The Warrior Returns: Far Kingdoms #4 (The Far Kingdoms)

by Allan Cole

  “There isn’t a chance of that,” I said. “So put it from your mind. Just because a few of us got so close doesn’t mean a force of any size could do the same. This lyre machine is too important to Novari. She’ll be prepared for anything we can throw at her.”

  “So the machine, if that’s what it is, shouldn’t concern us, my dear Antero?” Palmeras inquired.

  “Just the opposite,” I said. “Once Novari gives that lyre life I doubt if there’s any force we can mount that will stand in her way.”

  I told them about the storm that’d caught me at AnteroBay more than fifty years before. How the Lyre Bird had used the natural force of that storm to crush all magical life. And the mortal force of the Ice Bear King’s legions to crush all else.

  “That’s what she’s planning to do now,” I said. “But on an even grander scale.”

  I told them about the approaching winter storm - the first of the season - that Emilie had shown me.

  “It’s less than two weeks away,” I said. “Novari will know that. And she’ll be ready. I saw her workers rolling thick wires out of the wagons this very night. The lyre will be strung and ready by the time that storm hits.

  “When the first winter winds blow Novari’s great lyre will begin to play. And as the force of the storm increases, so will her spell.”

  I remembered the punishment I’d taken at AnteroBay, thanks to Novari. Without experiencing it no Evocator, not even Palmeras, could imagine the intensity of the assault. And this time I knew it would be worse.

  “Soon as the storm ends,” I said, “She’ll command Kato to attack full force. Although, there’s likely to be so few of us left that it probably won’t require much more than a mop up operation.

  “Her greatest concern will be Emilie. She’ll want her alive. And unhurt.”

  Quatervals nodded. “Then Director Kato himself,” he said, “will probably command that mission. Their soldiers are too raw to be trusted with anything but the most basic orders.”

  “Kill everything in sight, most likely,” Derlina muttered.

  Then she said, “To hells with Novari! To hells with her blasted machine! To hells with all of them! Let’s go fight, dammit! Fight her now before she has a chance to gain the ground.”

  “That’s exactly what I intend,” I said.

  “But I want you all to know before we begin that in order to defeat the Lyre Bird...

  “... First we have to lose.”

  It was a mad plan. A plan of last resort. No one agreed easily. And I don’t think anyone ever really accepted it as the only way. But there was no time to think of anything else. Derlina, as expected, was the hardest to convince. In the end I had to use her own words against her.

  “You told me yourself,” I said, “that you knew in your guts that it would all come down to do-or-die. ‘One big toss of the dice,’ you said. ‘And shit on the gods that made us!’”

  Finally, it was agreed. There would be an all-out assault. Pip would rush back to Cheapside. He’d organize and command a general uprising. The uprising would be timed with attacks by us on Kato’s troops surrounding Galana. We’d put everything we had into it.

  Derlina ground her teeth. “And then we let the bitch win!”

  “Yes,” I said. “Then we let the bitch win. Like the dinksman lets his Cheapside mark win the first few rounds. Until the mark’s coaxed into risking all.”

  Derlina grimaced. “As long as you’re certain,” she said, “that Novari ends up playing the mark instead of us.”

  I told her I was quite certain.

  The lie came to my tongue much too easily for comfort.

  All know of the great deeds that followed.

  All know of Pip’s daring ride to Orissa, hurtling along the highway with a squad of Maranon Guardswomen, overcoming all who tried to stop them. It took them two days, pausing only to change horses at friendly stables and pass the word of the impending battle.

  Once in Orissa the King Of Thieves roused his knaves and the villains of Cheapside poured out of the sewers to confront the masters of Orissa.

  All know how Queenie and the brutes of the Thugs Guild went on a rampage of assassinations, killing key officers and city leaders.

  And how Pearl and the whores of the Harlots Guild helped them in that awful work, using their seductive wiles to spring doors that’d kept the assassins at bay.

  The knaves fought furiously, sometimes in small surprise attacks out of alleys and sewer openings. And sometimes hand-to-hand. Force against force.

  The pickpockets lost able leaders when Palmer and Lammer died in a skirmish at the Central Market.

  Garla, the handsome chief of the Beggar’s Guild, died in an assault on the Palace Of Evocators.

  These were just a few of the many villains who martyred themselves for Orissa.

  And Pip! What a marvel he was. He seemed to be every place at once. Weaving new strategies. Plugging gaps when other leaders fell.

  And finally his spark took hold, spreading from Cheapside into the populace itself.

  The citizens of Orissa were finally fighting back.

  In the city they took to the streets, attacking soldiers with the few arms they had. They added mightily to those stores, however, as they hurled themselves against the troops with wagon spokes and cobblestones and broken pavement.

  At the same time the whole countryside burst into flames as the villagers and farmers joined the battle. Slowly at first, but as our supporters stunned the enemy with the ferocity of their attacks, more and more people rushed in to swell their numbers.

  Meanwhile, at Galana we kept Novari and Kato’s largest forces pinned.

  To quell the uprising they’d have to defeat us first.

  Over and over again the gates of Galana swung open and we charged out to fight. We used every tactic to gain the slightest edge against the overwhelming numbers that faced us.

  Derlina would lead what appeared to be a suicidal charge against the enemy lines. She and the Guardswomen would fight with berserk fury, driving so deeply into the enemy’s mass there was no getting back.

  Then when all would seem lost Quatervals would pounce from the flanks, spearing in to meet her. They’d join, then make an orderly withdrawal, leaving the field strewn with enemy corpses.

  But each time our own numbers grew fewer.

  Until only two thirds of us stood.

  I don’t know what saddened me more. The sight of my dead comrades, or the bodies of the enemy in the field. All of whom, as I’d once told Palmeras, bore the faces of Orissans.

  That point was driven home most sorely when I accompanied Derlina one night in a cavalry feint on the hilltop where the lyre machine stood.

  Quatervals had secured a nearby hill. The plan was to strike for the lyre machine, drawing as many enemy as possible into the fray, then to break contact and join Quatervals in a wide looping assault on their flanks.

  My purpose was twofold. First, I wanted to get Derlina past the alarms so we could get in as close as possible. The second was to assist Palmeras from the ground while he and the Evocators took on Kato and his wizard army.

  As it turned out the plans came to naught. Instead of surprising the enemy we sprung his trap.

  Suddenly arrows hailed onto us. There were shouts of alarm and pain. Something hot struck in me in the side. I grunted, grabbing for it. And my hand came away slippery with blood from the glancing arrow wound. Then men were swarming out of the darkness on all sides of us, screaming their war cries.

  Derlina shouted orders and we charged for the center of their mass. It was the only way through. Beyond we could see the fires on the hilltops where Quatervals waited.

  All that followed was exactly out of the vision I’d seen on the road to Galana. The vision in which my future tragically intersected with a village lad named Natt. Young Natt had betrayed us but that betrayal certainly didn’t warrant payment in blood. He was so young. His mother so frantic for his safety.

  But that was the
tale of most of the boys I faced that night.

  My wounds, although not serious, hurt like the hells. There was a wall of pikemen in front of me. I heard the screams of people dying. Soldiers crowded into me and I took my pain and made it anger and flailed about with my sword. Hands reached for me. I slashed them away. Faces jumped up. And I cut them down.

  But each time I thought it’d be Natt’s face and I hesitated... just for a breath. I nearly died several times because of that.

  I spurred my old warhorse forward and she whinnied and crashed into the pike line.

  Then the pikeline wavered and broke.

  I shouted, glad to be free, as my horse plunged through.

  Then the moment came that I’d dreaded.

  A figure leaped in front of me, jabbing with his pike. My enemy’s image froze and I could see him clear. He was tall and so painfully thin that his rusted breastplate would barely stay on.

  It was Natt with a black smear for a mustache. His eyes were wide and white and full of fear and I heard him bawling for his “muvver.”

  Then the moment came unstuck and I shouted for him to make way.

  But Natt kept coming - his pike digging for my guts - certain he was lost if he didn’t kill me first.

  I reigned in, trying to stop the course of my horse. But she was off balance, swinging wide, carrying me toward Natt’s piketip.

  Instinct flung my sword forward to strike him down. But at the last instant I willed my blade to turn and I struck him with the flat.

  He went down, knocked cold.

  And I charged on for the hills where Quatervals waited.

  Derlina had seen the whole thing and said later I’d been a fool. She said I could have gotten myself killed for nothing. And after I told her the tale she snorted and said it wasn’t likely that young Natt would live much longer. That I’d only delayed the inevitable. Unless he deserted and fled to his dear “muvver’s” side.

  She was right.

  But I slept a little easier that night.

  In war you have to learn to treasure even the smallest of moral victories, or else you lose the part of you that makes you human.

  Despite all the efforts and sacrifices and loss of life, it soon became apparent the uprising had a hollow core. Novari was just too powerful. She and Kato were slowly grinding us down. And when the time came they’d use the impending storm to finish us off.

  But as I’d told Derlina, we had to lose to win.

  Besides, I had plans of my own for that storm.

  The last time Emilie and I visited the temple there was frost on the ground, a sharp breeze in the air and I could hear the strings of the great lyre stir in the enemy hills. She wore her little blue cloak, with the hood pulled up to keep out the cold.

  There was a small gathering waiting when we arrived: Derlina, Palmeras, Quatervals and a dozen other officers, noncoms and Evocators.

  We’d been greeted by a fiery dawn when we arose. The whole eastern sky was ablaze, with huge black storm clouds boiling beneath sheets of red and hearthfire yellow. We hadn’t needed sorcery to tell us the storm would be upon us in full fury by day’s end. A ship’s lad could’ve read the tell-tale signs while scraping pots over the side.

  Everyone knew instantly what was to be done and all of Galana went into motion, preparing to lash out for the final time.

  We’d strike just before the storm hit.

  The small group gathered at the temple was there to pray for the Goddess Maranonia’s help.

  Emilie stood beside me, clutching my hand while Palmeras oversaw the sacrifice. She shuddered when he slew the lamb and turned her head away.

  Palmeras cleansed the knife in the holy flame and approached Maranonia’s idol. He threw up his hands to address the Goddess for all of us.

  “O great Maranonia,” he intoned. “Kind Maranonia. Loving Maranonia. We stand before you, obedient children, beseeching your tender care.

  Palmeras’ voice was rich and so full of deeply felt emotion that he stirred us all.

  ”Orissa has been led to the brink of disaster and ruination, O sweet Goddess,” he continued. “The chasm we face is wide and deep.

  “Without your holy intervention we are certain to plummet over that brink.

  “And your glorious light will shine over us no more. Snuffed out by the evil Novari. The Lyre Bird. The foulest threat your beloved people have ever faced.

  “Give us strength, O Goddess. Fill our hearts with your courage. Our limbs with your warrior’s fire. Our souls with your exalted spirit.

  “Bless us, O Great Goddess. Heed us in our prayers.”

  None of us expected much to happen. We’d make our plea and go on our way to confront our fates. If we prevailed the Goddess would be credited. If we didn’t, the usual theological excuses would be made to preserve her dignity and sanctity.

  Still, carried away by Palmeras’ smooth rolling tones, I found myself waiting. Expecting that at any moment a beam of bright light would burst through the glass above and the statue would become the Goddess herself.

  And the glorious Maranonia would wave her torch and brandish her spear and our enemies would be swept away without further ado.

  I found myself gritting my teeth, thinking, “Anytime you’re ready, Goddess, dear.”

  Then I heard little Emilie whisper, “She isn’t coming, Aunt Rali.”

  And the moment passed.

  Outside, I heard the rush of the quickening wind and the faint aria of lyre music.

  Quatervals said it was time to go and we made our farewells.

  First I embraced Palmeras, wishing him wizard’s luck in the fight that was about to commence. I could smell the incense on his Evocators’ robes and it made me think of Gamelan and I nearly wept.

  Quatervals gave me an awkward soldierly back-pounding and said not to worry. We’d soon meet again, if only in the hells.

  When Derlina approached I braced for a crushing embrace. But the giant warrior woman was most tender. She kissed my cheek and whispered, “Remember me to Polillo.” And then she left.

  The others filed past, hugging or pressing palms with me.

  Finally only four of us remained; Emilie, myself and the two old sergeants who guarded her.

  The women wiped their eyes and drew their swords.

  “You know what to do,” I said. “We’ve practiced many times.”

  “Yer needn’t fear, Captain,” Torvol said.

  Weene nodded, jawline hard. “We knows our duty, Captain.”

  “Wait here with Emilie, then,” I said. “I’ll be back in a moment.”

  I went outside to stand in the temple’s leeway and face the gathering storm, bracing against the icy wind. It was cold enough to make my armor burn where it touched the skin.

  The sky swirled with black clouds swollen huge with snow. The lyre music was still faint but the notes were more distinct as the wind grew stronger and plucked the giant strings.

  Novari would soon come to direct the song.

  I pushed into the Otherworlds, stretching deep as I could. I found the edges of Novari’s shield, searching along it until I came to a small rent in its magical substance. I listened closely and far inside I could hear the little demon monkey busy at its work.

  Chitter chit. Chitter chit.

  Still picking away at Novari’s defenses knot by knot. Piece by piece.

  Chitter chit. Chitter chit.

  I slipped a tendril through the opening. It was larger than I’d hoped and my heart made a glad jump as I pushed through the hole deeper and deeper until I found the demon monkey. It was happy to see me, leaping about and chittering hysterically. I soothed it, renewed my promise to see it would come to no harm, then checked its progress more carefully.

  My heart’s glad leap became a dancing dervish when I realized how close the demon monkey had come. The shield had nearly been gnawed and clawed through and just beyond I could feel the faint but familiar buzz of Novari.

  A sudden blast of wind and soari
ng lyre music forced me to break away.

  At the same instant the heavens opened and Palmeras led his wizard cavalry out to do battle. I heard his challenge and Kato’s shouted answer.

  Beyond the woods the mortal battle commenced. The gates swung open to unleash Quatervals’ and Derlina’s final charge.