I grasped the Lightstone, and all fear left me. And I smiled to see that I was holding only a small golden cup in my hand.
The others saw it, too. But only for a moment As the face of everyone in the hall turned toward me, the gold of the Lightstone fell clear as a diamond crystal and began radiating light like the sun. Brighter and brighter grew this light until it poured out like the starfire of ten thousand suns. It dazzled the very soul, and for a few moments, blinded every pair of eyes in the hall save my own.
Morjin was especially stricken by this terrible and beautiful light. He stood at the center of the black circle on top of the dragon's open mouth, gasping in terror because he was suddenly more blind than Atara. And then, finally, with a sickening jolt, he realized why my friends and I had really entered Argattha. He saw that the brilliance of my sword had come not from my hate but from a deeper resonance that he had long been denied. And so he opened his mouth and let loose a terrible cry that filled all the hall:
VALARIII!
His raw, outraged voice shook the stones of the pillars to the sides of the throne even as he shook his head about and howled like a mad dog. His hatred was a terrible thing. It blasted out into the hall like the fire of a furnace from hell. He hated me, and all of us, with a black, bitter fury for keeping this secret from him. And even more, he hated his own blindness that had lasted thirty centuries and lasted still.
'Guards!' he screamed. 'Kill the Valari! Take the Lightstone!' I saw that the Lightstone's radiance was now beginning to fade and would soon return to a simple golden sheen. After taking a last look at it, I tucked the little cup down beneath my mail shirt over my heart. And then, lifting up my bright, long sword, I hurried down the steps of the throne and rushed forward to do battle to defend it.
Chapter 45
To be cast into darkness is the cruelest of fates. Morjn's sudden blindness struck terror into him. He waved his had in front of his face and screamed out, 'Guards! To me! To me!' Like writhing, sightless insects, his guards stumbled about and man aged to swarm around Morjin and protect him with their frantically waving spears.
More than one of these steel-tipped shafts pierced a hand or eye of a neighboring guard, and their screams fell out into the hall as well. I sensed that I had only moments before they regained their vision. And so 1 sprinted from the throne straight across the hall toward the circle where Atara, Ymiru and Master fuwain were bound.
Three guards, no doubt hearing the pounding of my boots against the floor, stabbed out their spears blindly to stop me. I parried their clumsy thrusts and cut them down.
And then I pushed my way through other guards until I came to the standing stone holding up Atara. I swung Alkaladur twice, with great precision; its incredibly sharp silustria cut clean through her chains in a shriek of snapping iron. I wrapped my arm around her back as I led her over to Master Juwam's and Ymiru's stones and likewise freed them.
Four more guards tried to hinder me - or perhaps they were only fleeing into me in their blindness. I reddened my sword in the warm, wet sheaths of their bodies. I led Atara over to the part of the circle where our weapons and gelstei had been heaped.
And then the still-blind
Master Juwain and Ymiru.
It took only a moment for me to grab up Ymiru's great war club and press it into his remaining hand. He suddenly regained his vision even as his huge fingers closed around the haft.
'Now there be blood!' he roared out as his eyes leaped with light. He stood glaring at the nearby guards as I tucked his violet crystal into the pouch on his belt. 'Now they'll know what real hrorror be!'
As Master Juwain espied his green gelstel lying on the bloodstained floor, Ymiru raised up his club and began laying about Morjin's guards with a terrifying ferocity.
Flesh and bones broke like eggshells with a sickening crunch as gouts of flesh sprayed out into the air. Four more men fell like bludgeoned chickens. The gargoyles carved into the walls and pillars of the hall - to say nothing of the statues of the fallen Galadin - smiled their hideous smiles to behold a bloody horror that would make even stone itself quail.
And all the while, Morjin kept screaming out, 'Guards! To me! To me!'
'Master Juwain!' I said as he held his crystal in front of Atara's face to stop the bleeding there. 'Stay close!'
Blood still trickled from his ruined ear, and he nodded his head. 'Atara!' I said, putting her sword into her hand. 'Stay by me!' I worried that she would be too weak to stand; I didn't quite see how I could protect both her and the Lightstone in the battle that was building around us. And then she astonished me by moving precisely to gather up her bow and arrows as if she could sense how they lay on the floor. She strapped on her quiver and then turned her eyeless head toward me, saying, 'No, Val
- stay with the others. I've men to slay.'
She smiled grimly and broke away from me; she took off at a run, dodging or stabbing guards who tried to block her way. When she had fought clear of the circle, she began running straight for Morjin's throne.
How is it possible! I wondered. How is it possible that the sightless can see?
I had no time to ponder this mystery. Even as Atara bounded up the throne's steps, leaped upon the seat of the throne and climbed up the face of the dragon to stand on top of its head, the sight began returning to our enemies, one by one. A few were so bold as to attack Ymiru or me, and these quickly died. But soon the entire host of Morjin's guard would be able to see us and direct their spears and halberds in a coordinated assault And then they would surely cut us down.
'To me!' a strong voice called out like the roar of a lion. 'Val, to me!'
Across the circle, at its edge in the direction of the pillars and the hall's eastern gate, Kane had also regained the use of his eyes. He had wasted no time or pity in butchering Morjin's men; at least seven of them lay dead beneath his dripping sword.
His efforts, however, weren't directed against these spear carriers and halberd wielders. It seemed that he was trying to slash his way toward Morjin, who stood near the center of the ritual area ringed by several circles of still-dazzled guards. 'Val, kill the Grays first, if you can!' Kane shouted.
Between Morjin and Kane gathered the thirteen Grays. These dreadful men might have paralyzed any and all of us but for the wrath of Liljana, who fought by Kane's side along with Maram. She held her blue gelstei up beore her. I could almost feel it resonating with the Lightstone close to my heart and gaining great power. It seemed to flow forth an ethereal radiance like that of a hot blue star. So fierce was Liljana's attack upon the Grays' minds that they grabbed their heads and howled in helplessness. And Kane howled out as well. 'To me!' And then, with Maram fighting frantically by his side and covering him. he finally broke througth the ring of guards around the Grays and began matching their long knives with his much longer sword.
It took him only a few moments to slaughter all of them.
As the last of them fell, Liljana joined Kane in fixing her eyes on Morjin. And the Great Beast suddenly bellowed out, 'Get out of my mind, witch!'
I could almost feel the blast of pure mental fire that Morjin directed Liljana. For a moment she stood utterly stricken. It was as if she stood writhing in the midst of all the flames of hell. And then she turned on him a terrible fire of her own.
Now many more of Morjin's guards were able to see, and they closed ranks to protect their lord. Kane, Maram and Liliana were forced to retreat back a few dozen yards toward the throne. Ymiru and I, with Master Juwain behind us, fought our way around the edge of the circle and joined them a hundred feet from the throne and about as far from the line of pillars to the east. It was an exposed position with the bare black stone of the floor all around us. Behind us rose the dragon throne, upon which Atara now stood holding her great curved bow. Ahead of us was the mass of guards shielding Morjin inside the circle. For us, I saw, further retreat would be futile; soon Morjin's men would drive us back to the corner of the room. And so I called for us to form u
p into a five pointed star: I stood facing Morjin, with Kane on my right and Ymiru on my left. Maram and Liljana stood farther back with Master Juwain in the star's center.
At that moment, Atara loosed the first of her arrows. It burned through the air and struck through the face of a tall guard standing in front of Morjin. Atara cried out,
'Sixty-one!' Then, in quick succession three more arrows sang out and found their marks in the guards surrounding Morjin. She would have slain the great Red Dragon himself if Morjin and his priests hadn't ducked down beneath their shields of living flesh. 'Atara!' I cried out. 'Kill the captains firs!'t I didn't understand how Atara's arrow found these four steel-clad men. It took her only six more shots to send them on to the stars. As death rained down all about Morjin and he cowered at the center of the circle, his naked fear beat out into the room.
He was perhaps the last person in the hall to regain his sight. As he finally did. and one of his priests pointed out where Atara stood on top of his throne with her great bow like an angel of death, he shouted 'Kill her!'
'Kane!' I called out. None of Morjin's captains remained standing to lead the charge against Atara. In only moments, Morjin would see his strategy for victory, he would deploy perhaps twenty of his remaining seventy guards to charge the throne and slay Atara. Then, freed from the murderous flight of her arrows, he would be able to order the rest of his guards against us . They would soon flank us in a well-coordinated assault and annihilate us. 'Everyone,' I called again, 'attack!'
I led forth into the clot of men gathered around Morjin and his priests. Four guards stabbed their spears toward me I swung Alkaladur and cut through the shafts of all the spears in a single stroke; on the backstroke, I took off the head of one of these guards and cut clean through another's arm deep into his chest. Kane, at my right, quickly butchered two more as Ymiru's club fell straight down and crushed a halberd-bearing guard to a bloody pulp.
A few guards, on their own initiative, had tried to circle around us. Liljana stabbed one of these through the neck while Maram worked his sword against the sword and spear of two others. I sensed a great strength flowing into him. He cut and parried and thrust all the while grunting like a bear. Although his gelstei was cracked, the presence of the Lightstone seemed to cause some of its fire to ignite his heart and limbs. He suddenly snarled as he drove his sword clean through the opposing swordsman's chest. And then whipping it free, he turned to parry a spear thrust and bury his sword in its owner's eye.
We had slain many but many more stood before us. The stone eyes of Angra Mainyu looking out upon the battle might have recorded that we were still badly outnumbered. But I knew that the numbers favored us. For we were more than six warriors against sixty. Kane fought beside me with the strength and fury of ten men, and all that he had taught me came out in the speed and precision of my sword which flashed and cut as if I wielded ten swords in my hands. My father was there beside me as well, and his weapons master, Lansar Rashaaru, and Asaru, Karshur, Yarashan and all my brothers. My mother fought with me like a lioness, calling out encouragements and warnings, protecting me, urging me to live at all costs and return home to her. In truth, the entire host of the Valari was in the hall that day, the Ishkans with the Meshians, the Waashians and the warriors of Kaash, and it was as if we slashed ten thousand bright steel kalamas into the soul of our ancient enemy.
Panic in battle, is a terrible thing. The victors strike it into the vanquished in the furious dash of steel against steel in the lionlike roar of their hearts and in the blaze of their eyes. It spreads among the doomed like a disease: here a guard cries out in dismay while another sprays his neighbor in a fountain of blood; there a halberd wavers in the air and a spearman pulls back behind the imagined safety of others around him while many others begin falling back as well and even a few break and run. Panic also communicates from commander to commanded like wildfire through dry grass. When a king, on the field of battle, loses heart, he has no hope of victory.
Even as Ymiru's club crumpled steel and my sword cut through the guards' armor as if it were cloth, as Atara's arrows sizzled through the air and struck down guards and priests like lightning falling from the heavens, Morjin was seized with a great fear of death. I felt it come quivering alive within his chest and then spread out in waves through the men bunched around him. In truth, they now fought like maddened beasts rather than men. They bunched and screamed and swarmed about Morjin.
And his voice rose above the clamor of the spears and clashing steel: 'Retreat!
Retreat to the gate!'
A commander who cannot view all of his forces arrayed against the enemy will find battle to be a vast, boiling doud of unknowing. For a warrior caught in the thick of flashing swords and blood, battle is a tunnel of fire. I, who held the Bright Sword in my hands, suddenly saw the ferocious fight through Morjin's throne room as from the vantage of an eagle high above and as a fiercely struggling knight swinging sword against sword - all at once. And I saw this with an astonishing darity. In front of me, the mass of men moved a few yards toward the southwest, and I knew that Morjin intended to flee through the door leading to his private chambers rather than through the room's west gate. Already one of his priests had broken from the drde to run and open this door. Although the tightly pressed guards prevented my view of his flight, I heard his boots pounding against the floor even as Atara's bowstring sang out its twanging tune of death. And so I 'saw' him dutch his chest against the arrow sticking out of it and fall to the floor. Likewise I became aware of Liljana behind me slipping her sword through a guard's defenses and thrusting its steel point through the mail covering his belly.
His scream was as strangled and deep as the knot of his suddenly pierced intestines.
Nearby, Maram matched swords against sword with a master warrior. The clanging of steel reverberated with rythms in my blood as Maram fought with a fury and skill I hadn't known he possessed. In truth, in that moment with his brilliant sword and his heart of fire, he fought like a Valari knight. He suddenly killed his man with a quick thrust and then turned to cross swords with another.
In this most desperate of battles, we even had help from two unexpected sources. At the center of the star whose five points were Kane, Liljana, Maram, Ymiru and I, Master Juwain stood with his green gelstei blazing and pouring new life into our tired limbs and souls. And as we inched slowing toward the door leading to Morjin's rooms, Daj suddenly darted out from behind a pillar and grabbed up a cast-off spear. He went forth mercilessly finishing off the wounded and dying where they lay sprawled and groaning on the floor. One guard, outraged at his temerity, closed and swung his halberd at his head. Daj dropped low, beneath the blow even as he thrust up with the spear. It drove straight into the guard's groin. In the wrath of his awful scream, the guard's backstroke would have split open Dai's brains if Ymiru hadn't come up and brained him with his terrible club.
'Val!' Kane called out to my right. His sword flashed and a hand flew though the air nearby. 'Don't let Morjin escape!'
I was closer to him than was Kane. Now, through the mass of men in front of me, I caught glimpses of Morjin's golden tunic. He still crouched low, taking cover behind his frantically battling guards. But as Atara fired off the last of her arrows and her mighty bow fell silent, he stood up straight and drew his sword. His eyes found mine across ten yards of the blood-slick floorstone. His hatred poured out of them and something more: he tried to murder me with a sudden blast of the valarda. The shining silustria of my sword, however, shielded me from this deadly assault - as it did my companions. And as I raised Alkaladur high above my head, he looked upon it and saw his death.
I fought with a rare fury to kill him then. But this came not from a desire for vengeance. The only way for me to guard the Lightstone was to slay my enemies, not in fear, anger or hate, but only in knowledge, prowess and necessity, even out of love - a vast and terrible love beyond love that would destroy such diseased beings as Morjin so that new and greater life could b
e. He was a poisonous serpent who must be slain if I was to protect others. And more, he was a cracked vessel who could not hold light but only darkness. He had lived ages too long, and it was long past time that the One made a new cup out of this particular day.
It was the destroying wrath of the One itself that fell upon me and blazed forth through the lightning strokes of my sword. I swung Alkaladur and struck off a guard's head; I lunged and drove its point through the mail covering a guard's chest, clean through his body and into the chest of the guard pressed up close behind him.
In wrenching its blade free, I killed two more. A few moments later, another guard tried to parry a quick blow. My sword cut the steel of his - and then cut straight down through his shoulder, cleaving his body in two. The terror of my sword caused the guards behind him to panic. But they were bunched around Morjin too close simply, to flee.
At last, I understood the Valari ideal of fearlessness, flawlessness and flowingness, not just with my head, but in the exquisite pressure of the black jade of my sword's hilt against my hands, and in the surging of my heart and deep in my soul.
Fearlessness: I was at one with the death that I dealt out, and so with the wild joy of life that poured into me. If I saw that a guard's spear thrust might be taken square upon my armor, I didn't flinch from it, but rather trusted to the strength of its steel rings forged by the master armorers of Mesh. Thus I was free to thrust and cut myself, like a whirlwind whipping a silver blade among my foes, lunging and parrying and killing - all the time dancing the wild and delicate dance of death.
Flawlessness: In the grace bestowed upon me, nothing could pierce the perfect diamond clarity of my awareness and will to fulfill my fate. All of my soul was in my sword, and my sword was in me, and so I cut my way through steel and flesh straight toward Morjin.
The Lightstone Page 101