Fall of Angels

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  The focal change failed to help, and another flare of light lit the hillside, even as the Lornian forces reached a point less than two hundred cubits from Ryba and the guards.

  “Shit!” He could sense the interlocked shields of the two wizards on the hillside, and his mind and fingers tried to tighten the focus of the beam, to swing it right against those red-white shields.

  The energy in the firin cells seemed to build, and Nylan could sense the surging power, surges with far more energy than those cells could have possibly contained, as well as the invisible hands of the white wizard, probing, jabbing.

  The engineer concentrated, ignoring the nearing hoofbeats, ignoring the raging chaos in the power cells behind him, trying to focus his energy and order into the thinnest, sharpest needle of order and power.

  The white shields pulsed, and the needle halted. Nylan concentrated harder, and the black needle probed at the reddish-white shields, narrowing, narrowing. Nylan squeezed all the firin cell energy into that needle, driving it, hammering like a smith might hammer a needle-thin chisel against the joints in armor, relentlessly probing.

  His eyes burned; his head felt like an anvil he was using, as though each thrust of the laser and the chaos somehow added by the white wizards rebounded back through him. His fingers were locked on the laser, as though held there by an electric current that flayed his nerves.

  Still, Nylan hammered the needle against the white-red shields, forcing more and more power into that thrust, more and more chaos, more and more disruption, fighting the chaos backlash, and the lines of fire that felt as if they streamed from the white wizards and fell like lashes across his mind and body.

  The shields of the white wizards wavered, and Nylan eased every erg of energy, chaotic and nonchaotic, smoothing it into an overwhelming tide of massed energy that cascaded against the pulsing white shields of the struggling Lornian wizards.

  Something has to give… has to… has to, thought Nylan as he strained against the barriers that protected the Lornians.

  CRRUMMMMMPTTT!

  Energy flared across the Roof of the World, and the sky shivered and the ground shook, and all three wizards were clothed in flame and chaos. At that moment, Tower Black, rearing mounts, guards, armsmen, and wizards were suspended in a timeless instant-bathed in fire, bathed in chaos, bathed in order.

  CXXVI

  “LEAVE THE SIEGE engines at the bottom there,” Sillek orders Viendros.

  Viendros nods, as does Koric from beyond the Gallosian commander. If they can clear the field, then there will be time for the engines. If not, they will never get close enough to use them. The Gallosian rides back toward the lagging equipment.

  ‘ Arrows continue to fly from the trees on the left, and from the rocky jumble on the right. Sillek occasionally glimpses a slim figure retreating uphill as the Lornian force, under the two differently shaded purple banners, continues forward. The lancers advance almost in circles, keeping the horses moving at angles and turning abruptly to cut down on the ability of the angel archers to predict where the horsemen will be.

  The foot keep their small shields raised, and many arrows either stick in the shields or bounce off. A fair number penetrate defenses and bodies, and several dozen bodies sprawl across the hillside behind the advance, as has been the case for kays.

  “Keep moving!” Sillek orders. A flicker of something catches his eye, and he turns to see a squad of fast-moving angels riding toward the lead lancers. Almost before he can see what has happened, the angels have ridden farther uphill and into the dark cover of the high firs.

  What Sillek can see are four or five riderless mounts and a slight slowing of the advance.

  “Send a troop after them!” he orders Koric.

  Koric looks puzzled.

  “They’ll do it again. After the next quick attack send twice that many riders after them.”

  “Ser…”

  “I know. Most of them will get killed. But if we let them slow us down much more… we’ll take even more losses from those damned arrows.”

  “We could turn back.”

  Sillek laughs. “I wouldn’t last two days if I brought back an army and no victory.”

  “We could wait.”

  “Every day we’d lose another hundred troops. How long would they stand it? How long before I had no army?” He raises the sabre for emphasis.

  Koric nods reluctantly, then summons a messenger, who rides around the main body and to the vanguard.

  Halfway up the long slope another squad of angels darts from the woods, slashing at the left flank of the lancers. Two squads of purple tunics race after them, catching one trailing rider, and slashing her from her mount.

  The lancers slow, but do not stop as they near the trees, then vanish.

  No one else attacks while the main force slogs another three hundred cubits uphill, while Viendros rejoins Sillek and Koric. Then a single mount staggers out of the trees, a purple figure sagging in the saddle. No other lancers return.

  “Demons!” mutters Koric. ‘They’re worse than the Jeranyi.“

  “Far worse,” agrees Viendros.

  “Keep moving! Do the same thing if they attack from the flank again. One more attack, and we’ll have the crest.” Sillek turns to Terek. “Is the crest still clear, Ser Wizard? No pits in the ground?”

  Terek bounces in the saddle, then answers. “No pits. I can sense that. The ground is solid, and clear except for some posts. They look like they started to build some fences. I saw them working on the fences days ago, but they’re gone now. All that’s left are the posts. Can your horsemen avoid them?”

  “How big are they?”

  “Like a tree trunk, shoulder-high. I would say ten cubits apart.”

  “That shouldn’t be a problem.” Sillek nods to Koric.

  “We need to charge them, to cut them off,” says Viendros.

  Another squad of angel riders flashes down to less than a hundred cubits from the advancing lancers, reins up, where the riders draw short bows. The two dozen arrows almost wipe out the front row of horsemen, and the advance slows. A second angel squad appears on the right quarter, and also lets loose their arrows.

  “Shit…” mutters someone. “No one shoots that hard from horseback.”

  Sillek wants to agree, but looks at Koric, then turns to Terek. “Are there any foot, any pikes, anything like that on the hill crest or beyond?

  “Just the posts, ser.”

  “Koric,” Sillek orders, “send all our lancers right after those riders. Clear the hill crest!”

  “Yes, ser!” Koric nods, and beside him the trumpet sounds, and sounds again.

  “Mine too, I think!” snaps Viendros, and he spurs his horse uphill.

  Almost in insolence as nearly two hundred lancers begin to trot forward, sabres at the ready, the angels wait, and loose another horseback volley. Only a dozen riders stagger in their saddles or fall, and the angels fall back. In fact, they gallop away as though demons were pursuing them, and the lancers charge over the hill crest, pressing their mounts.

  The hill seems to shiver, ever so slightly. Then, a wave of screams, mostly horse screams, echoes down the hillside.

  “What?” Sillek turns to Terek.

  “A terrible hidden thing…” stammers the wizard.

  “You said that there were no pits, and that they had ridden over the entire hillside!” Sillek rides around his own forces, ignoring the wizard and heading over the hill crest, ignoring Koric and his own guards.

  As he crosses the crest, he reins in, staring at the mangled remains of more than fifty horse impaled on the line of pikes that had appeared from nowhere, suspended on heavy cross poles from the so-called fence posts.

  Arrows start to fall once more, centered on the foot trying to hack through or climb or slip through the pike wall. Behind the pikes, those foot levies not struggling to chop the wooden pikes clear of the stout frames are dragging bodies away from the pike line. Yet the arrows, the demon-damned arr
ows, sleet down from everywhere.

  Sillek waves to the first rank of the foot. “Clear those pikes. Now! Clear them!”

  Viendros, from the western side of the field, echoes the orders.

  Koric, riding hard, has caught up with his lord, and he repeats the command.

  By standing in the saddle, Sillek can make out a second line of posts, almost concealed in the high meadow grasses beyond the lower grass of the ridge crest.

  “Stand down,” hisses Koric. “You’re making yourself a target.”

  Sillek lowers himself into the saddle.

  “Charge again!” demands Koric.

  “No! Not yet.” Sillek twists in the saddle. “Terek! That second line of posts down the hill. Burn down the post on the end. The last one. Turn it into cinders.”

  The white wizard frowns.

  “Do it. There are more of those demonish pikes attached there. You burn it, and we can sweep around those defenses on the left side away from the tower and the road.”

  “There are archers on that side,” points out Koric.

  “There are archers everywhere, it seems.”

  As Sillek and Koric talk, the two wizards concentrate. Then one firebolt and another flash toward the big squat post. The post remains standing.

  “Well?” asks Sillek.

  “It’s green wood, ser, and it’s infused with order.”

  Another volley of the deadly arrows sheets into the front ranks, and horses and men fall.

  “You sure they are only score two?” rasps Koric.

  “They’re angels, remember?” counters Sillek. “Do you want to fight them when they’ve built up to score twenty?”

  Koric shakes his head. “We’ll get them.”

  Another set of firebolts flare at the post, and another.

  As the wizards work to destroy the lynch post, as the foot levies and engineers hack away the barrier of pikes and bodies, the arrows keep falling, and horses and men scream.

  Then one line of the crude angel pikes falls, and another, and the remaining lancers start forward.

  “To the left!” yells Koric, riding forward, and sending his remaining messengers out.

  The left end lynch post of the second pike line crumbles into ashes, but the next line of pikes springs up to the west of the last section, and a handful of angels sprint downhill from behind the posts. A half-dozen overeager lancers spit themselves on the second line of pikes, but one of the few crossbowmen slams a bolt between the shoulder blades of a fleeing angel, and the woman pitches headfirst into the grass.

  “One less evil angel,” mutters Terek. Sillek studies the field, watching as the remnants of the angels, a handful on foot, less than a score on mounts, draw up on the new paved road above a new stone bridge, a thin line between the advancing forces and the tower. “It’s almost a pity,” he murmurs. “A waste.”

  “Don’t feel sorry now, My Lord,” rumbles Koric. Sillek shakes off the feeling and sheathes the sabre. Then he pulls forth the great blade from the shoulder scabbard, a blade as near a duplicate to his father’s as he has been able to have forged.

  “Ser!” yells Terek. “The wizard’s down there, in that little stone fort, and he’s doing something.”

  “Well, undo it!” snaps Sillek. “That’s your job.” He glances over his shoulder to see that the last of his forces are clear of the demonish pikes and ready for the assault on the remaining angels.

  The trumpet sounds, and the Lornian forces move forward, a trot for the lancers, a quickstep for the foot, ready at last to avenge all the hurts, the wounds, the deaths suffered on this campaign into the cold and unfriendly Westhorns.

  Sillek raises his blade and rides forward. So does Viendros.

  As they do, the hillside is bathed in red light-a red light that burns faintly, as though the sun had grown hotter, or Sillek had stood too close to the fire. The Lord of Lornth turns in the saddle, not slowing, to see Terek and Jissek, almost frozen in their saddles. Even Sillek can sense the immense forces that surge between the two wizards and the small fort on the flat below.

  “Faster!” he yells to Koric.

  Koric looks to the wizards, and then jabs the bugler, and the quick advance call rings out over the hillside.

  Sillek gallops toward the angels, aiming himself toward the tall black-haired woman.

  Another wave of red light flashes across the downslope, and Sillek urges his mount forward, knowing he must reach the angels quickly.

  The ground trembles.

  Sillek spurs his horse forward. Yet another two hundred cubits separate him from the angel forces, and the ground trembles again.

  Then, a single shriek and a dull rumbling sound that lasts forever and yet is instantaneous cross the hillside, and Sillek feels as though a mighty blade of fire and destruction slams toward the hillside, toward him, as the heavens turn brilliant, burning white, as the air sears hotter than noon in the Stone Hills.

  “Govern well, Gethen,” whispers Sillek, and, as the incredible flare of whiteness flashes out from that focal point around Terek and Jissek, Sillek feels himself flaming, and he holds, for a moment, the images of Zeldyan and Nesslek, even as his great sword melts in his hand, and he with it.

  The hillside shudders, and a dull huge clap echoes off the rocks and the surrounding higher peaks, echoes, and reechoes, like a chain of images trapped in mirrors facing each other, getting fainter and fainter, and stretching farther and farther away. The earth tremors echo each other, and flashes of light, like whole-sky lightning, blaze across the Roof of the World.

  Then… ashes fall like snow across the hillside, burning like fire as they touch the dry grass west of the devastation.

  CXXVII

  CRUUMPPTTT!!!

  The building of intertwined chaos and order stretched and stretched through an endless and timeless moment, then…

  A miniature sun-a green and gold fireball-flared in the middle of the hillside below the ridge and east of Tower Black, transforming the soldiers and horses around it into statues of gray ash, then flattening those fragile shapes with its shock wave. The incineration and flattening effect flared through those Lornians farther away as the circle of destruction widened almost instantaneously.

  For a fraction of an instant two white-clad figures seemed to stand out against the tide of destruction, as if standing on a crumbling cliff before a tsunami of chaos washed over them, before they too flashed into fire and ashes.

  Nylan staggered, but continued to concentrate on focusing the laser even as he felt that wave of whiteness and mass death screaming toward him. With eyes already blind, knives stabbing through his skull, he forced the last ergs of power across the hillside, incinerating all that moved toward the road, raising instant funeral pyres-and the shock waves echoed and reechoed across the Roof of the World.

  Perhaps a handful of riders pounded downhill toward the laser, toward the smith who wielded its dying hammer against the remnants of the Lornian forces on the hillside.

  As Nylan shuddered under the first of the chaos waves that battered him, clinging to the laser, the five lancers charged the small fort.

  For a moment, nothing happened, as the new guards stood stunned, eyes wide at the conflagration and shock waves that had roared across the hillside, at the swirls of ashes and flame, at the charred shapes heaped and tossed like burned limbs from a wildfire, then swirled into less than ashes. At the outskirts of the destruction, charred bodies tumbled into heaps.

  “Fight! Frig it!” yelled Huldran, and her throwing blade cleared the wall and slammed into a lancer’s shoulder.

  Then the others, the white-faced guards, reacted, and three arrows flew, one striking another lancer.

  Relyn jumped before Nylan, and the short blade he had once scorned flashed. The lancer fell.

  The smith-engineer sagged against the burned-out laser, and his body still shook as the waves of unseen whiteness hammered at him, as he twitched in the grip of chaos and terror unseen to those beside him and arou
nd him.

  On the western fringe of the hillside perhaps half the Westwind guards stirred, but nothing else moved, except the fine ashes that rained across the Roof of the World, except the last dying flames.

  The rapidly mushrooming storm cloud that had begun to cover the entire sky, growing blacker by the moment, swallowed the sun, and the dimness of an early twilight covered the Roof of the World.

  Then Nylan’s legs collapsed as he slid to the packed clay beside the tripod base of the laser.

  The single remaining Lornian lancer spurred his horse northward and up the east side of the ridge. No one pursued, and ashes and rain fell across the Roof of the World.

  Soon, so did thunder and rain and hail, the hailstones falling and clumping in piles, white as bleached bones, cold as death.

  CXXVIII

  “RYBA, THE LEAST of the rulers of angels, thus became the last of the rulers, and the angels, having fallen from the stars after the time of the great burning, came unto the Roof of the World, where they had descended on the winds from Heaven.

  “There, in the tower called black, builded by the great smith Nylan at the behest of Ryba, there they took shelter and gathered their strength together, and abided until the winter should lift.

  “Yet since then, upon the Roof of the World, as a memory of the fall of the angels, winter yet remains.

  “When the first great winter had passed, then Nylan the smith builded yet another forge, a forge of men, not of Heaven, and with hammer and anvil, forged yet more of the black blades of death, the twin swords of Westwind, and after that, forged he the bows of winter, small enough to be carried on horse and powerful enough to split plate armor, and Ryba the angel was pleased.

  “Then, as prophesied by the demons, then came those men who were the descendants of the ancient demons, and with their fires of chaos, fell they upon the angels, for the descendants of the demons were fair determined to drive the angels from the world, and to ensure that no woman should prevail, nor rule herself nor others.

  “The lightnings were cast against the tower called black, yet that tower held fast against the lightnings of chaos, and against legions of armsmen more vast than the flow of the great rivers, more numerous than the locusts.