And the Dark things moved in, as the people's hearts turned cold. From the dread land of the Dark Siegn they came, single at first, monsters to stalk the land, then in small groups to raid an already devastated people. And finally, last summer, in an overwhelming wave of invasion that crushed the Free States of Maihan once and for all.
And there during it all, towering over all figures, first as hero, then as blackest traitor, stood the dread figure of Tallien, Warlord of Maihan. He presided over the death of his land and laughed at his people's doom. He played for bigger games than empire and now the time was coming to make the first move of the mighty plans he and his master, Cuir re Duriche, had devised.
He must destroy the duchess and her army, take her city and burn her fleet. And he must destroy the army that followed him. Tallien had played no major role in this war. The allies did not know of him and the powers of the Dark Ones dismissed him, but that was unwise.
He was an arch mage of the level that Dammuth had been, though none except he and the dragon knew of that. His skills as a warrior were the equal of any, he was more than a man, and a match in his own way to the demon princes who thought they ruled him. But the dragon was wiser than they and he knew none ruled such as Tallien, even if the man called you master, no one could control the elemental power of such a dark soul.
He sat upon his skeletal horse, his powerful frame covered with a suit of black plate mail, forged in the fires of Hell. He wore a great black helmet that covered his features and had the shape of a skull. A purple haze surrounded him and small flashes of red lightning danced periodically among that aura.
"No," he thought, "none truly know of my power and of the magics I contain, but now it has come time for all to taste it!" He laughed then, for he was fond of laughter, though there was never humor in that sound, only cunning and pride. It was a holocaust he planned this day, a holocaust that would devour the army behind the walls and in front of them, and none from either host would survive his spite.
Inside his great black tent Tallien prepared his magic. He stood over a raging fire that burned a deep red. In one hand he held a staff of oak, in his other a silver dagger. His deep voice chanted in a twisted language never meant to be spoken by mortal man.
In the heat of the fire a picture slowly evolved. It was tiny and hard to see, but the city of Wyth could be made out, with the hulking shape of the army that surrounded it. The words left the mage's mouth as wisps of smoke that slowly trailed into the fire, into the picture, into the hearts and minds of Tallien's army. It was a subtle suggestion he first wrapped in that magic, a vague feeling of hunger that the goblins felt. A little hunger, a nagging feeling, so they must either put their minds to ignore that twinge or tiredly get up to search for some food. Tallien smiled.
He knew that goblins, like all intelligent species, except perhaps for the elves and maybe the dwarves, tend to spend as much time not thinking as possible. Man and goblin were much alike in this. They filled time with meaningless ritual and insignificant problems, so as to build a reality about them that closed out the world at large. That was the key to his spell.
The goblins grumbled as they roused themselves to find food, perhaps one stumbled on a root, or another noticed something in his eye. Or they rolled tighter in their blankets filling their thoughts with foolish dreams, wishes really, of power or glory. Each became involved in his own little world and all the many problems there that kept him safe, and therefore their minds were not sharp, or guarded.
The hunger became more acute, but now it was less in the stomach, now it had become something else. The smoke poured from the mage's lips, and it was a storm-gray and there was thunder in it. One by one the goblins shifted uncomfortably, feeling a need, a desire they could not place, and some began to look at the city walls. And Tallien had them then.
His words became harsh and demanding, no longer cajoling a reaction, but coercing an action. Their eyes turned to the city, becoming bright and expectant. The goblins licked their lips and toyed with their weapons. None spoke, but it was there. Slowly the camp awoke, and the night noises changed, filled now with the quiet clank of armor and here and there a low growl.
He turned their attention to Wyth and he bound them to it. Tallien stole from the goblins their private dreams and magnified them, directed them at the city. The desires built in the area like a summer storm, growing stronger and more powerful each moment he contained them. The magic drew the goblins' dreams into a tighter and tauter whole, and now he added their fear. Their fear of the little things, and of the greater things. Those, too, he added into the mighty cauldron of his will, and the tension in the camp trebled.
Now he took their hate, that reservoir of emotion that the goblin race seemed to have no end to. He ripped it from them and left them gasping on their knees. It was made of so many things, pride and self-pity, self-consciousness and self-righteous-ness. There were many things for the mage to work with in the army he led.
The hate was a bleary red force that tightened about the magic, constricting it, till Tallien thought the pressure would tear him to shreds. But past the moment he was sure he could not go, past that moment and another and another he held that evil mass. Then he jerked the noose once, and a great crash was heard in the land for a hundred miles. He unleashed his magic and as a great wave of impossible strength and power it overwhelmed the whole army. It crushed them and entered them and it made them his.
"Kill," he cried and all there heard, "kill the city and all within it. Destroy it! Rape it!" They heard his voice but they felt his orders. Nothing to live, nothing to survive. Attack again and again till all are dead. This city and those within it are all that stands between you and all you can be, should be, were meant to be. It was a mighty spell and not only goblins would have fallen under it.
As one the whole army charged, charged those mighty walls, with no cries or orders, no horns or reasons. Tallien's magic went before them crashing against the city as great bolts of red lightning. Gates crumbled before those blasts and gaping holes were ripped through stone fortifications. Through these wounds the Dark army poured, insatiable and uncontrollable, and all before them died.
Tara Brightblade had woken with a cry when she first felt the beginnings of the spell. She raced to the center of the castle to where the mages of the Hunter kept watch. She burst into the great hall, her head pounding from the pressure of Tallien's magic to meet a scene of madness.
They were there, the few mages the army had, they were there with some of the Green Branch knights, and all had striven to understand the threat and intercept it. But none had expected the might of he they sought to interdict and even if they had, it would not have mattered.
It was there in that room, the darkest of magics. It surrounded each of the men and women there, surrounded them in a cocoon of sickly yellow and purple power. It was almost physical, so thick was it, and it was squeezing them to death one by one.
They fought it, of course, but individually and alone, and who could hope to muster the power to withstand such a force? It was the madness of the darkness inside all the black souls of' their enemies. They tried to scream as their bones were shattered and organs exploded. Their eyes popped, their tongues thickened, their backs broke, but still the magic held them. It surrounded them, holding them immobile so that there was no escape and those that still lived drowned in their own blood.
Tara gave a wordless cry and tried to reach the mage nearest her, but a tendril of the evil stuff reached for her and she had to leap back. Mighty Armagin cut through the grasping magic as if it truly were some physical limb. The piece she had severed dissolved into an evil gas that alone nearly overwhelmed the knight. Tara realized there was nothing she could do for the dying mages, and even as her mind was struggling, trying to decide what to do, Tallien unleashed his spell and the red lightning began to crash against the city.
The first jolt of that power made the whole castle shudder and Tara fell to her knees. The magic that held
the mages surged together and exploded, leaving little of the men and women who had died here. Tara struggled to her feet and turned to make her way to the walls. She moved slowly, as if in a thick fluid, for she knew the time had come for her to die, and all her companlons with her.
Gwenyth of the Long Sight stood upon the gate tower to the castle and watched it all, and her tears traced each line in her noble face. She left the ordering of her army to Crohan, the baron of Mathia, Tara, grand master of the Green Branch knights and her other commanders. It was all she could do, to stand there and watch. To bear witness.
The defense of the city was more than heroic, it was inspired. Every foot was contested and no warrior of the duchess's army after the initial onslaught, fell without taking at least one enemy with him or her.. The knights of the Green Branch were everywhere it seemed, Tara always at the head, the monks of the Hunter fighting fanatically alongside. But no strategy, no tactic, no bravery was enough. The goblins had become one living being. One giant that had no heart a deathblow would kill, no limbs that might be severed, no brain that could be outwitted. They were one beast and their appetite was unsatiable as they devoured the city of Wyth.
The castle finally fell on the fifth day. In that time no goblin had felt hunger or thirst or weariness as the humans that fought them did. The Dark Ones died by the thousands, but it didn't matter at all. Only a handful of survivors still fought in the city proper, the rest were all dead. Everything breathing in the city, man, woman or child, was destroyed, every animal slaughtered. And Gwenyth of the Long Sight lived just long enough to see her beloved fleet put to the torch.
She died there on that wall, where once she had stood full of anger and pride. A spear through her heart was enough and it was relatively painless. With her sword and knife she took four of the goblins with her. As she lay on the pile of bodies about her and as her life's blood poured from her, the Seasight gave her one last vision.
He stood upon the tallest tower, his golden chariot idle in the burning streets beneath him. He took them all, goblins and men both, as He must. And His heart was filled with a rage no mortal could ever bear.
He turned to the duchess, His pale eyes sad and quietly He gathered her to Him. It was not a hateful thing for Him to be as He was. Death is more than an ending and is often the gentlest of releases. It gave shape and meaning to time, though not to Him, but to the others that defined life as the opposite of death, though He knew it was much more than that.
He had his worshipers in all the lands and all the races, though He hated them, for they did not understand His true nature. But that hate was as nothing compared to His outrage at this war. He was a lover of glory, of defiance and nobility, and His court was the grandest of them all. But this war had become something unknown in His vast experience. He had seen useless wars, brutality beyond sanity, for was He not everywhere, standing next to all things? But this was no battle of good and evil, light and dark, creation and destruction. It was something more, something even more elemental, more harsh. So many, so many His hand must clasp, but too many went unready, unfulfilled. He was used to the fear, but not the hopelessness. "How," He wondered, "can it be that I, Death himself, am forced to take sides?"
But it was, and so when He reached for the duchess and she saw His eyes, she dared to do what few others had ever done before in this, the last of moments. She asked his help.
"Tara," she said, though her lips did not move, for they were already cold. "Tara," she asked again and then she was free and gone.
He could not say no, for it was too much of the answer He needed. He found the grand master in a room with a handful of warriors, making a final stand. Tallien's magic had infected all by now, and Lord Death knew that man and goblin would fight until none remained alive, and Tara, too, was entranced.
He could not break the spell, for to do so would unbalance the physical world beyond the point of survival and so He could not free the knight from her madness. And such was her will that He could not bear her from this place. So He did the next best thing.
He cast the shadows of his being about her and cloaked her in power and fear. Any less a mortal than she would have died beneath that weight, but she drew it tight around her and, her flaming sword leading the way, she attacked. The goblins that faced her were stripped for a moment of the magic and felt the toll of these last days, and that was time enough for Tara Brightblade.
Four more days did she and Lord Death stalk the streets and by-ways of the city of Wyth until all the goblins were dead, as all Tara's companions were. Those who did not die by combat finally fell to exhaustion, as the spell drove them past mortal limits. It was over in seven days, two great armies annihilated, a once proud city of the empire in ruins, and the fleet of Tolath sunk. Only two survived it, Tallien who had left long ago, and Tara Brightblade, who was alive only because of Death.
He brought her from the city, and cast a healing sleep on her, for Wyth was now no place for the living. The holocaust that had enveloped it had invaded every corner of it and stained the city and the land it rested on with a black pestilence. In nine days, Wyth had been transformed and Death now knew it to be full of such evil and terror that few places in all the land could compare. So He left her in a safe place by a stream. A place that still had a small guardian, though the little creature was weak and she would never see it, still it would guard her well. She would live, Tara Brightblade, for Death had found a new gentleness inside Himself, a sympathy greater than ever He had before. And He found out one more thing. He liked to make war--
C H A P T E R
Fourteen
Donal led his array into the great wood that was his land of Aes Lugh. Once he had been warlord here, and the trees knew his name. But the land had changed, changed as the heart of its mistress had.
The trees still held their leaves, even though dirty snow covered their roots. But the leaves were brown and crippled, as the trees tried to protect themselves from the infection that ran through the land. They drew just a little from that black pool, but it was bequeathing them a slow and painful death. And Donal could hear their silent wails. Not all died, some sucked on that corruption eagerly, with great draughts, and they knew power and madness. Donal kept his eyes from the wood and watched the ground; there was nothing here he wanted to see.
The army had spent the past weeks in the Borderlands. It was an empty land, settlements few and far between, but here, too, the Dark Ones' long hand had reached and most of the Borderlands were firmly in the enemy's hand. Kevin, the Duke of Tinnafar, remained in that country with the human cavalry and most of the Green Branch knights, for the men and women of Tolath had suffered horribly during the long march through the swamps of the Devastation. The duke would try to pull together the scattered remnants of the people of the Borderlands and using his small force as a nucleus, build an army. None of the leaders had forgotten the huge host from Aes Lugh that sieged the Crystal Falls; if there was victory in Aes Lugh, this army would have to be dealt with next.
Behind Donal the army of Aes Lugh followed soundlessly. Only a handful of humans went with them, a small force of each of the Stalker monks, and fifty Green Branch knights. But the battle would be for the elves to win or lose. Six thousand elves of Cather-na-nog, and four thousand of Maeve's people. With this tiny force they hoped to wrestle one of the great kingdoms of the land from the enemy.
Every step of the long march from Tolan, the elves had wrapped their army in the strongest of magics so that the enemy would not know of them and unbelievably, it had worked. But that was because they did not march alone, for a god walked with them.
How long the Hunter had marched beside the army no one could say; his own priests had no idea, for it was Margawt who first recognized the presence of the god. The Hunter had not communicated in any way to anybody and none spoke his name aloud, but he was there, and they knew it. He was one of the few gods that the elven people had any respect for. It was the Hunter who kept the enemy from knowledge of
this army, it was He who made sure they came to the forest of Aes Lugh unheralded and unopposed. Now it was up to the elves and their warlords.
They moved quickly as only the elves can, keeping their ranks somehow straight through the thickly clustered undergrowth. No one knew they were there, nothing heard or saw or felt the passage of that little army. They were covered by the hand of the god of the wood, and here He was and always would be master.
It was Margawt who led them deeper into Aes Lugh. The magic was not totally lost to that strange land and even the elves could lose their way here; and maybe their sanity. He followed a scent only he could smell, a straight line into the heart of the land. The Morigu felt the evil pulsing there, a small cancer among the many that ran rampant through the earth and air.
Swiftly, the days passed and the Morigu led the army carefully past the enemy outposts. Like a living arrow the elves moved, flying, through the woods on their marvelous steeds, seeking out their target.
Donal rode quietly, his anger building with each mile. To the elven eyes about him, he was a giant pillar of fire and few dared to approach him. Finally, Maeve moved next to him ignoring him as he did her. After a few hours the warlord finally looked down at the queen riding beside him. Her horse was smaller than his elven steed, but its golden coat gave out a light of its own. He smiled to see her, for she really was so childlike compared to his massiveness. She looked up and answered his smile.
"A pretty land I have chosen for my people," she said. Donal looked about him. The area they were riding through had no undergrowth. The trees were massive and impossibly tall. But their nobility was marred by the yellow and grey lichens that sprawled among the empty branches like some evil web. At the base of each tree lay a stinking pile of leaves that were white and leprous resembling blotted corpses of some pale sea animal. Donal bit his lip and turned from that sight to meet the dark eyes of Maeve.
Morigu: Book 02 - The Dead Page 15