “Expect miracles?” Duzon said. “Don't worry, Malledd; we won't.”

  Chapter Fifty

  “They have an advantage over us in the water,” Onnell explained, gesturing at the river. “They don't breathe. Besides, this way we can see them coming.”

  Malledd nodded as he looked over the earthen parapet. The strip of bare ground along the riverbank made sense, now that he thought about it.

  “We tried it the other way at first,” Onnell continued. “We fought them right in the water, trying to keep them from even touching the western shore. It didn't work.”

  Malledd glanced at Onnell; something in the other man's voice conveyed a little of just how much was signified by those simple words, “It didn't work.”

  “This is better?” he asked, gesturing across the earthworks at the empty area between the barrier and the river, and the long row of torches that lit that area.

  “Definitely,” Onnell said.

  Malledd looked thoughtfully at the black river. “The living rebels never cross?”

  “No,” Onnell said. “If they ever did we could slaughter them and put an end to all this.”

  “The nightwalkers... what would they do if we didn't oppose them at all? What if we let them pass? They couldn't reach Seidabar in a single night, and at dawn we could destroy them all.”

  Onnell snorted. “Lord Duzon suggested that to General Balinus once. The general decided to try an experiment; he pulled back and let them pass. Only they didn't pass; they turned and attacked us. They cross in hopes of destroying us, so that their live allies can cross, and the whole army march on to Seidabar.”

  “But they haven't destroyed us.”

  “Not yet,” Onnell agreed. “They're working on... Look!” He pointed at a ripple in the water.

  Malledd looked, as the ripple was joined by another and another and another. Then the first erupted out of the water and stood revealed as a soldier in the red-and-gold of the Empire – but a soldier with his chestplate gone, his tunic slashed open, and his chest pierced by a deep, dark wound. Any blood that might once have stained that puncture had been washed away by the Grebiguata, and the opening was black in the torchlight.

  The walking corpse grinned. It shook water from its long hair and shouted at the barricade, “Ready to dance for another night?”

  Behind it, others rose up dripping. They didn't speak, simply advanced toward shore, swords and axes and spears held ready. Two or three others wore Imperial uniforms, but most wore rags that had once been civilian garb – farmers' homespun, Matuan robes, Govyan vests. Ugly wounds gaped bloodlessly on several of them, and at least one was missing most of an arm.

  “Do we have any archers?” Malledd asked, noticing how exposed the nightwalkers were as they rose from the water. They were monstrous, ugly, terrifying – but now that he actually saw them they weren't quite as bad as he had imagined them. Having faced them, he could put his fear behind him and think again.

  “Arrows don't do any good,” Onnell reminded him. “You need to cut their heads off to kill them.”

  Malledd grunted acknowledgment; he had forgotten that detail. He watched the approaching nightwalkers intently.

  Then, without warning, the undead creatures broke into a run, and charged straight up the sloping dirt wall. Malledd had no time for thinking about anything but survival as they poured over the top – two of the creatures were coming straight at him, swords thrusting down and forward like spears.

  He dodged clumsily sideways, remembering too late to raise his own blade.

  Onnell, the veteran, moved far more efficiently; where Malledd ducked low and leaned sideways, throwing himself off-balance, Onnell simply took one step back and to the side while he brought his sword sweeping up in a well-timed parry. A single nightwalker had lunged for him, trying to impale him; the deflected blade passed harmlessly over Onnell's shoulder. Then the axe in Onnell's left hand swung around in a ferocious overhand chop, cutting deep into the nightwalker's flank.

  Malledd saw that much in an instant, then turned to regain his balance and confront his own foes.

  One had stopped dead while the other circled around, trying to trap Malledd between them; Malledd knew that maneuver from childhood battles with his sisters, and scrambled up the barricade, not worrying where that took him, ignoring the fact that he was exposing himself to the enemy. It didn't occur to him until too late that perhaps the nightwalkers had archers, even if the Imperial vanguard did not.

  Then he was atop the parapet, and the two nightwalkers were trying to climb up after him. He backed away and slid down the slope toward the river.

  He scrambled to his feet and looked around, just as more nightwalkers rose up from the water; Malledd heard the sloshing, more than saw them. Despite the torches and a dozen moons that peeped through gaps in the clouds, the darkness made it hard to see details.

  The nightwalkers that had attacked him had followed him back up over the wall, and were sliding down toward him. Fear and anger and determination mingled and merged, and something new swept over him, a combination of them all. He stopped thinking; he lifted his sword with both hands, swinging it up above his right shoulder, then charged bellowing at the two.

  They turned to meet him, one moving right, the other left, their own swords at the ready – and Malledd hacked right through both their blades. One sword snapped; the other was torn from its wielder's hand and flew aside.

  Malledd chopped back again, and took off a nightwalker's hand. His third swing took off a nightwalker's head.

  The surviving opponent stepped back, stooped to retrieve the fallen sword – and tumbled to the ground in two pieces.

  Onnell's axe had lopped off its head. He had disposed of his own foe and come over the wall to Malledd's aid.

  “That wasn't so bad,” Malledd said, his chest heaving as he tried to calm himself.

  “Of course not,” Onnell said. “It's still early. They send the beginners first, to tire us out.” Then he turned to fend off a nightwalker that was preparing to ram its sword into Malledd's back.

  Malledd turned, astonished; he had been completely unaware of the enemy's approach.

  It hadn't been alone; half a dozen more nightwalkers were charging up the bank. Malledd turned to meet them while Onnell pinned and decapitated the leading figure.

  Side by side the two men scrabbled back up the earthworks, fighting off nightwalkers as they did so. When they tumbled back over the top the nightwalkers came close behind.

  At that point Malledd knew that he had destroyed one nightwalker. By midnight he had destroyed at least eleven, and had had a sword thrust through his left arm; he was standing amid chaos and disaster, tents burning to one side, men and women screaming in the darkness. The nightwalkers were still coming over the walls.

  By dawn he had lost count how many he had destroyed, and was staring about madly, looking for the foe. The Imperial soldiers had been driven back from the barricades into the open, where they had collected into knots, standing back to back, fending off the enemy; Malledd, O
nnell, and three others Malledd didn't know formed one such knot. Most of the soldiers were far too tired to do any more than try to stay alive, but Malledd was still ready to charge any nightwalker that came within reach, still able to swing his sword like a woodsman's axe at any nightwalker's neck.

  No more necks were available, though; the surviving nightwalkers were now fleeing back into the water, not because the Imperial vanguard had defeated them, but because the sun had. The eastern sky was lightening rapidly.

  Onnell relaxed, lowering his axe. He massaged his right arm and glanced around.

  There were losses, of course – including at least one very important one, as Onnell thought he had seen Colonel Zavai go down under a nightwalker's axe. Still, most of the corpses scattered through the camp were the headless remains of nightwalkers, not Imperial troops, and Onnell hadn't seen anyone being carried back to the river to be added to the enemy's ranks.

  That was good. The attack had been a fairly heavy one, and the Imperial forces had done well. That thought reminded him of Malledd, who had fought well for a new recruit. He turned and looked at his companion.

  Malledd was still staring about wildly, sword held high.

  “Malledd, relax,” Onnell said. “It's over. Now it's time for a meal and a day's rest.”

  Malledd threw him an uncertain glance. “You're sure?”

  “Absolutely. The nightwalkers can't move in sunlight, and their support troops can't cross the river.”

  Slowly, Malledd lowered the sword, and looked around.

  “May all the gods protect me!” he said, as he took in the strewn bodies.

  “I'm sure they will,” Onnell said, amused by Malledd's use of the commonplace oath – if the gods were going to protect anyone, it would be Malledd.

  “So many dead,” Malledd muttered.

  “Most of them were already dead,” Onnell pointed out. “We'll need to drag them all to the pyres, but first let's get something to eat. I'm exhausted and half-starved.”

  Malledd realized then that the other three men in their group were already on their way toward breakfast, their weapons dragging behind them or simply dropped.