by Brian Daley
The Ku-Mor-Mai tugged wildly to free Bar. The mace fell with unflagging resolve. Springbuck was able to hold up his battered shield long enough to ward it off. The Obstructor came loose; he cut again. This time the hand that held the mace dropped, parted from its arm. The corpse fought on, grinning, ghastly, clubbing with the stumps of its arms. Springbuck caught its rotting harness and pulled it from its saddle. It crashed to the ground and began to flail its way to its feet. The son of Surehand leaned low and struck off its head with one slash. The head rolled in the gray soot, but the body continued to struggle, losing balance and falling, never stopping.
Springbuck backed Fireheel out of the way, to see what was happening. Up and down the front, it was the same; the Dead couldn’t be stopped short of dismemberment. The northerners were cutting their horses or their legs from under the enemy, or literally disarming them. Sometimes it worked, and sometimes not.
Springbuck saw Angorman not far away, leading the Order. Red Pilgrim whirled and cut around him, felling the Dead with its steel mandates. By Angorman’s side, Balagon swung Ke-Wa-Coe, the broadsword he’d consecrated to the Bright Lady. The Order and the Brotherhood, select champions of the Crescent Lands, hacked and hewed. In their section of the battle, the Dead made slow headway.
Rank after rank waited to fill gaps in the line of the Dead. They would triumph by attrition; the northerners were far too few to carve them all. Springbuck could order a withdrawal, but to where? The Host of the Grave would run the living to the earth.
Engaged along a wide front, the Crescent Landers met enemy after enemy. The war-drays of Matloo careened through the fight, hub-blades threshing through the Host. Heavily plated Lead-Line Riders guided the armored teams on; the crews licked out with their long, two-handed swords. The Dead fell in rows. The Yalloroon crouched inside the wagons, their terror outweighed by their awe of the outlanders for daring challenge Salamá to come out and fight.
The other northerners were falling back as they battled; they couldn’t stand their ground with severed arms clawing at their horse’s shanks. Springbuck was thankful his army was mounted; infantry would have been engulfed. The living sustained losses; the Dead fought and silently fell only to be replaced by other uncaring, animate corpses.
A wide breakthrough occurred, the Crescent Landers’ line pierced by a wedge of the Dead. Brodur-Scabbardless saw it and, cursing the luck that had given him the responsibility of command, brought up all his reserves, three squadrons of heavy cavalry. With those thousand ironclads at his back, he cast himself into the gap. The Host rose to meet them, and the Scabbardless was swallowed up in the melee. The breach closed for the time being, and more reinforcements were hurried there, but only a part of the reserves could fight free again, and Brodur had fallen.
Reacher’s flank, at the extreme right, was falling back in good order. His mainstay, Kisst-Haa and the several reptile-men, plied their colossal blades and flayed with their flanged, armored tails. Their foemen were stamped flat by broad, scaled feet, halved or cut off at the knees by broadswords, plucked up and torn by mighty claw-hands, or smashed by caudal armor. Even the Dead were no match for them, yet Kisst-Haa and his kinsmen must tire in time, and couldn’t hold the entire flank themselves.
Even wildhearted Katya saw this was no time for charge and sally; she fell back with Van Duyn and her brother. When the Horseblooded had seen that their wailing arrows were of no avail, they’d swept out keen scimitars.
Reacher, the only man afoot, leaping and dodging in the midst of it, slashed with his clawed glove and struck with his cestus, hurling corpse-soldiers aside. Seeing how hard it would be for his men to resist the Host, he tried to be everywhere at once, helping as many of them as he could. It was a mistake; no one man could do it, not even the Wolf-Brother. He found himself encircled, standing atop a writhing pile of cadaver parts, lashing out to every side. The mound grew as he fought, but more and more of the Dead turned toward him.
Katya saw, and rode in to bring her brother out. But a sword took her horse in the side, and she went down. Kisst-Haa, who’d been following her with one eye, made a steam whistle of alarm. One of the Dead loomed over the Snow Leopardess, an ages-old axe raised.
The reptile-man bent, picked up the spiked-ball head of a broken mace, reared back and threw it with all his muscle. It passed completely through the dead man, hurling the body back ten feet. Van Duyn appeared, to raise his shield over her and help her up. Reacher leapt down to them, and Kisst-Haa and his kin moved in, greatswords thrashing. The Snow Leopardess recovered her weapon, and the group withdrew in hedgehog fashion, defending at all points.
Springbuck, trying futilely to keep his line dressed in withdrawal, saw Andre and Gabrielle in among the Glyffans. He left his place, and Hightower held the gap with enormous sweeps of his blade, swinging a morning star with his left hand.
“There is no hope but you,” Springbuck told the enchanters. “Our lines will dissolve soon. We’ve no reserve, nor any place to take a stand.” He noticed that Andre wore his own sword again, brought south by Gabrielle. He was holding Blazetongue in his hand. “Andre, your sword has Calundronius in it. Would the gemstone work?”
The wizard shook his head. “It might clear some small space against the Dead, but not defeat them in numbers.”
“Then, what of Blazetongue?”
The wizard was surprised. “What of it? It has done its last office, calling up the Trailingsword. We lack the means to summon its lesser fire.”
“Is there nothing you can evoke from it?”
Those words brought back the Trustee’s. Andre turned excitedly to Gabrielle. “Our mother said she thought Blazetongue might have a last service left in it, to render up when it is unmade.”
She considered that. “But can we accomplish it?”
“Its magic is akin to ours. And surely here, directly beneath the Trailingsword’s marker, we have a propitious place, even though that Omen isn’t in view.”
“Try, try!” pleaded Springbuck, seeing that he must return to his place. Andre hefted Blazetongue; Gabrielle lifted the Crook, which glowed with the blue magic of the deCourteneys. Brother and sister went forward, holding their talismans high. Swan and the Sisters of the Line came to guard their Trustee.
Hightower opened a way for them. The Dead, pouring in, were stopped at once by the brilliance of the Crook. They persisted though, falling in piles before Gabrielle deCourteney. She had a hard time urging her frightened horse forward, so Springbuck rode in to take its bridle, leading it on. Andre was at his sister’s other side.
When he’d gotten to the center of the melee, Andre dropped from his saddle, Blazetongue in hand. Taking the greatsword by its thick quillions, he stabbed it deep into the sooty ground. Gabrielle had dismounted too, in a ring of swordswomen. She struck the weapon’s hilt with the Crook, and blue sparks shot out; struck it a second time, and beams of light shone from it, making the Dead shield themselves. She struck Blazetongue with the Crook a third time; the sword turned to blue incandescence, not burning, but discharging all the energy bound up in it. Flames spread outward, consuming their way through the Host of the Grave, driving them back from the living, guided by the deCourteneys.
The balefire spread left and right, racing along the battle line. Any of the Dead whom it touched became momentary torches, dropping into piles of ash. Men held their cloaks or shields to fend off the heat, but the fire didn’t seek them out. A barrier of blue burning sprang up from the dust. The bulk of the Host of the Grave was held back by it, unable to get at their antagonists. But there were still many of the Dead on the other side, the Crescent Landers’. Springbuck demanded, “Will it hold, this wall of magic?”
“While there is anything left of Blazetongue,” Gabrielle assessed, “but then it will end.”
Unearthly combat continued, the living taking the offensive mode. Those of the Host left on the northerners’ side of the flames were now outnumbered. The living rode them down with charges and a rising and f
alling of arms. Many of the Dead had been consumed by Blazetongue’s released energies, but many more waited beyond a curtain of flame that now burned lower. Springbuck, gazing out at them, saw their hungry, glowing eyes, like a night of stars. They were biding their time until they could take up where they’d left off.
A shout came from Hightower, “See!” They searched, and saw it riding high up, a silvery shape on red pillars of demon-flame. Springbuck thought of Bey, watching and gloating aboard Cloud Ruler, and channeled his resentment into his right arm.
But the flying vessel swooped lower, and lower yet. It banked and came back, its fire splashing off the ground. Ship of the holocaust, it trailed its red blast through the Host of the Grave. It withered the Dead like insects in a bonfire.
Cloud Ruler cut a path of annihilation from one flank of the Dead to the other, leaving behind it the stench of cremation. The Dead wavered. Cloud Ruler came around for another devastating pass, and a third. The northerners hewed down the Host remaining on their side of the conflagration like so many executioners. The demon-ship swung back and forth, carpeting the ground with the seared Dead. Springbuck couldn’t speculate how that vessel might be coming to his support, nor could Andre, nor Gabrielle. At the moment, that was unimportant.
Evergray brought the sky ship around for another run. Gil and Dunstan had lost count of the passes he’d made through the Host of the Grave. There were a few stragglers escaping Cloud Ruler’s purging fire. Except for those few, though, the ancient sentinels of the Five had been incinerated. Cloud Ruler circled for a landing.
Below, the last of the curtain of flame was dying. Where Blazetongue had been planted, there was only a hole, the ground around it a glassy fusion. The Crook of the Trustee was quiescent. Breathing was a trial; fumes were the residue of the Host of the Grave, a thick, smoky reek that permeated hair and clothing and choked the lungs. When they disembarked, Gil and Dunstan coughed, rubbing their eyes and staring at the charred field. Evergray stood, fists on hips, satisfied with what he’d done.
“In this moment, the Masters must feel their weird upon them,” he declared loftily.
Springbuck arrived with the deCourteneys, Hightower and the others from Coramonde, Glyffa and Veganá. The Ku-Mor-Mai dismounted and rushed to the American and the Horseblooded, pounding their backs, gripping hands and shouting amazed greetings. Gil was careful with Dirge, unsure if its spells were still active. Questions and explanations were lost in the confusion, but the deCourteneys became concerned, seeing Evergray, who was smiling, his aura flickering.
Swan arrived, and Angorman. She saw Gil and called out his name; even in the tumult he heard it. She came down off Jeb Stuart, removing the bascinet, its white wings and mirror brightness smudged now. Her snake-skin armor showed signs of the battle, and he was still marked with Flaycraft’s blood. Neither of them knew what to say.
“You found your friend,” she ventured at last. “Did you slay your enemy, then?”
“No.” He looked to Dunstan, who was joyous as his nature ever let him be, talking to Springbuck. “But I guess it’s all right. You?”
“The Trustee fell in conflict, and Gabrielle has taken her place. Yes, I have survived; more than many were allowed to do.” He brushed her hair back at the side, where the birthmark ran. She flashed her smile and took his hand.
Evergray broke off his gloating, interrupting reunions. “Who reigns here?” The words hung, imperious, in the smoky quiet. All looked at last to Springbuck.
“I am Springbuck of Coramonde, Ku-Mor-Mai. There are only free equals, met here. Yet I have led as much as any.”
“That being the case, you may marshal all the freewill forces for me. But all other decrees will be mine.”
Gil saw the anger that drew all around. “Hold it, Evergray. They want what you do, to stop the Masters; you just can’t take over like this though. Outside Salamá they do things differently. We’re all—”
“Silence!” The giant’s face shone in fury, eyes blazing. “No free-will creature may defy me. I am Evergray of Shardishku-Salamá. I will stop the grand design of the Five, and impose my will on them, as they would have done to me. My authority transcends all others.” He shook his enormous broadsword at the city. “Be ready, then, to perish!”
“And your word outweighs all others?” Angorman spoke up, leaning on Red Pilgrim. “And the gods?”
Evergray’s burning gaze went to him. “You mortals never saw how the gods’ destinies hinge upon your own. When I have thrown down the Masters, I will topple the shrines of the gods, and none will survive!”
Angorman brought his greataxe up in a flash. “For the Bright Lady!” He rushed the giant.
Evergray brought his weapon around, stopping the legendary axe with a blade-to-blade intrusion. Sparks shot from the meeting. Before anyone could act, Evergray drove his point through the Saint-Commander. Angorman sank with a shedding of blood. Gil, horrified, called the old man’s name. The warrior-priest’s eyes fluttered shut.
Hightower attacked, his sword uplifted, but Evergray parried and, as they went corps-a-corps, dealt a blow with his free hand that flattened the Warlord. Swan was calling for archers.
There was an explosion of arcane blue, as Gabrielle’s Crook spoke. Evergray shrugged it off, and sent a counterspell at her. The Crook strobed harsh colors.
Gil saw that Evergray could never endure or even understand the mortals he’d decided to rule. And it was Gil MacDonald who’d brought him here. The American brought Dirge up before he himself became a target, and sank the deathblade deep into the giant’s side.
Evergray threw his head back and screamed in agony. Dirge hummed angrily; black smoke roiled from the wound. The giant spun, yanking the hilt from the outlander’s grasp, and slapped him to the earth like a rag doll.
“You,” the Scion accused, unbelieving, “whom I freed!” He was swaying, leached by Dirge’s malevolent enchantments. He pulled at the sword clumsily, but it resisted him. At last he yanked it loose, fighting for balance, knowing what terrible wound he’d taken.
“MacDonald, did you mean my death from the first? Ah, you have gulled me. Die with me, then!”
Hightower, back on his feet, leapt to interpose himself. But Evergray, even wounded, was too strong and fast. Bey’s sword struck through the old Warlord’s guard and his armored body, driving him down to the dust atop the stunned Gil. Dirge slid on, out the back of Hightower’s mail, into the American’s side, irresistible invasion of steel through complacent flesh.
The Warlord groaned and writhed; Gil felt as if he’d been butt-stroked in the ribs. There was a rushing sensation to it, noise and feeling both, air leaving his punctured left lung.
Evergray drew Dirge out brutally, eliciting another cry from Hightower, to strike again. Now Gabrielle blocked his way, and she struck Dirge with her mother’s white wooden Crook. There was a bright splash of magic, staggering Evergray, who dropped his weapon and closed his huge hands on the Crook. Archers held fire, and even Andre couldn’t interfere where the Trustee’s Crook was concerned. Strands of mystic brilliance played up and down the rod of office, flickering over them both, as she diverted the giant’s energies, drawing them to her through the staff. His aura grew dimmer, while hers increased.
Andre, Dunstan and Springbuck eased Hightower off Gil. The wizard and the Ku-Mor-Mai looked to the Warlord while Swan and Dunstan bent over Gil, all of them wary of the duel erupting nearby. When they saw the damage Dirge had done Gil, the Horseblooded’s sad clown face seemed about to come apart from grief; Swan made a low sound of woe, suppressed far back in her throat. The American got himself up on one elbow, keeping his good lung, his right, uppermost to help breathing. His wound sucked and bubbled with his respiration. He dapped a hand to it, sobbing in pain, eyes bulging. With a flood of horror he realized that the weapon Evergray had used on him was the dread blade Gil himself had carried south.
Evergray harbored more power than even Gabrielle could absorb. She released her Crook, sinki
ng to the ground, but the giant stumbled back and forth, unable to let loose of the staff. He couldn’t stop the outrushing of his own vitality. Brighter and brighter he flared, like a nova. Then the light went out.
He fell, blackened, the crown-helmet tumbling from his head, no longer fitting him; he’d shrunken with the loss of his power. The Crook of the Trustee was now a row of cinders.
Gil lay near, fighting shrilly for air. Evergray focused on him stuporously. “I truly had no allies, had I? Nor kin, nor friend, nor any who wished to be.”
The crosscurrent radiance in his eyes died. Gil, also under Dirge’s sentence, hung his head down in defeat.
Chapter Thirty-five
For better than never is late…
Chaucer
“The Canon’s Yeoman’s Tale”
THERE was an explosion on the plain; Cloud Ruler disappeared in a red fireball. Yardiff Bey had removed his spells from the elemental within it; now that Evergray’s no longer held it, it burst free. Hovering for a moment, a searing, raging globe, it took its bearings while those below crouched from its heat, then blazed into the sky, away from its long imprisonment.
From above, from all around, a choir of frustration and venom filled the air. The Masters lamented for themselves, and the Spell ruined by Evergray’s death. Their hatred rolled across the plain, trembling the tatters of cloth that clung to the fallen.
Gabrielle sprawled in the dust by Hightower’s side. The old man couldn’t staunch the blood that flowed from him, though his clamped hands shook with the effort. She tried her enchantments, though she knew nothing would reverse Dirge’s malice.
Van Duyn arrived, with Reacher and Katya. With them came some of the Yalloroon, staring wide-eyed at the aftermath of battle. Two of the little people had died, along with the crew of the war-dray in which they’d ridden, when their vehicle was overturned and overrun by the Dead.