A few hours before sunset the clouds dispersed with unnatural quickness. The ocean calmed and eventually turned to blood as the sun met the rim of the world. No hungry shadows crawled out of the earth that night. Dahrima wore the Sky God’s amulet so they slumbered instead, waiting for the next warm-blooded beings to enter the valley. She did not sleep, but kept vigil on the beach among the stinking piles of seaweed. She saw nothing but moonlight upon the dark waters.
In the first hour of morning the twenty-eight Uduri appeared atop the valley’s western ridge. Their shields and braids glittered bright as gold against a tapestry of purple clouds. The Giantesses lifted their spears in greeting; Dahrima raised her axe in reply. She crossed the fields of tumbled stones to meet them at the riverbank while they waded across. It was good to see their faces again. The legions of Vireon and Tyro must not be far behind them. Dahrima silently praised both the Gods of Men and Giants–the Northern Kings would apparently reach the valley before the invading hordes.
Chygara the Windcaller stepped out of the river and embraced Dahrima.
“Sister!” Chygara’s smile was full of broad, white teeth. “I knew we would find you here. You left your spear when you decided to take a swim.” She offered the weapon to Dahrima, then pulled her own spear from beneath the straps on her back. Dahrima slid the handle of her axe into the iron loop on her belt and took up the lance. The weight of it felt splendid in her fist. She had missed it almost as much as she missed her spearsisters.
“It is fortunate that you arrive here in the sun’s glow,” Dahrima told them. “This place is cursed–haunted by flesh-eating devils that live beneath the stones. It is death to stay here after dark.”
Alisk the Raven nodded. “We were told of the valley’s dangers. Still, this is the place where the Kings choose to make their stand. The Feathered Serpent has returned to them. I’ll wager Vireon counts on Khama’s power to quell these restless spirits.”
Dahrima turned her face to the flat green sea. “I have watched for two days, but seen no sign of the invaders,” she said. “Only distant storms and mighty waves.”
Chygara grimaced. “What you saw was the destruction of the southern fleets.” She told Dahrima of the utter defeat suffered by the allied armada. Even the Jade Isles’ ships had been destroyed, and the Jade King’s isle sunk beneath the waves. There were few survivors; the Feathered Serpent had returned with only a handful of men. Among them were the Kings D’zan and Undutu. “They looked like death, Dahrima. The Mumbazan King is little more than a youth. He wept and howled for his lost navy. They say he blames himself for the slaughter and may die of shame. Only nine of his warriors returned.”
“King D’zan fares little better,” said Vantha. “He is sick with grief and will not speak a word since the rout. There were no Yaskathan survivors save him. Yet both of the conquered Kings choose to ride with Vireon and face the power of Zyung again.”
Dahrima shook her head. “Iardu tried to tell the young Pearl King that he sailed to a futile doom. Undutu was so eager to face death, yet he did not truly understand it. Perhaps now he understands, yet at too heavy a cost. Has Iardu returned from his errand?”
“Not yet,” said Chygara. “Vireon asks for the wizard at every dawn and dusk. I believe the Giant-King fears for his sweet sister. Sorceress she may be, but still he worries.”
Dahrima shoved the butt of her spear into the mud. The wind played through her blonde locks. She had removed her braids to let her hair dry and forgotten to reset them. She must do this before the coming battle. If Vireon allowed her on the field at all. She hoped that she would not have to defy him in order to aid his cause.
Chygara must have sensed her thoughts. “Sister, we spoke with the Giant-King on your behalf.” Dahrima frowned at her. “Listen before you get angry. Vireon understands the nature of the Uduri, yet also that it is not the way of Udvorg women. He knows that Varda took up his own sword and sought your head with it. He wishes you to fight alongside us, despite his condemning your misdeed. He suspends a royal judgment until the warring is done.”
Gorinna the Grin laughed. “He has already lost one Giantess on this march,” she said. “He does not wish to lose any more of us! Not before the battle is joined.”
Dahrima turned her face to the sea again. “So this is why you have raced ahead of the legions,” she said. “To tell me that Vireon gives me his permission to die for him.”
I will if I must.
“What did you expect, sister?” asked Chygara. “The blue witch had it coming.”
The Uduri laughed, filling the quiet valley with the thunder of their mirth. Dahrima could not help but join them.
“Come,” she said when the guffaws subsided. “There are fish in the river. One cannot fight a war with an empty belly.”
Not long after their morning meal, the first of Vireon’s legions topped the ridge.
The Northern Kings had arrived.
The hooves of Tyro’s charger stamped along the muddy riverside trail leading into the wild green valley. Mendices rode nearby, a sodden cloak billowing about the shoulders of his golden corslet. They followed a torn track that used to be a road running from the city to the farmlands upriver. The wind was at their backs, blowing strong from the Sharrian delta. It carried the odors of fish, brine, seaweed, and horse dung. Soon it would reek of blood and death.
Behind the King and the Warlord of Uurz, the despondent Undutu rode at the front of nine surviving Mumbazans, all on borrowed warhorses. Their armor and swords, too, were on loan–the metal of Uurzian soldiers. Undutu had given the nine men leave to return to their homeland, but all of them chose to stay here with their lord. Tyro admired Undutu’s ability to inspire men to die in his name, if not his appetite for rash action.
Let them wear the green and gold, Tyro had decided. Let them fight for Uurz, knowing that if the City of Sacred Waters falls, it will not be long before Mumbaza falls as well.
At the Mumbazan King’s side rode D’zan, looking like a man who had lost his own name. Not a single Yaskathan mariner had escaped Zyung’s wrath. Tyro wondered how D’zan himself had become the exception, but he supposed the Feathered Serpent had plucked the monarch out of the burning ocean, as he had plucked his own King from death’s jaws. The Southern Kings had lost their crowns along with their ships, but at least D’zan had managed to hold on to his greatsword. Legend had it that the Sun God himself had blessed that blade. Its power had guided D’zan to victory over the Usurper Elhathym. Tyro also shared in that glory, for he was the one who had taught young D’zan to wield the big blade eight or nine year ago. He was glad that D’zan had survived the smashing of his doomed navy. It seemed that everyone else Tyro cared for was either lost or dead these days.
What about Lyrilan?
This was no place for thoughts of his exiled brother. Already Tyro’s dreams were haunted by Lyrilan’s face. He could not allow his waking hours as well to be occupied by guilt. For the same reason, he put Talondra from his mind, yet that wound was still raw and stinging. He would lose its pain in the red rush of battle, where wholly greater pains would emerge to drown it. Until he was victorious or dead, he would not dwell on his wife’s tragic demise, or the loss of his unborn son. If he allowed himself such weakness, he would not have the strength to sit atop this horse and drive his sword into the guts of his enemies.
He hoped that Undutu and D’zan were making similar decisions. The Mumbazan’s dark face was empty of hope, as if he was already dead. The Feathered Serpent had spoken with Undutu at length, urging him toward the strength of a King. As for Tyro, it was Mendices who had talked him back from the edge of despair two nights ago. D’zan had spoken to nobody, only nodding his blond head when addressed. He insisted upon riding with the cavalry instead of returning to Yaskatha.
Tyro had advised D’zan to go home and gather his remaining legions for the defense of the southern realms, and he offered the same advice to Undutu. Neither man would listen. Perhaps they both wished to die in
the coming battle. A warrior must accept death before he ever raises a blade, but not with the resignation of despair. He must accept death so that he can overcome it, with joy and fury and ruthless determination. Perhaps the Southern Kings would find these things in the heat of battle. It was their choice to ride and fight with the northern hosts.
The green banner of Uurz fluttered above the three Kings’ heads, followed closely by the purple standard of Udurum. Behind them came the combined forces of the two nation’s cavalry. Two Legions of Uurzian horsemen totaled upwards of six thousand riders. Vireon’s horse legions were half that number, but his true strength lay in the Giants who were stationed at the ruined city itself. Still, the riders of Udurum meant that Tyro commanded a blended cavalry force of nearly ten thousand on this day. They moved in two columns along the bank of the Orra to position themselves behind the hills north of the ruins.
“What do you think of the Giant-King’s strategy?” Tyro asked Mendices. He spoke loud enough to be heard above the clattering of horses’ hooves and the clanging of spear, shield, and harness.
The Warlord turned his head, squinted eyes peering from the shadows of his greathelm. “It seems wise enough,” he said. “Let the Giants bear the brunt of the invasion.”
“Are you surprised that Vireon suggested it?”
Mendices shrugged in the saddle. “I am grateful,” he said. “Those behemoths are far harder to kill than Men. Let them face the onslaught of Zyung before we do. Let us hope they succeed in knocking a few hundred ships out of the sky.”
Back in the valley proper, the Udvorg, Uduri, and Uduru were gathered among the stones of the dead city. Nearly three thousand Giants would draw the God-King’s attention. The allied host could not ask for a better vanguard. It was now midday, and Khama’s magic had told the Kings that the airborne fleet would arrive soon. How much chaos the legion of Giants could inflict upon it remained to be seen. Yet the powers of both Vireon and Khama stood with the Giants. This gave Tyro some measure of confidence that Zyung’s invasion would be well met. Perhaps Vireon would grow tall as a mountain, as he had done in the Khyrein Marshes, and snatch the flying galleons from the air with his fists, cracking them like walnuts. Tyro shuddered as the vision entered his mind. What if Zyung and his legion of sorcerers could grow as large? Or even larger? Such sorcery boggled his mind; best leave the details of its working to sorcerers and the sons of sorcerers.
This brought Iardu and Sharadza to mind. Where were they? The Shaper had promised more sorcerers to stand against the invaders. He had told Vireon they would meet him here, but there was no sign of any reinforcements, sorcerous or otherwise. Sorcerers could never truly be trusted. Mendices certainly did not trust Vireon any longer, now that he had seen evidence of Vod’s power in the Giant-King. Yet it was this power that gave them a glimmer of hope against the overwhelming odds the Men of Uurz must face.
On either side of the ruins the valley ridges were lined with twenty thousand archers, more than half of them Uurzian. Behind the bowmen the bulk of the northern forces waited for their signal to rush the lowland. Fourteen combined legions armed with sword, spear, axe, and mace.
With cavalry stationed upriver, archers and infantry above the vale, and Giants straddling the ruined city, the armies of the north were ready for battle.
Tyro chose a wide, flat area of the river basin to assemble the ranks of horsemen and their captains. The Orra raced blue and silver across the grassy tableland, winding between a league’s worth of rocky hills before feeding the delta. This was once a place of fertile plantations whose produce fed Shar Dni and was traded across the Five Cities. Now it was untamed grassland again, save for rotted fences and the fallen timbers of corroded manor houses on the hillsides. How quickly the verdant earth had risen to erase all signs of agricultural development. Eight years of neglect and steady rains would do that to any land. Fear of the haunted ruins downriver kept even the most stubborn farmers from resettling here. There were no more Sharrians in this country, and likely never would be again. Their bloodlines had been absorbed into the populations of Udurum and Uurz.
When the signal came, the cavalry legions would thunder along the abandoned river road and join in the great slaying. Until then, Tyro must wait in the grave company of D’zan and Undutu. Their sorrow seemed as deep as his own, but he dared not speak of their common grief. They were three Kings wrapped in shrouds of pain and loss, ready to spit in the eye of death and take their place among the legends of the world.
Tyro closed his eyes and tried not to think of his dead wife and child.
You will see them again when you enter the valley of death.
Lyrilan’s dream-words echoed inside his skull. His horse whinnied, eager to run and break the tension of stillness. All about him men whispered assurance to their steeds, patting necks, securing lances, loosening blades in their scabbards.
Tyro knew the meaning of his brother’s words.
I will see them again when I die.
Was the dream an omen, some vision sent by the Gods of Earth and Sky? Gods rarely spoke so directly to Men. Perhaps it was simply his own sadness and guilt mocking him. If he had remained at Uurz instead of pursuing the war with Khyrei–a war that was abandoned for the one he now must fight–he might have protected Talondra from whatever it was that murdered her. It could have been only a dream born of grief.
Or was it something altogether different?
Tyro had lied and called his brother a sorcerer to discredit and humiliate him. Could Lyrilan actually be what he was accused of being? Could he have called upon some dread power to slaughter Talondra and send Tyro a warning of his coming death?
Lyrilan was a scholar, not a wizard. He was sitting right now in some comfortable Yaskathan library, probably drunk and over-pleasured by southern whores.
Damn these thoughts…
Tyro shook between visions of Talondra and visions of Lyrilan, both lost to him.
There was nothing to do but await the smoke and thunder of battle, and the signal that would send his legions riding to red glory. He only wished his head would clear and leave him free to focus on the ordeal to come.
Undutu and D’zan sat quiet on their mounts beside him. Mendices rode about the ranks, correcting formations and giving courage to the men. Tyro should be doing this as well. Yet his dark thoughts kept him where he was, watching the riverwater splash over rocks in swirls and eddies as it ran toward the sea, where it would be lost forever, subsumed by the great expanse of the Golden Sea.
There was nothing to do but wait.
High cliffs to the east and west enclosed the great bay beyond the delta. This made the bay and its crescent coastline the most likely place for the sky-ships to dock. So the Feathered Serpent had told the Giants, gliding in gentle circles above their heads.
“The ships and their crews have endured a long journey,” said Khama. “They will be nearing the end of their power and ready to descend. I do not think they are built for resting upon land. They will crowd the bay and the waters outside it, then pour forth their legions to take the valley. We must not strike until Vireon gives the command. Then our battle begins according to the plan of your King. Strike fast and hard, break as many of the vessels as you can. When the Manslayers and the silver sorcerers venture among us with blade and spell, they will see our true ferocity. Remember that you are the vanguard. Others will come to your aid, once you have prepared the way for them. Look to the Giant-King for wisdom and courage!”
The blue-skinned Udvorg stood about the ruins with swords, axes, maces, and spears at the ready. At their very center, a core of pale flesh and blackened bronze, stood the sixty-odd Uduru and the twenty-eight Uduri. Ahead of them all, gazing across their ranks with his glittering black eyes, stood Vireon Vodson. A Giant among Giants, his head rose higher than anyone else. Along the ridges to left and right, thousands of human bowmen crouched, awaiting targets. Beyond them, out of sight of the Giants, the footmen of the north were assembled for charging.
Only the sound of Vireon’s horn would bring them pouring into the valley, along with the horsemen beyond the hills.
Dahrima stood among the Uduri, neither greater nor lesser than any of her spearsisters, and admired the proud face of Vireon. He might have been an icon chiseled from stone, sheathed in dark bronze, a cloak purple as the sea flapping about his mighty arms. The hilt of his greatsword gleamed above his shoulder, and the crown of black iron shone on his brow.
“We fight for both Men and Giants this day,” said Vireon. “For the Land of the Five Cities. For the Frozen North and the sun-kissed Southlands. For the wild High Realms and the thundering Stormlands. We fight first today because we are greater than Men, who are brothers to us. My father opened the gates of Udurum to Men because he saw the greatness of their kind. In his wisdom, he believed a better world would arise from the alliance of our races. This is that world, swordbrothers and spearsisters. We come here to defend it. Udurum and Uurz and the Icelands stand together on this day. Our children and our children’s children will speak of this day a thousand years from now. They will say ‘Giants and Men stood together and cast down the Hordes of Zyung!’ Let us make them proud, People of Hreeg. These lands belong to us. Let us show Zyung what that means!”
The cheers of the Giants rattled the valley, and Dahrima smiled at her King. He could not see her, not this far back in the ranks. She had taken this position intentionally, for she would not face him until his judgment was made. She would slay and die for him, but she would not endure his scolding or his scorn. That would pierce her more surely than any spear or blade. She would regain Vireon’s favor only by destroying his enemies. Then he would love her, as she—
Seven Sorcerers: Book Three of the Books of the Shaper Page 20