The Prophet Of Lamath

by Hughes, Robert Don

  The lead riders of Dorlyth's field brigade had by this time reached the walls of Tohn's keep. Watchers on the walls stared openmouthed as these riders parted to either side of the keep, then turned to face the golden charge once again. Tohn's children thrilled at the color and glory. His young men ached to fire a few arrows in one direction or the other. Tohn himself gripped the battlements and stared down at the regrouping Man line, his face fixed in a frozen frown as stony as the rock walls he clung to. The Mari line extended to the right and left of his keep, the far ends bowed to prevent Talith's force from flanking them. In the shadow of Tohn's wall they waited for Talith to extend his army farther onto the plain, opening his flanks to mounted Maris on the north and south; It would not be many minutes before Pahd's attack struck the Chaon's southern flank.

  In the early minutes of the battle, Venad mod Narkis' archers on the northern face of the .pass proved coldly efficient. More than two thousand Chaons died or were wounded in the first arrow attacks, but most of these were on the northern side. Dorlyth's archers were less successful, though they poured as many arrows into the air, and this was to have some bearing on the course of the battle. When the shower of arrows began, most of the Chaon warriors panicked; suddenly the whole column no longer marched out of the pass-it pushed and shoved its way onto the field in terror. Dead horses and riders clogged the pass, and the panic combined with the litter of death to slow the line further. There was nowhere to run but forward, for Dragonsgate itself was still filling with more orderly columns, and there, too, waited the dragon. Men who could see an open plain and safety below them would certainly not run uphill into the presence of that threatening beast. As Dorlyth had hoped, the column continued to come-and the arrows continued falling, taking a shockingly high toll.

  Vicia-Heinox vaulted into the air, and watched curiously from above.

  "It appears," sneered Vicia, "that your army has found someone to fight after all-not any too well, I might add." "Who are all these warriors? Where did they alt-come from?" "From Ngandib-Mar, I would suppose. How did they get onto our hills without us noticing?" "Because you've been so busy playing god, we haven't had time to protect ourselves! An army that size could do us great harm, yet we didn't even see it!" "We've seen it now, though. Why get so excited?" "Let's drop down and burn them off our hills!" Heinox roared.

  "Why? Because they are so effectively slaughtering your precious King Talith's warriors?" "Vicia, try to be reasonable! An army that close is potentially harmful to us! We must deal with the threat!" "Sorry, Heinox, but I have no wish to aid Talith's army. Though my Lamathians proved to be unfaithful, these from Ngandib-Mar seem quite brave." "We have never allowed such a battle to take place so close to our nest!" Heinox screamed. "Suppose we should become involved somehow in this fighting?" "That's simple, Heinox," Vicia replied. "We'll bum both armies to ashes." Pahd laughed aloud as his mounted forces exploded into Talith's exposed southern flank. Three-no, four-no, five Chaons made the mistake of engaging him, and Pahd efficiently disposed of each. Some may have thought Pahd bloodthirsty as he twisted in his saddle, hacking right and left, laughing more loudly with every stroke. But it was no thirst for blood that drove him forward. It was his genuine enjoyment of the sounds and smells of battle, and the blood-pushing excitement of personal combat. He dealt with a seventh, an eighth, then a ninth Chaon, before the golden warriors became aware of his seeming invincibility and began avoiding him.

  Unfortunately, Pahd's brethren-at-arms were not faring well at all. Since Dorlyth's archers had not killed as many Chaons in the pass as had Venad's, more fleeing soldiers joined the southern flank than joined the battle on the northern side of the field. The Mari attack in the north proved so powerful that already frightened Chaons grew more so, and many more Chaons than Maris died on that flank. But despite Pahd's flickering sword, which snuffed Chaon life wherever it pointed, far more Maris died in the south. The full force of the Chaon attack shifted toward Pahd and his supporters, and they were driven back against the base of the mountainside.

  After his initial hesitation, Talith's courage flamed up more brightly than before. Once again he led the charge against the small force of Maris that flanked Tohn's castle. Talith still believed his entire army followed him, and that the battle was confined to his engagement with these few who were ranged before him. But only seven thousand of his warriors had chased him all the way across the field; and as the two forces clashed together, the experience of the tough old Mari fighters proved the margin of victory. These waiting warriors had fought often in field campaigns, for at no time in the history of the Confederation of Ngandib-Mar had that great land been truly at peace. The Chaons they melee'd had never fought in any battle involving more than a hundred men on a side. The noise was distracting-more so was the sight of blood-spattered saddles and dying men.

  Talith led one force to the left of Tohn's wall, while Rolan-Keshi led another to the right. Talith shouted encouragement to his young General as he disappeared around the curve of the battlements.

  The charge broke down into thousands of individual contests. Talith found himself engaged in a hand-to-hand straggle with a gray-haired veteran in a dirty jerkin. The man looked to be sixty or older, yet he fought with the energy of a teenager. Talith summoned all his experience from years of dueling in his own armory and tried every trick he could remember against this aged opponent. But the real struggle took place in Talith's heart. Was he truly capable of killing another swordsman? It was not the other man's life that concerned him. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of people had met death by Talith's order. It was the thought of himself. Was he really skillful enough to win? Or would he prove himself a failure, and die in his discovery?.

  It was perhaps Talith's inability to conceive of his own death that saved him. That, and the old warrior's age. The gray fighter had watched too many friends drop in battle to believe that death could not touch him. When his energy flagged, he could no longer resist the raw expression of Talith's fear. With a desperate thrust, the King cut him from his saddle, and the man slept at last, joined with that host of fallen comrades who had acquainted him so well with death.

  Talith shouted in exultation, even as his warriors were being beaten back. He broke off, shouting, "To me! To me!" His golden warriors were only too happy to obey. The Maris did not pursue. They regrouped to the west of Tohn's castle, and waited to see what Talith would do.

  On the north side of Tohn's keep five hundred Chaon warriors were cut down. Among them was a promising young General who had been denied the chance to lead. Rolan-Keshi had been killed early, and his body now lay under a pile of golden-clad dead.

  When Talith broke to the left and Rolan-Keshi to the right, the riders that followed them also broke off to one side or the other. All save one man. Down out of the mountain pass came Tahli-Damen, riding as straight and as sure as one of Venad mod Narkis' arrows to the very door of Tohn's keep. There he leapt from his saddle and ran to pound on the gate.

  "Let me in!" Tahli-Damen cried out, straining his voice to make himself heard above the din. "Let me in! I'm a merchant, can't you see? Let me in, I'm begging you! Look at my clothes, I'm a merchant!" He pounded and kept on pounding until finally he heard a reply shouted from above, and he craned his neck to look up into the face of a wild-haired old man robed in the colors of Ognadzu. "Please Let me in!" he called.

  "No!" replied Tohn mod Neelis, and the old man started to go away.

  "Please! Listen! If you are Tohn, I have important words from Jagd! I'm of the house of Uda, can't you see that?" "Go away!" Tohn shouted, and once again he started to leave the wall, but Tahli-Damen looked so horrified Tohn felt obligated to give some explanation.

  "I can't let you in! You're surrounded by battling warriors!" "I know! I know!" Tahli-Damen screamed. "If I open my gates, the battle will move in here!" "Open them just a crack. I'm small! Can't you see I'm a merchant?" "I can see you wear the colors of a merchant, of a house that rivals my own! No, I will not jeo
pardize my family and my keep for a merchant from the house of Uda!" "But what of Jagd? Your alliance? The changes the Council of Elders have sought to institute-" "It's all destroyed, and you may tell that to Jagd for me when you see him!" "I see him!" Tahli-Damen yelled. "If I survive, I'll tell him that you are no ally!" "Good!" Tohn called back over the battle's roar, "because I am no longer his ally." "Please!" Tahli-Damen tried one last time. "I am a merchant!" "A merchant of Uda! I am of Ognadzu! The house of Uda in Ngandib-Mar is two miles north! I wish you luck in finding it, but I will not let you in here!" "This bodes ill for the future relations of Uda and Ognadzu!" Tahli-Damen shouted, but Tohn's head already had disappeared from view. The young merchant heard horses charging around the curve of the wall toward him, and he threw himself against the gate as the thundering hooves passed close behind him. Then he slumped slowly down, until at last he sat in the dust at Tohn's front gate, scratching at it with his fingernails as if to find a soft place to dig his way into the keep.

  More than five thousand Chaons lay in the pass, either dead or too badly wounded to flee. Another eight thousand warriors slogged their way forward through the rising tide of bodies, still rushing to avoid the deadly hail of arrows that filled the sky above. Dorlyth's arms were beyond being tired. He had fired his bow until his fingers bled from being rubbed and snapped by (he gut of its string. He paused to gasp for breath, and looked to his left, down to the valley below where Pahd led the defense-for it had become a defense. Pahd's depleted cavalry was being driven up the mountain, and more and more Chaons shifted to the southern flank, away from that deadly northern wall.

  Across the plain, Dorlyth could see the standard of the King of Chaomonous moving to the center of the field. The golden riders that had battled before Tohn's gates now regrouped around their ruler, and Dorlyth watched as Talith led them to join the battle against Pahd.

  "He's in trouble," Dorlyth muttered, and he glanced back down into the pass. The arrows continued in a poisonous rain from Venad and his fellows; but Dorlyth could see that, in spite of all those killed in the pass, a huge force of Chaons had gained the field. The Mari northern flank was holding fast, as powerful a barrier as Tohn's castle walls. Dorlyth decided the best place now for himself and his archers was at the side of the Mari King. Not even Pahd mod Pahd-el could defeat fifteen to twenty thousand Chaons by himself-much as Pahd might think so.

  , Pahd's cavalry, four thousand strong when the day began, had shrunk to four hundred by the time Dorlyth and his reinforcements arrived to help. Yet the King still was laughing. When he saw Dorlyth he shouted. "Never in my lifetime have I enjoyed a day more!" "Then there's more fun on the way!" Dorlyth shouted back gravely, as he ran his greatsword through a slow-moving Chaon pikeman. "King Talith rides to meet us, with all of Chaomonous at his back!" "Bring him on!" Pahd shouted back merrily as his blade sliced cleanly through an enemy's shoulder. "I've yet to meet any Chaon who would be a match even for you." At least there seemed little chance of Pahd falling asleep again, Dorlyth thought to himself. Then he cleared his mind of everything save swordwork. Dorlyth loved life dearly, and he intended to survive.

  Talith's standard came streaking toward them up the hillside, just as they were driven back into a small meadow dotted with apple trees. Here Pelman had first introduced himself to Bronwynn, and from this little meadow Bronwynn had fallen in love with the land of Ngandib-Mar. Here, too, Bronwynn's father and Dorlyth came face to face for the first and only time.

  It was by accident that they met, for Pahd had cried out that Talith was his and had ridden for Talith's flag, while Dorlyth, remembering the saucy Princess that had so delighted his son, did his best to rein his horse away. He turned his back on the standard as Pahd rode past him toward it. But Talith had been separated from his standard-bearer almost the entire day; when Dorlyth left the golden flag, he rode abreast of the Golden King. He knew immediately this was Talith by the wealth of the engraving that adorned the man's armor and the splendid workmanship of his helmet.

  "You are Talith-the King!" Dorlyth cried. "I am! Stand and fight!" "There are others who would choose to battle you, Talith! I choose to leave you to them!" Talith's sword whistled over the head of his warhorse, and Dorlyth had to respond quickly to block it. "Your fear will not save you from my blade, Mari," Talith shouted grandly, "for I have chosen you!" Once again Talith slashed at Dorlyth, and again the bearded old warrior was forced to react swiftly to keep himself alive.

  "Will you hold off, man?" Dorlyth shouted, frowning fiercely. "I know your daughter! I won't rob Bronwynn of her father, nor will I let you rob my Rosha of his!" "You know my daughter?" Talith shouted. "I know her well," Dorlyth began, "and am glad-" "You are the man who holds her!" Talith screamed, trading his battle bravado for a father's rage. Dorlyth met the first thrust, and the second, but Talith attacked him like a madman, wounding him inside the left arm.

  "I hate this," Dorlyth said quietly, and he applied himself again to the task of survival. Talith shouted until he was hoarse, calling Dorlyth every name that came to mind. Soon it became apparent that Talith was no swordsman. Dorlyth slackened his attack, withholding maiming strokes in hopes that Talith would give up, and go to seek his death elsewhere in the apple orchard. But Talith continued to come, wearing himself out on Dorlyth's tireless defense. At last he grew so impatient that he recklessly threw himself forward, his thrust calculated to run the Mart through. Dorlyth jerked away, struggling to maintain his saddle as Talith fell against him. Dorlyth's sword was caught on something, and he pulled up on it, hard, to free it for the Golden King's next attack.

  But Talith was attacking no longer, and Dorlyth's sword would not come free. The King had dived onto its point, and already his glazed eyes gazed upon the meadows of some other world. Dorlyth let the dead King's weight carry his sword tip downward, and Talith's body slipped from the saddle and crumpled into the grass.

  "It appears I always arrive too late to help you!" Pahd shouted as he rode near. "But you always seem to manage so well without me." "Would that you had come sooner, Pahd. I already feel a weight from this killing like no killing has birthed in me before." "Don't think on it overlong," Pahd shouted, slashing a nearby Chaon's face open. "We seem to be facing a limitless supply of these gold warriors." But the heart had been cut out of the Chaon army when their King had fallen. They were leaderless now.

  As Pahd and Dorlyth waded shoulder to shoulder into the crowds surrounding them, the Chaon attack on the southern flank crumbled and reeled backward down the mountainside.

  Those three thousand warriors who had baited the trap now linked up with the Mari barrier on the northern side of the field. The Chaons were encircled on the north and west. As Dorlyth and Pahd labored down the mountain, the southern flank was also closing. There was but one outlet-the pass itself-and it was knee deep in bodies, with Mari archers still waiting along its northern face. Perhaps, had Joss been there, the outcome of the battle of the west mouth might have been different. But Joss was not there. The army of Chaomonous was destroyed.

  "They have certainly littered our nest," sniffed Heinox as he gazed at the stacks of bodies in Dragonsgate.

  "And here they come again," said Vicia. There was alarm in Vicia's tone, and Heinox popped immediately up to eye level with Vicia and gazed into the pass for himself. A mob of howling warriors ran up the short incline from the plain. There were thousands of them. The dragon had been just as uncomfortable as the Chaon warriors during the golden column's march through Dragonsgate. Now, Vicia-Heinox became very tense.

  "They are not attacking us," Heinox reminded his companion.

  "Yet," Vicia snorted.

  The fiery rain fell from heaven-arrows, everywhere the fleeing warriors stepped. No wonder they screamed for mercy, and charged desperately at the dragon. They now believed even Vicia-Heinox was preferable to the powerful Mari swordsmen on the field and those hidden demons who dropped darts on them from above. When those first trembling Chaons dashed into the heart of Dragon
sgate, they only waved their swords and pike staves to try to force the beast aside. But when Vicia-Heinox refused to budge, they made the tragic error of thrusting those swords into the dragon's scaly hide.

  The dragon-suddenly, incredibly under attack immediately put all interpersonal animosity aside, and dealt with the problem. Vicia and Heinox focused their combined fury on the tightly jammed mass of screaming humanity that fouled their ancient nesting place and unleashed anew that dreaded power that had altered the landscape of the entire world so many hundreds of years before. When the sound of the blast died away, eight thousand Chaons were missing, and the pass was clear of everything save ashes.

  So began the second great period of burning. Vicia-Heinox was angry. The two heads could never again ignore their duality-they were no longer one, and there was no changing the fact. But that day they realized that, though they hated one another, they hated people even more. Mankind needed a new education in the power of the dragon, and they vowed to be harsh teachers.

  Many of Venad's archers were also burned away by the dragon's blast. Those who survived dropped their weapons and ran from the hillsides, but few survived to reach the plain, for the dragon now leapt high into the air and belatedly scorched the mountainsides of Dragonsgate free of forests.

  Pahd was no longer laughing. He and Dorlyth were just reaching the plain when the first flash jolted them, They looked at each other in shock, for that flash could only mean one thing. The Maris had no use for history, true, but they knew all of the ancient tales-especially tales of the dragon. Now all the stories had been proved true by the brilliance of that terrible blast. Without another clash of swords, the great host that had been locked in mortal combat throughout the day suddenly dispersed in every direction save east. Chaon and Mart rode side by side, shouting encouragement to each other as they fled the field of battle.