Bearing a sword in each hand, a stocky samurai warrior whirled and stepped back and forth with lethal precision, hacking and stabbing and laying waste to the enemy along a fifty-foot section of the rampart. When the teeming warriors showed a reluctance to press toward him, he shouted a battle cry and charged down the wall, into the enemy ranks. He cut his way through two lines, then fought his way back again, holding firm in the ditch as he stood on the shifting pile of bodies. Only when he tried to climb the wall back to the parapet did he fall, taken in the back by a spear. Three elves rushed down, trying to pull the stricken Japanese warrior up, but the ghost warriors pressed in with fury, surrounding the body, cutting the heroic fighter to pieces.
Yet there were too few of these heroes and too few of the elves and the trolls as well-though in many cases they displayed similar bravery, dedication, and sacrifice-to hold against a virtually infinite foe. Along one half-mile length of the wall all the defenders were slain, and the ghost warriors spilled across like water coming over a dam. In another section just a few wounded trolls tried to hold, and they inevitably succumbed to the hacking blades of a thousand attackers.
The gnomish companies that had formed the battle reserve also fought valiantly. At first they rushed forward to meet every breakthrough, firing lethal volleys of steel bolts from their crossbows. But it was the same story with them: there were too few reserves, too many breakthroughs. When the last of the gnomes had charged into position, the ghost warriors simply broke through in more places, breached the wall to the right and the left, poured onward with unstoppable pressure.
The breastwork still stood, but in many places the invaders began to force their way over the top. Tamarwind and Jubal tried to rally their elven troops along a section of the center, and Awfulbark pleaded with his trolls and elves on the left, but they were already too few for the task. The ghost warriors claimed the top of the wall in sections and spread out to the right and left, striking the defenders in the flank, clearing longer and longer stretches of the great rampart.
The defenders were forced into smaller pockets, finally defending only those sections of the wall where the batteries could cover them from above. In long stretches the warriors of Nayve were left with no choice but to flee the wall, breaking into small groups and scrambling up the rough slopes of the Ringhills.
O N the plain, Crazy Horse rode his fifth horse into the fray. The Hyaccan cavalry and their human allies attacked by the hundreds now, not the thousands, and each valiant charge left fewer of them to withdraw. But the leadership of their own khandaughter and the Sioux war chief, together with the plentiful supply of fresh mounts, allowed them to strike deep into the enemy ranks with each charge. Because of these attacks, the right flank of the wall was the one section that had held without wavering.
The battle had changed for them during the second day, however, when the Delver dwarves had advanced, taking over from the ghost warriors who had faced the riders earlier in the battle. These armored dwarves attacked with discipline and skill, and this forced the riders to increased desperation with each attack. The iron golems marched in front, gigantic and crushingly powerful, striding across the field with such force that nothing could stand in their path. The Sioux chief dodged around one of the massive giants-he had quickly learned to avoid these gargantuans, for no weapon he bore seemed to have any impact-and charged again into the ranks. His sword chopped down, again and again. Most of these creatures were faceless, and he killed them with dispassion.
Whirling through the melee, Crazy Horse spotted Khanwind, riderless, bucking in the midst of a horde of ghost warriors. Frantically he charged in, laying about with his sword until he drove back the ring of attackers and found Janitha, facedown in the dirt, surrounded by metal-clad dwarves. With a lean from his horse’s back and a strong grasp of her arm, he lifted her over the pony’s withers, spurring the steed away just a few feet in front of the furious attackers.
He checked for her pulse, and she opened her eyes, alive and feisty. He was surprised by how happy that made him.
“You ought to be more careful,” said the Sioux.
“Put me back on my horse,” she said, struggling to sit, facing him on the shoulders of the small pony. “And I’ll show you careful!”
He laughed in warlike delight, guiding his pony toward Khanwind as he held a firm grasp around the elfwoman’s slender waist. “What happened to put you on the ground?” he asked.
“I was hit by the ugliest bastard I have ever seen,” she replied, rubbing her hip where a purple bruise showed between the links of her elven chain mail. “I’ll remember his face until I die: a mass of red nostrils, and jaws of shiny silver, like teeth that had been welded over the scarred flesh of his face. He’s a captain of those dwarves-and I wanted him!”
“I will find him, and kill him for you!” Crazy Horse pledged, as Janitha nimbly sprang across to Khanwind, who nickered in delight at the return of his rider. The ponies and their riders raced together, back into the fray.
Zystyl cast a wary glance toward the great army marching on his right. The ghost warriors disturbed him, frightened him in some way that touched upon his arcane senses. He could smell their wrongness, and he feared that corrupt presence. He was determined to go none too close to the eerie horde.
Nevertheless, his dakali compelled him to attack, and so he had done, urging the army of Nightrock into an offensive against the far right end of the dirt wall. He understood that he was to interpose his dwarves and golems as a barrier between the ghost warriors and the elven cavalry that had vexed them so constantly during the fight.
He expected the charge, and when it came, his iron golems knocked many ponies and their riders to the ground, crushing both with stomping pressure and lethal smashes. But he did not expect so many of the accursed elves to ride right between the mechanical giants. Suddenly they were everywhere, chopping and kicking and charging through the neat Delver ranks. The little horses were shockingly fast and savagely warlike; they evaded the blows of the dwarven weapons even as they pressed home the charge, their riders striking down Delver after Delver. Even the mounts fought, kicking, biting, and trampling wherever they could. Zystyl’s troops were veterans of centuries of campaigning, but never had they faced a persistent, mobile attack like this. They found it demoralizing and, for a long time, were unable to press the advance. Instead, the great regiments milled around like giants swatting at biting flies.
Still, they fought well, and neither did they retreat. Zystyl himself swung his mace when a rider came close. Once he took a blow at a beautiful elven female, squealing in pleasure as his blow knocked her from the saddle. He had moved forward, eager for the kill, but the swirl of battle carried him away.
The arcane did not see the new attacker coming for him, not until it was too late. This was a bronze-skinned man, not a fair elf, and he was nearly naked as he rode an unsaddled horse, his black hair trailing in a long plume. Despite his lack of armor, he somehow evaded all the cutting steel of the Delver foot soldiers, striking through the ranks as if he sought Zystyl on some personal mission of revenge. The arcane raised his sword to parry, but the weapon was bashed painfully against his own face by the force of the rider’s blow.
Then he was on the ground, tasting blood-his own blood! “No!” he croaked. “This cannot be!” He barely felt the next blow as the human’s sword stabbed through his throat, but he couldn’t breathe nor even move; it was as if he was pinned to the ground.
His strength waned rapidly, flowing from his flesh as freely as the blood that drained from his body into the dirt. His last thought was stark, painful, and undeniable.
It was not fair that he should die like this!
The trolls were handled more roughly even than the other defending forces. Many of Awfulbark’s warriors had been permanently slain by the grisly attacks. The ghost warriors had learned from their past encounters: now when they pulled or knocked down a troll, they stood and hacked the creature until there was nothing left
but a patch of gore. From such total brutality, even the regenerative forest trolls were unable to recover.
At last the king stood alone on a section of the wall, ghost warriors swarming over the rampart to either side. He roared and slew with his sword any attacker careless enough to come within range here. Awfulbark was ready to die here. And why not? Surely this was the end of the world!
It was Roodcleaver who grabbed him by the back of his neck and roughly pulled him away. The two trolls tumbled down the back of the wall together. The king stood at the bottom, angrily brushing himself off.
“Why I not fight?” he demanded. “Die like king!”
“Die like fool!” she retorted, further assailing his dignity. “You want to fight, come up hill with me. Stay here and we die. Go, and we fight some more. Maybe die up there, you want to die so bad! So go!”
It was hard to argue with that kind of logic, though the king made a valiant effort to come up with some devastating reply. But his mind was a blank, as usual. There was nothing left to do but follow his wife up the hill, and stay alive.
“Where’s Natac?” asked Tamarwind, as he found Jubal and Juliay on a low hill, overlooking the weary withdrawal of the once-mighty army. Everywhere troops were streaming off the wall, picking paths up the slopes of the Ringhills, in between the most rugged elevations, while the ghost warriors claimed the length of the parapet and, for now, seemed to be gathering their strength before they pursued.
“He had to go back to the city… an emergency, with Miradel. If he comes back, he’ll teleport onto Hill Number One. They’re still holding there, the last that I heard… but I don’t know how long that can last,” Jubal replied, putting his arm around Juliay. “I don’t blame him. At a time like this, things coming to an end, a man should spend those minutes with the woman he loves, I reckon. Not much hope for tomorrow.”
Tamarwind felt that remark with a stab of longing. “I’ve had a thousand years that I could have spent with that woman,” he said, “and I wasted them all. Would that I could have but one of them back again, I would go to Belynda and tell her what I know.”
Roland Boatwright and Sirien joined them on the crest, another pair of lovers finding themselves on the field of the last battle. “What can we do now?” the druid and shipbuilder asked.
“Fall back, I guess,” Tam said. “As far as Circle at Center if we have to. Until there’s no place left to retreat.”
“What’s that in the sky?” asked Sirien, the keen-eyed elfmaid. She pointed past the ghost warriors, toward the murky horizon in the direction that was neither metal nor wood.
Winged shapes were visible there, tiny specks weaving through the columns of smoke and dust. There were lots of them, wings beating unmistakably, coming this way.
“Reckon it’s more harpies, I suppose, Jubal said in resigned despair. “Spread the word. We’re not even safe up here. We’ve got another attack coming in. And these look like big ones.”
“Wait,” said Sirien, holding up a slender hand.
“Why?” asked the Virginian impatiently. “They’ll be here in a few minutes.”
“I know,” said the elfwoman, strangely unperturbed. “But look… look at them again.”
K ARKALD and Belynda hurried to keep up, Natac half carrying Miradel. At first, immediately following her teleport home, he had ordered her to lie down and rest, but she would have none of that. Instead, she had barked an order of her own.
“The temple-take me to the Goddess Worldweaver, now!”
So he offered her an arm and a shoulder, which she leaned upon gratefully. Weak as she was, she still managed to hurry them along, across the lakeside park to the marbled plaza and the great golden doors. She would not explain what she had learned on the Fifth Circle, but her lips were drawn in a tight line, and her face was ashen.
They burst through the door, scattering the acolytes in the outer chamber. Quickly they passed the exit to the old, unused Rockshaft, with its bolted iron door, pushing their way right into the sanctum with its massive loom and surrounding Tapestry.
Within, the goddess looked up from her weaving, then slowed the pace of her pedaling until the great machine came to a rest. With immense dignity she stood.
“I was not so certain that I would see you again,” she declared coldly. Her eyes were like ice, glittering, cold.
“But you do see me, and you will hear what I have learned,” Miradel declared. She had found her strength, stood without assistance, and glared icicles of her own.
“What is that?” The goddess stepped away from her loom.
“There is no Deathlord, is there? Karlath-Fayd does not exist, no more than the gods and goddesses of the Seventh Circle!” Miradel said quietly. “All of that is pretended. There is only you, and this game you have us play.”
“Do not trifle with me. I have moved armies across chasms, even between worlds. I could crush you with a wave of my hand.” She sneered contemptuously. “What might seem like a game to you is truth, reality, to me.”
“Me, trifle with you? Don’t be ridiculous-it is you who trifle with us!” snapped Miradel. She stood on her own, strong and steady now, and took a step forward, gesturing for Natac to come with her. She pointed to the threads, coming off the loom. “You think that is all fates, all futures, all pasts?” she asked him.
“It is the Tapestry of the Worldweaver,” he said, puzzled.
“It is merely a vain woman’s toy,” retorted the druid. “I want you to cut it, cut it off right now!”
“R EGILLIX Avatar must have made it home!” Tamarwind exclaimed. “Those aren’t harpies-they’re dragons!”
“I know,” Juliay said in a strangely peaceful tone. “Aren’t they the most beautiful things you’ve ever seen?”
The dragons filled the sky with wings and fire. They came from the direction that was neither metal nor wood. Diving with meteoric velocity, the wyrms swept across the top of the ghost warriors, belching massive clouds of flame, slaying with talon and fang. The serpents soared in their hundreds, maybe a thousand or more of them, spreading across the sky to span the whole of the ghost warriors’ horde. They ranged in colors from indigo so deep it was almost black to pale pastels of peach and green, shades varying even upon the same dragon, under-bellies always darker than backs.
They swooped and cavorted. The smaller serpents were nimble and quick, often circling and looping about the greater wyrms or racing low to puff orange fireballs, blossoms of flame that seared a dozen or a score of the attackers. They flew onward, driving their slender pinions, quickly soaring aloft again.
The greater wyrms were true lords of the battlefield. One dragon of emerald green, nearly as big as Regillix himself, landed in the midst of a throng of ghost warriors, incinerating a hundred with a massive exhalation of oily flame. The two broad wings came down, crushing more of the invaders, and as the serpent leaped into the air it raked another dozen with its trailing claws. More dragons swarmed along the length of the wall, and everywhere the attackers fell back, off the rampart and down through the gore-filled ditch.
The soldiers of Nayve emerged from their hiding places or ceased their panic-stricken flight. They whooped and cheered from the slopes and the crests of the Ringhills. Jubal and Juliay embraced, while Tamarwind shouted himself hoarse in exultation.
One giant serpent broke from the fight and winged closer. Tam quickly recognized Regillix Avatar as the lordly wyrm came to rest on the nearby hillside. He looked smug, curling up like a cat and grinning at Tamarwind and the others like a contented crocodile.
“I missed this place,” he allowed. “Did you know that there is no beef in all of Arcati? And I learned that I have developed quite a taste for cattle flesh.”
“Welcome back!” cried Tamarwind. “We’re rather glad to see you.”
“Everyone, except perhaps the cows,” Jubal allowed. “But we’re grateful for your epic flight, Lord Dragon, and for a very timely return.”
“The climb almost killed me,” Reg
illix admitted, scowling at the unpleasant memory. “But my people understood the danger. As you can see, they were more than willing to help. And we had no difficulty riding the Worldfall back to Nayve-the same route that carried me some fifty years ago.”
“Our last line had broken,” Tam acknowledged. “We faced certain defeat-until we saw you.”
“Elves of Nayve! Trolls and gnomes-men and women of all peoples!” Jubal shouted, waving his sword over his head, calling the routed defenders down from the heights. They came from every gulley and rise on the foreslope of the hills, still whooping, newly energized by the appearance of the dragons. They swarmed in small groups at first, quickly assembled into companies and regiments, charging to reclaim the wall that the ghost warriors had already abandoned to the dragons.
Tamarwind, grinning, charged down the hill with his elves, but not before he made a silent pledge to return to Belynda as soon as he could get away from here.
“Get away from that!” snapped the Goddess Worldweaver, her face blanching. “You don’t understand what you’re doing!”
“Perhaps not, but at last I understand you,” replied Miradel. She kept her eyes on the immortal woman as she gestured to Natac. “Cut it-cut the threads!”
“No!” The Worldweaver shrieked her command. She raised her hand, palm outward. “Impudent humans-I gave you life on Nayve, and I can take that life away!” Her face distorted into something unrecognizeable, an image of unrestrained fury and immortal power.
The ground heaved, and Miradel fell. A great section of arch swayed, granite cracking, loose rubble plummeting downward. Cracks rippled through the smooth marble floor, and more debris spattered from the damaged ceiling. Even amid the chaos Natac noticed that the surface under the loom and the walls where the Tapestry was strung remained intact. In that instant he knew that Miradel was right-and that her idea was their only chance.
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