Master Juwain came up to look into my eyes and said, 'It seems that you're growing ever more able to put up shields against others' agonies.'
'No, it's just the opposite,' I said, thinking of the three men I had slain. 'Each time a man goes over now, it carries me deeper into the death realm. But the valarda, even as it opens me to this void, also opens me to the world. To all its pain, yes, but to its life as well. The sword that Lady Nimaiu gave me only aids in this opening. When I wield it truly, it's as if the soul of the world pours into me.'
So saying, I drew Alkaladur and held it gleaming faintly toward the east.
'Then the sword lends you a certain protection against the vulnerabilities of your gift.'
'No, it is not so, sir. Someday when I kill, the death realm will grab hold of me so tightly that I'll never return.'
Because there was nothing for him to say to this, he stood looking at me quietly even as the others fell silent, too.
Then Atara, scanning the horizon behind us, drew in a quick breath as she pointed toward the west. 'They're coming,' she said. 'Don't you see?'
At first none of us did. But as we stared at the far-off hills until our eyes burned, we finally saw a plume of dust rising into the sky. 'How many are there?' Maram asked Atara.
'That's hard to say,' she told him.
But even as we stood there beneath the quick beatings of our hearts, the dust plume grew bigger.
'Too many, I think,' Kane said. 'Let's ride now. Well have to leave the pack horses behind. They're practicallv lame and slowing us down.'
This imperious announcement sparked fierce protest from Maram and Liljana.
Maram couldn't abide the thought of separating ourselves from most of our food and drink, while Liljana bitterly regretted having to forsake her beloved pots and pans.
'You have your shield,' she said to Kane, 'so why shouldn't I be allowed at least one pot for cooking a hot meal when we might most need one?'
'And what about the brandy?' Maram put in. 'There's little enough left, but we'll need it for our return from Khaisham.'
'Return? Kane growled. 'We won't even reach Khaisham if we don't ride now. Now fetch your pot and your brandy, and let' be off.'
We made a quick redistribution of those vital stores that the pack horses carried, filling our mounts' saddlebags as full as we dared. Then we said goodbye to these faithful beasts that had carried our belongings so far. I prayed that they would wander over Yarkona's mounded plains until some kind farmer found them and put them to work.
With pursuit now certain, though still far away, we set out for the Kul Moroth. We rode hard, pressing the horses to a full gallop untill it became clear that they couldn't hold such a pace. Altaru and Iolo were strong enough, and Fire, too. but Kane's big bay and Liljana's gelding had little wind left for such heroics. Master Juwain's sorrel seemed to have aged greatly since setting out from Mesh, while Maram's poor horse was in the worst shape of any of our mounts. His sore hoof, now bruised by hot stones, was getting worse with every furlong we covered. I worried that soon he would pull up ruined and lame. And Maram worried about this as well.
'Ah, perhaps you should just leave me behind,' he gasped as he urged has limping sorrel to keep up with us. For a moment we slowed to a trot. 'I'll ride off in a different direction. Perhaps the Count's men will follow me, instead of you.'
It was a courageous offer, if a little insincere. I thought that he might hope that our pursuers would follow us instead of him.
'On the Wendrush,' Atara said from atop her great roan mare, 'that is how it must be.
Where speed is life war party is only as fast as its slowest horse.' Her words greatly alarmed Maram, who had no real intention of simply riding away from us. She saw his disquiet and said, 'But this is not the Wendrush and we are no war party.'
'Just so,' I said. 'Our company will reach Khaisham together or not at all. We have a lead; now let's keep it.'
But this proved impossible to do. As the ground grew even drier and rougher, Maram's sorrel slowed his pace even more. And the plume of dust behind us grew closer and thickened into a cloud.
'What are we to do?' Maram muttered. 'What are we to do?'
And Kane, bringing up the rear, answered him with one word, 'Ride.'
And ride we did. The rhythm of our horses' hooves beat against the ground like the pounding of a drum. It grew very hot I squinted against the sun pouring down upon the rocks to the east of us. Its rays, I thought, were like fiery nails fixing us to the earth. Dust stung my eyes and found its way into my mouth. Here the soil tasted of salt and men's tears, if not those of the angels. Here, in this burning waste, it would be easy for horse and man to perish, sweated dry of all their water.
After some miles, my thoughts turned away from the men behind us and toward visions of water. I remembered the deep blue stillness of Lake Waskaw and the rivers of Mesh; I thought of the soft white clouds over Mount Vayu and its glittering snowflelds melting into rills and brooks. I began to pray for rain.
But the sky remained clear, a hot and hellish blue-white that glared like fired iron. It consoled me not at all that Count Ulanu and his men must suffer this dreadful heat even as we did. I took courage, however, from the thought that if we endured it more bravely, we still might outdistance them.
But it was they who closed the distance between us. The cloud of dust following us grew ever larger and nearer.
'The Count,' Kane observed bitterly, looking back, 'can afford to leave his laggards behind.'
As the hours passed, we entered terrain in which a series of low ridges ran from north to south like dull knife-blades pushing up the earth. They roughly paralleled the much greater mountain spur still ahead of us where, if Kane's memory proved true, we would find the Kul Moroth. In most places, we had no choice but to ride up and over these sun-baked folds. This hot, heaving work tortured the horses. From the top of one of them, where we paused to rest our faithful and sweating friends, we had a better view of the men pursuing us.
'Oh, my Lord!' Maram groaned. 'There are so many!'
For now, beneath the roiling column of dust drawing closer to the west, we saw perhaps five hundred men on horses following the dragon standard. I thought I caught a glimpse of another red dragon set against a yellow surcoat: surely that of Count Ulanu leading the pursuit. There were many knights behind him, both heavy cavalry and light, and even a few horse archers accoutered much as Atara. A whole company of Blues on their swift, nimble ponies galloped after us as well. It seemed that Count Ulanu had summoned the entire vanguard of his army to help him wreak his vengeance upon us.
During the next hour of our flight, clouds began moving in from the north and darkening the sky. They built to great heights with amazing quickness. Their black, billowing shapes blocked out much of the sun. It grew much cooler, a gift from the heavens for which we were all grateful.
Count Ulanu's men, though, drew as much relief from the approach-ing storm as did we. He sent some of his horse archers galloping forward in a wild dash finally to close with us. They fired off a few rounds of arrows, which fell to earth out of range.
'Hmmph, archers shouldn't waste arrows so,' Atara said. 'If they come any closer, I'll spare them a few of mine.'
They did come closer. As we began ascending yet another ridge, a feathered shaft struck the earth only a dozen yards behind Kane's heaving bay. Atara's,great, recurved bow was strung and ready; I thought that she would wait until gaining the crest of the ridge before turning to shoot back at them.
The rapidly cooling air about us seemed charged with anticipation and death. The sky rumbled with great rolling waves of thunder. I felt an itch at the back of my neck as if something were pulling at my hair. And then a bolt of lightning flashed down from the clouds and burned the air. It struck the ridge above us, and sent a blue fire running along the rocks. Pieces of hail fell down, too, pelting us and pinging off my helmet. Master Juwain and the others made a sort of canopy of their cloaks, holding them
up to protect their heads. And still the lightning streaked down and set the very earth to humming.
It seemed pure folly to climb toward the ridgeline where the lightning was the fiercest. But behind us rode six archers firing off certain death from their bows.
These steel-tipped bolts struck even closer than did the lighting. One of them glanced off my helmet like a piece of hail - only from a different direction and with much greater force. The sound of it dinging against the steel caused Atara to turn in her saddle and finally fire off a shot of her own. The arrow sank into the belly of the lead archer, who fell of his horse onto the hail-shrouded earth. But the others only charged after us with renewed determination.
I was the first to the ridge, followed in quick succession by Alphanderry, Liljana, Master Juwain, Maram and Kane. Atara rode more slowly the better to make her shots and fight her arrow duel. Another two found their marks, and she called out, Twenty-seven, twenty-eight!' Just as she reached the ridge-top, however, with the sky's bright fire sizzling the very rocks, the hail began to fall much harder. It streaked down from the sky at a slant like millions of silver bolts. Her arrows crashed into these hurtling balls of ice with sharp clacking sounds, sometimes shattering them into a spray of frozen chips and snow. The hail deflected the advancing archers' arrows, too. They fired off many rounds to no effect. But one of their arrows ripped through Atara's billowing cloak just before two more of hers raised her count to thirty. Then the remaining archer, sighting his last arrow with great care despite the rain and hail, fired off a desperate shot. Lightning flashed and thunder rent the sky, and somewhere beneath these terrifying events came the even more terrible twang of his bowstring. And then I gasped to see a couple feet of wood and feathers sticking out of Atara's chest.
'Ride!' she choked out as she kicked her horse forward. 'Keep rid-ing!'
It wasn't fear that drove her on through the pain of such a grievous wound nor even will but regard for us and what must happen if her strength failed. I felt this in the way that she waved on Master Juwain every time he turned his worried gaze toward her; it was obvious in her brave smiles toward Kane and especially in the bittersweet protectiveness that filled her eyes whenever she looked at me. Of all the courageous acts I had witnessed on fields of battle, I thought that her jolting ride across the final miles of Virad was the most valorous.
Liljana, galloping by her side, suggested that we must stop to offer her a little water.
But Atara waved her on, too, gasping out, 'Ride, ride now - they're too dose.' There was blood on her lips as she said this.
Soon the thunder and rain stopped, and the dark clouds boiled above us as if threatening to break apart. The mountainous spur marking Khaisham's border came into view. It was a barren escarpment of reddish rock perhaps a thousand feet high.
It stood like a wall before us. In many places along its length, it was cut with fissures starkly defining great rock forms that looked like pyramids and towers. From the miles of plain that still lay between us and it, it was hard to make out much detail. But I prayed that one of these dark openings into the upfolded earth would prove to be the pass named the Kul Moroth.
So began our wild dash toward whatever safety the domain of Khaisham might afford us. Count Ulanu and his men were close now, and thundering closer with each passing minute. We rode as fast as we could considering the lameness of Maram's horse and Atara's injury. I felt the jolts of pain that shot through her body with every strike of her horse's hooves; I felt her quickly weakening in her grip upon the reins as her vitality drained out of her. She was coughing up blood, I saw, not much but enough.
Kane pointed out a rent in the rocks ahead of us a little larger than the others. We rode straight toward it over the stony ground. Now, from behind us along the wind, came the high-pitched howling of the Blues; it chilled us more cruelly than had any rain or hail. It seemed to promise us a death beneath steel-bladed axes or even the gnashing teeth of enemies mad for revenge.
Death was everywhere about us. We felt it immediately as we found the opening to the Kul Moroth. As Kane had warned us, it seemed an evil place. Others, f knew, had died here in desperate battles before us. I could almost hear their cries of anguish echoing off the walls of rock rising up on either side of us. The pass was dark in its depths, and the sunlight had to fight its way down to its hard, scarred floor. And it was narrow indeed; ten horses would have had trouble riding through it side by side. We had trouble ourselves, for the ground was uneven and strewn with many rocks and boulders. Other boulders, and even greater sandstone pinnacles, seemed perched precariously along the pass's walls and top as if ready to roll down upon us at the slightest jolt. Long ago, perhaps, some great cataclysm had cracked open this rent in the earth; I prayed that it wouldn't close in upon us before we were free of it.
And that, it seemed as we drove the horses forward, we might never be. For just as we made a turning through this dark corridor and caught a glimpse of Khaisham's rough terrain a half mile ahead of us through the pass, Atara let loose a gasp of pain and slumped forward, throwing her arms around Fire's neck. She could go no farther. My first thought was that we would have to lash her to her horse if we were to ride the rest of the distance to the Librarians' city.
But this was not to be. I dismounted quickly, and Master Juwain and Liljana did, too. We reached Atara's side just as she slipped off her saddle and fell into our arms. We found a place where the fallen boulders provided some slight protection again Count Ulanu's advancing army, and there we laid her down, against the cold stone.
'There's no time for this!' Kane growled out as he gazed back through the pass, 'No time. I say!'
'Oh, my Lord!' Maram said, coming down from his horse and looking at Atara. 'Oh, my Lord!'
Now Alphanderry dismounted, too, and so did Kane. His dark eyes flashed toward Atara as he said, 'We've got to put her back on her horse.'
Master Juwain, after examining Atara for a moment, looked up at Kane and said, 'I'm afraid the arrow pierced her lights. I think it's cut an artery, too. We can't just lash her to her horse.'
'So, what can we do?'
'I've got to draw the arrow and staunch the bleeding somehow If I don't she'll die.'
'So, if you do she'll die anyway, I think.'
There was no time to argue. Atara was coughing up more blood now, and her face was very pale. Liljana used a clean white cloth to wipe the bright scarlet from her mouth.
'Val,' she whispered to me as the slightness of her breath moved over her blue lips.
'Leave me here and save yourself.'
'No,' I told her.
'Leave me - it's the Sarni way.'
'It's not my way,' I told her. 'it's not the way of the Valari.'
From the opening of the pass came the sound of many iron-shod hooves striking against stone and a terrible howling growing louder with each passing moment.
'Go now, damn you!'
'No, I won't leave you,' I told her.
I drew Alkaladur, then. The sight of its shimmering length cut straight through to my heart. I would kill a hundred of Count Ulanu's men, I vowed, before I let anyone come close to her. I knew I could.
OWRRULLL!
'Oh, my Lord!' Maram said taking out his red crystal. 'Oh, my Lord!'
As Master Juwain brought forth his wooden chest and opened it to search inside among the clacking steel instruments of its lower drawer, Alphanderry laid his hand upon Atara's head. He told her, 'I'm sorry, but this is my fault. My singing -'
'Your singing is all I wish to hear now,' Atara said, forcing a smile. 'Sing for me, now, will you? Please?'
Master Juwain found the two instruments that he was looking for: a razor-sharp knife and a long, spoonlike curve of steel with a little hole in the bowl near its end. Just then Alphanderry sang out:
Be ye songs of glory,
Be ye songs of glory,
That the light of the One
Will shine upon the world.
Maram, with tears in
his eyes, stood above Atara as he tried to position his gelstei so that it caught what little light filtered down to the floor of the pass. He called out, to the rocks and the clouded sky above us, 'I'll burn them if they come close! Oh, my Lord, I will!'
The wild look in his eyes alarmed Kane. He drew out his black gelstei and stood looking between it and Maram's stone.
'Hold her!' Master Juwain said to me sharply as he looked down at Atara.
I put aside my sword, sat and pulled Atara onto my lap. My hands found their way between her arms and sides as I hung on to her tightly. Liljana bent to help hold her, too.
Master Juwain cut open her leather armor and the softer shirt beneath. He grasped the arrow and tugged on it, gently. Atara gasped in agony, but the arrow didn't move. Then Master Juwain nodded at me as if admonishing me not to let go of her.
Sighing sadly, he used the knife to probe the opening that the arrow had made between her ribs and enlarge it, slightly. Now it took both Liljana and me to hold Atara still. Her body writhed with what little strength she had left. And still Master Juwain wasn't done tormenting her. He took out his spoon and fit its tip to the red hole in Atara's creamy white skin. Then he pushed his elongated spoon down along the arrow, slowly, feeling his way, deep into her. He twirled it about while Atara's eyes leapt toward mine; from deep in her throat came a succession of strangled cries. At last Master Juwain smiled with relief. I understood that the hole at the spoon's tip had snagged the tip of the arrow point; its curved flanges would now be wrapped around the point's barbs, thus shielding Atara's flesh from them so that they wouldn't catch as Master Juwain drew the arrow. This he now did. It came out with surprising smoothness and ease.
And so did a great deal of blood. It truth, it ran out of her like a bright red stream, flowing across her chest and wetting my hands with its warmth.
And all the while, Alphanderry knelt by her and sang: Be ye songs of glory,
Be ye songs of glory,
That the light of the One
Will shine upon the world.
'Maram!' I heard Kane call out behind me. 'Watch what you're doing with that crystal!'
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