The massed ranks of the Dragon Guard and the Blues, I saw, with phalanxes of mercenaries to either side of them, had pushed deeply into Lord Tanu's and Lord Tomavar's battalions. Our whole line, from Lord Avijan's command in the east to Asaru's knights, had now bent so far backward that it was near to buckling. It was like a long, curved wall of diamonds holding back a flood of steel. In several places only a single rank of warriors kept the enemy from breaking through.
I glanced behind me, taking the measure of the knights in our company. Maybe seven of a hundred and fifty had fallen. I looked back toward the center of our line. Somewhere, in all this fury of swords hacking apart shields and men dying, Mandru led a company of warriors in Lord Tomavar's battalion, as did Jonathay in Lord Tanu's.
'Back!' I shouted to Sar Vikan and the knights behind me. 'Back to the center!'
We rode down the hill too quickly and then burst into a full gallop as we pounded across a mile and a quarter of grass. We came up behind the center of the Meshian line just as Lord Eldru's reserve battalion came forward. But Lord Eldru no longer commanded it. He had finally weakened and fallen from an arrow that had pierced his neck in the first minutes of the battle. Sar Jessu had replaced him. He was a thickset, serious, master knight whose bushy black eyebrows were set with determination.
'Hold, Sar Jessu!' I called to him.
'Hold?' he called back. He stood facing me at the front of twelve hundred men formed up into three neat ranks.
'Wait!' I called to him.
'Wait?' he shouted. 'Our line is about to break!'
Ahead of us the Meshian line was like a bow bending nearly double under the pressure of attack. And as it bent, the Meshian warriors worked quickly to extend the line, and thin it, to two ranks and then only one.
'Lord Eldru ordered us forward!' Sar Jessu shouted. 'And I'm ordering you to hold!'
Horns sounded from hundreds of yards away back toward the Clear Brook. We still had enough height above the two armies to see the entire reserve of Galdan light infantry, in their thousands, pouring across the stream and marching forward toward the battlefront at double-pace.
'The enemy are too many!' Sar Jessu shouted. 'Don't you see! Don't you see!'
I saw the Dragon Guard, like a great red hammer, pounding at our very center. Next to them stood the hideous Blues, whose naked bodies had been stained with the juice of the kirque plant from head to toe. They howled and cursed as they swung their axes through our shields and chopped down our warriors by the dozen. To their sides, the mercenaries and Galdan heavy infantry, sensing victory, threw themselves forward against our bowing line, which forced them up against the Dragon Guard. Behind them, the Galdan light infantry had abandoned all sense and good order in their lust to rush forward and take part in the kill.
Where was Morjin? I wondered.
'Lord Valashu!'
I stared out at the diamond warriors in our line, which now looked more like a gigantic V than a line. I saw, in my mind's-eye, the funnel-shaped walls of the escarpment at Shurkar's Notch where my knights and I had fought Duke Malatam. I gripped my sword as my heart beat like an axe against my breastbone.
'When the line breaks,' I said to Sar Jessu, 'then we shall go forward!'
Now the Galdan light infantry came up behind the Dragon Guard and the mercenaries, and pressed their backs. The Guard fought furiously to cut down the thin wall of warriors who stood before them. Then the Meshian line, at the joint of the V between Lord Tanu's and Lord Tomavar's battalions, suddenly broke. The Dragon Guard, with the frenzied Blues, screamed out in bloodlust as they smelled victory. The whole center of Morjin's army fell mad with a rage to rush through this hole and destroy us. They threw themselves forward, no longer ranks of well-drilled warriors, but a great mob of murderous men.
'Sar Jessu!' I cried out. 'Forward to fill up the break!'
I turned to Sar Vikan and shouted to him and our knights: 'Cut down anyone coming behind our lines! Now! Attack!'
With Maram and Sar Vikan beside me, I galloped forward. The Meshian warriors at the mouth of the break were fighting with the last of their strength to keep the Dragon Guard and the Blues from streaming through and falling upon their rear. One of these warriors was Mandru. His shield, it seemed, had long since been hacked apart or riddled with spears and cast away. I watched in horror as he thrust his kalama through the throat of a red-armored warrior at the same moment that a great, squat Blue came up behind him with his bloody axe. He swung it down upon Mandru's helm, splitting apart steel, bone and brains. And so the fiercest of my brothers died before he could even open his mouth to scream.
'Mandru!'
I urged Altaru forward, straight toward two Blues working their way behind Lord Tomavar's battalion. My sword took off the head of the first, and then I chopped down at the second, cleaving him from his neck through his thick body and out the opposite side. Other Blues came at me; one tried to vault off the ground and knock me from my horse. I killed them all. I turned to look for more victims for my sword. The enemy were all around me.
How easily a man is made into meat! With every stroke of my sword, it seemed, I cut someone else into pieces. Blood soaked the grass beneath me; it sprayed over me, reddening my hands, chest and face, and ran in rivulets from the grooves in Altaru's steel armor. I kept cutting and thrusting until my arm burned like a knot of fire, like the valarda burning inside me. And still men came at me trying to kill me.
And then a terrible scream split the air, and 1 looked through a mass of the Dragon Guards toward the frantically struggling warriors in Lord Tanu's battalion. Jonathay stood there. One of the Guards had thrust his spear through Jonathay's armpit and deep into his body. It drove all the sweetness from his face so that only agony remained. He fell beneath the boots of the Dragon Guard, and I did not see him rise again.
'Jonathay!'
Blood filled my eyes, and I pushed Altaru forward into the Dragon Guards. My sword cleaved the steel of their armor; I killed several of them. A spear rammed into my back, nearly knocking me out of my saddle. A sword slashed open the underside of my jaw. One of the Guard hammered his shield against my leg in a rage to break it. Altaru, in a rage of his own, let loose a great whinny as he wheeled and kicked out with his great hoof. He pulped the Guardsman's face and snapped back his head with a 'crack' loud enough to be heard above the great noise of the battle. Then he drove forward into another Guardsman and trampled him to death beneath his savage hooves.
Thus we fought for many minutes. Sar Vikan and the knights fought near me, too. None of them wielded lance or sword so well as Maram, who rode downS least five of the Dragon Guards before they could turn against the warriors in the broken Meshian line. Sar Jessu's reserve companies finally worked their way forward to fill up the gap between Lord Tanu's and Lord Tomavar's battalions. They drove their spears and shields against the enemy still trying to pour through. And suddenly, there was no one nearby left to slay.
'To me!' I called out. 'Sar Vikan! Maram! Knights, to me!'
Sar Vikan's company gathered to me. Twenty of them lay among the many hundreds of dead carpeting the grass. As many bore serious wounds. These, if they could ride, I sent off to the field infirmary a mile to the north, at the Meshian encampment behind the battlefield. Those who couldn't ride, I could do nothing for.
'Look!' Maram called to me. 'The line holds!'
The line of my countrymen fighting on foot in front of us, I saw, was holding — and more. Now nearly the whole of the Galdan and Sakayan armies had forced themselves as down into a funnel, as with Duke Malatam's knights at Shurkar's Notch. But there were a hundred times as many of this enemy, and the walls of the funnel were not immobile rock, but matchless Meshian warriors thrusting swords and spears as they pressed forward. The Galdan heavy infantry was packed together so closely with the mercenaries, with the Dragon Guard and the Blues, that they could hardly move. They could not lift their shields to protect their bodies against our long, sharp spear points; they could not raise their swords to
parry our. murderous kalamas. The two wings of the V of the Meshian line began dosing upon them like jaws of diamond and steel.
'Your stratagem is working!' Maram said to me. 'I've never seen men fight so!'
In truth, the Meshians were now fighting like the well-drilled warriors they were — and with a fury that struck terror into Morjin's men. They locked their long, rectangular shields together like a wall and pushed at the enemy even as they pierced them with their spears or drew their tharams and stabbed these vicious short swords into their faces. Many of my countrymen had cast down both shields and spears; these fought with their long kalamas, which left hideous gaping wounds in the bodies of men wherever they fell. Those of Sakai who tried to push forward in desperation and break through our line, thin though it was, were cut to pieces. Our enemy could do little more than stand and die. 'Father,' I whispered. 'Mandru. Jonathay.'
Horns sounded from behind the mass of men in front of us, and knew that someone had ordered a retreat. The Galdan light infantry, I sensed, would be turning to withdraw, or panicking altogether, casting down their weapons and running. And the rest of the two armies caught in the funnel of death would want to run. But so many thousands caught like fish in a net could not so quickly break away
'This is our chance!' I said to Maram. 'Do you see?'
Just then, I caught a flash of gray and red to my left, and I turned to see Kane and Atara galloping behind our lines straight toward us Kane's mail, from neck to knee, was spattered with blood. But I saw that Atara's quiver was still full of arrows. She rode trusting to the sure-ness of Fire's quick stride, and I swallowed back a surge of fear to see her so helpless and blind.
'Val, why are you here?' Kane called out to me.
He reined in his horse and drew up in front of me. Somehow, Atara found her way to me, too.
'Asaru sent for me,' I told him. 'My father is dead.'
'So, I saw him fall, but I did not know that he walked the stars.'
Atara turned her beautiful face toward me. Her white blindfold showed splotches of red. She said to me, 'You shouldn't have come — why have you come?'
'I came to kill Morjin!' I shouted, shaking my sword at the sky.
'Ha, Morjin!' Kane growled out. 'We've sought him, too, for an hour, all across the left flank.'
'Who leads our knights there now?' I asked him.
'Lord Avijan.'
'And my brothers? What of Karshur? Have you seen Ravar?'
Kane's blazing eyes softened with sadness as he told me about them.
This is how Karshur died: Just as he pushed his lance through the chest of an Urtuk warrior, another dose by fired an arrow into his horse's side, causing this great beast to rear up in screaming agony. And in that moment, a charging Galdan knight collided with them. Karshur crashed to the ground, and his huge warhorse, Jurgarth, fell on top of him, crushing him to death.
This is how Ravar died: Just as he cast his throwing lance through the eye of an Urtuk captain, one of the captain's men fired an arrow through Ravar's forehead, killing him instantly.
Upon hearing this, I stared out at the armies battling in front of me. The din of clanging steel faded to a hiss. And I opened my mouth to cry out a single name in a shout that seemed to shake the world: MORJIN!
In that moment, Atara sat up straighter on her horse, and I knew that she had regained her second sight.
'There's a great chance here,' Kane said to me. He pointed toward Balvalam Hill, where Asaru's knights were slowly pushing back the massed Ikurian horse. 'Do you see? If we could break them, we could encircle the rest of the army. And kill Morjin, if he is there.'
'Let's ride then/ I said. I nodded at Maram, who nodded back So did Sar Vikan and several of his knights. 'Let's finish this, if we can.'
I nudged Altaru's sides, and my great-hearted horse fairly leapt into a gallop. Everyone followed me. We rode west behind our lines, turning toward the north as we neared Balvalam hill. We made our way straight into the snarl of knights and screaming horses there. The clash between Asaru's knights and the black-bearded Ikurians had degenerated into hundreds of individual battles, as knight fell against knight in a frenzy of stabbing lances and scything swords. Hundreds of men lay dead or dying on the bloodstained grass. Riderless horses wandered about looking for a way to escape the carnage all around them. We rode through this shrieking chaos seeking out Morjin or the lord and captains of the Ikurians — or anyone else we could find to cut down with our swords.
In the first minutes of this new battle, I killed two of the Ikurian knights, stabbing one through his mail and cleaving the other's fur-trimmed helm. I looked for Asaru in the throngs of heaving horses and panting men around me. I looked for Yarashan, too. And then, from forty yards away across the pasture, my brother called out to me. Yarashan, who had somehow lost his helm, raised up his bloody lance as he shouted, 'Valashu!' He took great courage from my gladness to see him. He smiled to see the new knights that I had led onto the field. I felt in him my own burning desire to end this battle, now, in one blaze of violence that would sweep the field clean. I felt in him as well a deep urge to inspirit others by showing brave. And so he bowed his head to me, and then turned his horse toward two Ikurians thirty yards from him. And he let out a shout of challenge as he lowered his lance and charged straight toward them.
'Yarashan!'
My brother's aim was true, and he speared the first Ikurian knight through the throat. He held up his shield to cover himself from the second knigt's revenge, even as he freed his lance and wheeled about. But this second knight had great skill at arms. He knocked his own shield into Yarashan's, and then slammed his mace into the side of Yarashan's head. My brother died as he would have wanted to, with the eyes of many Meshian knights witnessing his valor.
Then I charged upon this proud Ikurian, and my sword chopped through his upraised arm and then cut the mail covering his neck. I heard Kane, somewhere behind me, let loose a great cheer to see me kill the knight who had killed Yarashan. But the Ikurians on their stamping horses nearby did not celebrate my feat. One of them cried out that their captain had been slain. Then two others cried out their rage, and the three knights charged me from three different directions. I cut through the lance of one of these, but the steel point of his friend's lance slammed into my back and propelled me from my saddle. I hit the ground with a crushing force that drove the breath from me.
'Yarashan!' a voice called as if from far away. And then, louder now 'Valashu!'
I tried to rise from the ground, but I could not. My fierce black stallion stood above me, frantically kicking his hooves at the two knights trying to stick their lances down into me. Then three other Ikurians whipped their horses to a gallop and bore down upon me to take part in the kill.
'Valashu!'
I looked up to see Asaru appear like an angel from out of the hundreds of knights spread across the field. He rode in a full-out fury to intercept the three charging Ikurians. I saw that he had already fought too hard that day. Mace blows had knocked loose diamonds from his chest and back, and he had lost his shield. A sword or lance had cut his cheek to the bone. I could feel the stabbing pain in his shoulder that hadn't quite healed. He was exhausted, anguished, bloody — but he had eyes and heart for only one thing.
'Valashu!'
Just before he closed with the Ikurians, he looked at me. There was death in his bright black eyes, and something more. What is it to love one's brother? Only this: that you would die for him so that he might live.
'Asaru!'
He stabbed his lance through the face of the first knight even as the lance of the second knight split open a bare patch of his armor and drove clean through his body and out through his back. I would never know how Asaru managed to keep his saddle with this great shaft of wood transfixing him. Or how he drew his sword and killed first the knight who had killed him, and then kept the third knight away from me long enough for Maram to come forward and deal him a death blow with his mace. The last wild su
rge of his heart ripped through me with an unbearable pain, and I cried out in astonishment as he died in utter gladness.
ASARUUU!
I pushed myself up to one knee; just then my faithful warhorse kicked out yet again and struck down one of the knights still trying to spear me. Then Kane rode up and killed the other knight. He reached down, grasped my hand, and pulled me to my feet I climbed on top of my horse. I stared at Kane. There was death in his eyes too, and something more: a terrible joy the wrath he saw building inside me.
Atara and Maram rode up then. My best friend seemed sick with what he had seen. He could hardly bear to look at me. And I could hardly bear myself. The robe of fire had burned me so completely that nothing remained except the fire.
'To me!' a deep voice boomed out from across the field. 'To me!'
Eighty yards away, a score of Ikurian knights gathered around a large, thick-bearded man with ostrakat plumes sticking out of his golden helm. The red dragon leaping out from his golden surcoat was larger than those of any of the knights or captains around us. I took him to be the Ikurians' lord. I hated him upon sight. Although he was not Morjin, in his person, he was all of the Dragon's evil, visited upon my people of his own twisted will.
I touched Altaru with my own flaming will to destroy, and my stallion surged forward into a gallop. Maram, Atara and Kane followed closely behind me. Atara's bow cracked twice as she sent arrows burning into the bodies of two of the enemy knights. And then we were upon them.
Next to me, Kane's sword struck out like the head of a cobra, and one of Ikurians grabbed at his throat and tried to scream. Kane slashed out to the side, cutting through the body of another knight with such savagery that he nearly cleaved him in two. He growled like a great, killing cat as he thrust and parried and lay about him with his long sword. Blood sprayed his wild face; he licked his lips and screamed out all of his old joy in rending and slaying. The ancient Elijin warlord out of legend, in all his wrath, rode upon the reddened field, and he was terrible to behold.
And I, too, that day was an angel — an angel of death. For this, I feared, was also part of the One's design. Altaru bore me into the mass of our enemies, and I whirled about on top of him, left and right, swinging my bright sword in a blaze of death. With every knight that I maimed or killed in vengeance for my father and brothers, I seemed to desire only more killing. My sword flared like pure flame then, and I could hardly hold onto it. It seemed to have a life of its own. And yet I knew that its life was only my life, swelling like the sun, growing stronger and more brilliant every moment as my fury to destroy swept me away. Men screamed before me. I cut them down. Men screamed out my name all arournd me and from farther across the field. They shielded their eyes as from a lightning bolt. The whole world seemed to ay out in agony.
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