by Allan Cole
To accomplish this, Leiria had ordered that everything be abandoned but the barest necessities. Anything the Kyranians took with them would be loaded on the goats and llamas and horses, with experienced mountain lads to drive them along. The old and the sick and the very young would ferried to safety on horses and camels.
Dario gave a sharp nod of agreement when she was done. "A fine plan," he said. "One of the best these old ears have ever heard."
Khadji wavered. "Maybe," he said. "Maybe."
Dario snorted. "No maybe to it," he said. "Quit chewin' on it, man, and swallow."
"I'll do my best to make them listen," Khadji said. "But I can't promise what their reaction will be."
Leiria's patience collapsed. "I'll make it easy for you," she said. "From this moment on army rules will apply to all situations."
Ignoring Khadji's puzzled look, she turned to Dario.
"Sergeant!" she snapped.
Dario stiffened. "Yes, Captain."
"You will tell your men that once the enemy is engaged anyone who disobeys my commands is to be killed on the spot. No questions. No excuses. No arguments. And no hesitation. Do you understand?"
Dario buried a grin and snapped a salute. "Yes, Captain," he growled. "And I'll make it my personal business they start with the Council of Elders."
Khadji goggled at her. "You wouldn't really do that!" he said.
She gave him the hardest look she could. "I swear on my friendship and love of Safar, your son, that I will do everything I say."
Before he could respond there was a loud explosion from overhead. Their heads jerked up and all eyes were immediately fixed on the airship sailing over the mountains into the valley. A bright green flare guttered in its wake. Immediately there was a second explosion as Biner fired off another of Safar's magical flares.
"Iraj has found us," Leiria said, flat. "Now we'll see who wants to live and who wants to die."
An hour later she was standing next to the outcropping that marked the magic gate into Caluz. A few feet away Renor and Seth were inspecting the weapons of the brave few who would make this last stand. Off in the distance she could see the Kyranians streaming out of the valley as fast as they could. It was the oddest caravan she'd ever seen. Bleating goats and llamas, light packs tied to their backs, were leaping ahead of the refugees, scrambling over the rocky path that led into the mountains. Old men and women swayed back and forth on bawling camels, infants clutched in their arms. Just behind them came the main group led by Khadji, followed by Dario and his soldiers, who were cracking whips and roaring for everyone to "hurry, hurry, hurry!"
And not once did she see anyone stop to argue. Leiria had only a moment's satisfaction. Safar would be pleased. Then she suddenly felt very cold and very alone. Was this how she would end? In this bedamned valley with no one to care and no one to mourn her passing? A knot rose in her throat and she suddenly felt very sorry for herself. If only she could see Safar once more. If only they could kiss one final time, she thought, it might all seem worthwhile. Then she became angry with herself for allowing such weakness. She swiped at a leaky eye, muttering all the curses at her command, lashing confidence and resolve back into life. It was difficult. Surprisingly so. Fear scuttled into her belly when she realized just how far and how deep her morale had plummeted.
Then she heard a shout from overhead. Leiria look up and saw the airship settling closer to the ground, Biner and Arlain and the other circus performers gathered at the rail to look down at her.
"We're with you, Leiria!" Biner roared in his loud, pure, ringmaster's voice.
Arlain waved to her, shooting a long, gaily colored stream of dragon flames from her mouth. Kairo tipped his head in salute, making funny faces. Elgy and Rabix played a stirring tune, filling the air and her heart with glad music.
Then they all leaned far out over the railing to chorus, "Damn everything but the circus!"
And she was no longer alone.
Laughing and weeping tears of relief, Leiria waved at them.
At that moment the ground lurched under her feet and the outcropping bulged outward as if under extreme pressure. Shale broke and Leiria ducked as debris showered down on the path.
Then all was still and all was silent.
Her temples pulsed in slow time with the beat of her heart. Once … Twice … Thrice…
Wolves bayed and she drew her sword, boots spreading apart into fighting stance. Renor and the other young soldiers gathered around her, their weapons at the ready, cursing loudly to control their chattering teeth.
Then the outcropping swung away on magical hinges and Leiria peered into the revealed darkness.
Nothing.
She looked deeper.
Still nothing.
And deeper still, nerves winding tighter, neck muscles cabling with tension, each second a water drop trembling to fall.
It was almost a relief when nothingness ended and the yellow-eyed demons scrambled out of the darkness to get her.
She shouted a challenge and braced herself to meet them.
This time Biner couldn't turn away. This time Arlain made herself watch. They saw the earth shudder, saw the gate swing open and then Leiria's shout reached out to chill them. To fix them on the scene below. They saw Leiria brace, saw her soldiers flow in to form a line-Leiria at its center. Suddenly a demon horde burst out of the gateway, ululating war cries shattering the air.
Then the two lines converged and Leiria was swallowed up in the chaos of battle.
"Now! Now!" Arlain cried. "Do it now!"
She lunged toward a pile of crates heaped near the railing. Biner stopped her, gently pulling her back.
"We have to wait," he said. "It's not time for our entrance."
Arlain heard cries of pain from below and trembled. "We have to help her," she pleaded.
"Not yet," Biner said. Then, to cut through-"Remember how we rehearsed it."
Arlain sagged, overcome by performer's logic, and turned back to the railing. Whispering the actor's mantra for strength: "Character, timing, plot, character, timing plot…" and so on as the tale unfolded beneath her.
She made herself think of it that way. A tale to be told in two acts. Act One: The villains attack. Heroes fight bravely, but are overwhelmed. Act Two: Heroes retreat, villains in pursuit, all seems lost. Cue The Forces of Good. Which was Arlain's cue, the circus' cue-the big It Was All A Clever Trick Surprise.
Villains routed, heroes rewarded, cue the music-Happy Ending, ta da!
Arlain watched the horror below, doing a very bad job at keeping her actor's pose, visibly shrinking as the sights and sounds of battle increased. Awaiting her cue.
Leiria was a calm center to the storm raging about her. It was place where there was no fear or anger.
No shrill relief when she parried a well-struck blow, no fierce animal enjoyment at slipping a guard and killing her opponent. She was a cold, calculating killing machine, ripping through every weak point her enemy revealed. And there were many. So many weaknesses she could end the fight now with a rallying cry for her men to charge the demons and seal the gap.
She and Safar had planned for this moment. The doorway between the pass and the valley was no more than two wagons wide. No matter how large the force Iraj hurled at them only so many could come through the gap at a time. A handful of determined soldiers would be enough to stop them. The problem was, this handful could only kill a finite number and with the enormous force opposing them it was only a matter of time before they were overwhelmed. To give the fleeing villagers any chance at all more time and more enemy casualties were needed.
Leiria kept her mind fixed on the plan, an impersonal observer of very personal events.
A demon towered over her, roaring in her face. Slicing at her with a huge battle ax and at the same time lashing out with a demon spell of hopelessness-the image of a cowering rabbit about to be carried away by an owl.
In theory it was an unequal contest. Demons had size, speed, and magic
over humans. But Leiria was a former captain of Iraj's personal body guard, trained and blooded in all varieties of encounters-be they human or be they demon-and so these things meant nothing to her. She was doubly armed that day, as were all the Kyranians, with Palimak's necklaces. Which made it even easier to turn back the demon's spell so that He was the bleating rabbit, and She was the owl.
Whoosh! as the ax swung down.
Shriek! as Leiria's owl froze the demon.
Snack! Snack! and Leiria's sword parried the faltering blow.
Then another Whoosh! for her final stroke and then the sounds became very ugly as the demon fell, farting and shitting his last dinner, crying for his mother as Leiria stepped over him to meet the next ax.
On either side of her she heard Renor and Seth hoot with owl-like glee as they similarly dealt with their opponents. The hoot was taken up by the other young men, and they pressed forward, shrilling "hoot, hoot, hoot," killing and killing until the demon line began to waver.
Leiria was nearly overtaken by their blood lust. She saw hundreds of yellow eyes swirling in the darkness, howling for blood, hurling curses to diminish her.
Do it now! she thought. Do it now!
And she signaled the retreat.
Biner saw the Kyranian line waver, then break. He immediately shouted orders to dump the ballast and all hands rushed to the side to drop the sandbags.
The airship, suddenly relieved of weight, shot upward, climbing high above the battle scene. Clouds passed under the ship and the figures below became very small. Even so, they still kept their significance and Biner felt a mailed fist clutch his guts as Leiria made her dangerous maneuver.
To his amazement, it seemed to be working. When the Kyranians fell back it was as if a pent-up flood had been released and hundreds of demon warriors burst through the gate, swarming down the hillside after Leiria and her retreating soldiers. From his vantage point Biner could immediately see the grave error the demons had made. The error Leiria had been counting on.
As the enemy warriors rolled down the hill they suddenly found themselves milling about in a small valley-a dip in the terrain their officers had no way of knowing about. It looked like a bowl from the airship, a bowl quickly filling up with confused enemy soldiers who had only one way to go and that was straight up the hill to where Leiria stood her ground.
Leiria reformed her line and began firing arrows into their ranks to block the advance.
Biner waited until the valley was nearly brimming over with soldiers, then turned to Arlain and the others.
"Showtime folks!" he said. "Showtime!"
Leiria and her men were down to their last few arrows when the flaming crates and barrels came tumbling out of the sky.
"Get down!" she shouted, and everyone leaped for cover.
Just then the first crates struck and the ground was rocked by explosions. More immediately followed, a fast series of whump! whump! whumps! Leiria's whole world suddenly became very small as stones and clods of earth rained over her. Waves of heat followed each blast, searing her back. She hugged the ground, trying not to listen to the screams of the demons.
Iraj watched his panicked soldiers pour back through the gateway, crushing fallen comrades beneath their feet in their desperation to escape. His spell brothers were knotted around his traveling throne, stunned by the rout.
"I wouldn't call that a glorious first effort," he said dryly.
"It was merely a probe, Your Majesty," Prince Luka said, quickly trying to diminish the size of the defeat. "To feel out the enemy's defenses."
Iraj sneered at him. "Now we know," he said. "And the answer does not inspire my confidence in you."
"Pardon, Majesty," Kalasariz said, "but I don't think we should be too hard on our brave prince. Or make too much of what just happened. After all, how many times can Lord Timura withstand our assaults?"
"Kalasariz makes an excellent point, Majesty," Fari said. "Even now our wizards are preparing a spell that nothing can withstand. Not even Lord Timura."
Their gradually hardening unity disturbed Iraj. He had to get this over with before they discovered what he was up to. He had to get into that valley immediately. He had to defeat Safar. But he had to do it quickly so he could cast the spell that would free him from his spell brothers forever.
"Do it now," he said to Fari. "Get your wizards into that tunnel and do it now."
"But, Majesty," Fari protested. "We won't be ready for at least another-"
"Do it, Fari!" Iraj thundered. "Do it!"
Leiria surveyed the results of her victory. It was not a moment to savor-the valley had been turned into a enormous blackened grave, heaped with smoking bodies.
Behind her, she heard Seth and some of the other young men choking on the horror. She glanced up and saw the airship floating closer to the ground, the circus performers crowded along the rail looking down on the scene with haunted eyes.
Renor pushed up to her, his face pale and many years older than before.
"I hope I never have to see such a thing again," he said.
Leiria got herself under control. "You won't," she said. "Because next time it won't work."
She regretted the remark when she saw Renor's shock. He really hadn't had time to consider what they still faced.
"We'd better get ready," Leiria said. "I don't know how much time we have."
Just then she heard a familiar shout. She turned, heart leaping with joy when she saw who was riding to meet her.
It was Safar!
CHAPTER THIRTY TWO
SPELLBOUND
The moment their eyes met Leiria thought something was wrong. Safar was smiling, laughing, genuinely glad to see her, but he seemed withdrawn-as if he were hiding something. Even Palimak was strangely subdued, hesitating when she embraced him, then suddenly hugging her tightly as if he were afraid.
Then the soldiers and circus performers were crowding around shouting and babbling nonsense and the sense of wrongness was swept away in the happy reunion that followed. But the pall of death from the nearby battleground soon penetrated their happiness-a grim reminder that there was little time for such things.
Safar pulled everyone away, quickly explaining what had to be done next while he led them down to the field where the airship waited, straining at its cables.
"We have to move fast," he said, "before Iraj sticks his ugly head through that hole again."
Biner forced a grin. "And won't he be surprised when there's not a blessed soul waitin' for him."
Arlain shivered. "Thurprith?" she said. "What could thurprith a … a … thing like him?"
"It's Dario's surprise I'm thinking about," Renor said with a small laugh. "Imagine his face when he sees we're still alive. He probably thinks we're dead by now."
There was weak laughter at this, but there was a hard bite of hysteria to it. Safar put everyone to work stripping the airship of all unnecessary weight so they could board the ship and flee.
The sense of wrongness returned when Safar pulled Leiria aside.
"Walk with me," he said, taking her elbow and guiding her to a path that twisted down to the river.
Palimak walked next to her, still silent and oddly subdued. Khysmet plodded patiently behind, reins looped over the saddle horn.
Safar told her what had happened-about the distance-collapsing magical portal that waited on the other side of the mountains to carry them to Caluz, about the ships he'd hired to take them to Syrapis, and the agreement he'd made with Coralean.
Finally they reached the river bank, where Safar stopped. They were just a few hundred yards downstream from the peninsula where the Turtle of Hadin churned out its mechanistic magic.
When he stopped Leiria knew what was wrong. Especially when Palimak clutched her hand.
"You're not coming with us," she said-a statement, not a question.
Safar sighed. "I was getting to that," he said.
"But why, Safar?" Leiria cried. "Why!"
"There's no ot
her way," he said. "I've already discussed this with Palimak. Ask him. He'll tell you-much as he dislikes admitting it."
Palimak's head dropped and he said, low and forlorn, "Father's right. There's no other way."
"But we're finally almost free of Iraj!" Leiria protested. "All the villagers-your family, your friends, everyone-are so far into the mountains now that he'll never catch them. In a few minutes we can join them, thanks to the airship. And then we're off to Syrapis with no reason ever to look back."
Safar shook his head. "I have to stop the machine," he said. "If I don't it will be the end of Esmir."
Leiria felt as if she'd just been clubbed. When she heard Safar's reason she knew there was nothing she could say or do-even if she had a tongue that coined only words of silver and a thousand years to argue in-that would change his mind.
Still, she had to try. "To hells with Esmir!" she said. "We were leaving here anyway."
"You don't understand," Safar said. "Actually, I didn't myself until after I spoke to Hantilia and got Asper's book. Some force-don't ask me what force, I can't yet say-is devouring the world from the inside out. I think of it as a voracious worm, a parasite, tunneling through the earth's belly looking for the weakest place where it can burst through and spread destruction. Hadin was the weakest point, the first place the worm broke through."
"And Esmir is next?" Leiria said.
Safar nodded. "Yes. At Caluz."
Leiria slumped, defeated.
"Don't worry," Safar said, trying to sooth her. "I have every chance of making it."
"Oh, of course you do," Leiria said, angry again. "In a few minutes several thousand blood-thirsty soldiers will be charging into this valley-led by four great wolves from the hells. While you're hammering away at that machine, or whatever you plan to do to disable it. And you'll be there all by yourself with no one to guard your back, or help you."