Yesterday's Kings

by Angus Wells

  OVER THE RIVER VALLEY where the water ran in satisfied confusion vast bats and winged serpents beat heavily against the moonlit sky. The trout ducked down, seeking refuge. The bats and dragons howled their warnings and winged away, their task done.

  Cullyn came stumbling from his pavilion, still fixing his clothing, Lyandra at his side, and saw Pyris, armored, staring at the western ridge.

  Isydrian came to them, and Afranydyr, both armored, and all their men with them in various states of disarray, some barely dressed, others in half their armor, some in full battle kit, others naked save for shields and swords, or lances or bows.

  “What is it?” Isydrian asked.

  “An attack,” Pyris answered.

  “It’s the priest—Per Fendur.” Eben joined them, Laurens standing red-eyed with wine at his side, but still kitted with a blade in his right hand, and a Durrym shield in his left. “I told you he’d found a way past the Barrier, no?”

  “I should have believed you,” Isydrian allowed.

  “Matters past,” Pyris said. “We face a common enemy now. Do we stand together?”

  Isydrian nodded. “Shahn and Zheit? There’s a first, eh?”

  “A start,” Pyris said, smiling.

  “So let’s order this rabble into battle lines.”

  Isydrian set to yelling orders and Pyris joined him, their men shaping a defensive wall between the wood-topped ridge and the encampment where the women—those not holding weapons and standing with their men—gathered in children and old folk.

  It was close on dawn, the sky a pearly gray not yet decided between light and darkness. A good time to attack, when people slept, or woke lazy from the feasting. Birds sang now that the bats and dragons had gone, and to the east the sun began to stain the horizon a bloody red.

  A LINE OF HORSEMEN came out from the trees, halting on Per Fendur’s command. The priest rode a little way forward and raised his hands. Lord Bartram shouted, “No! We’ll parley first,” but Fendur ignored him, pointing at the Durrym clustered below.

  Bartram turned his horse toward the priest, but Amadis moved to block him, dancing his charger before Bartram’s so that his lord was held away from Fendur.

  “You defy me?” Lord Bartram shouted, outraged.

  “I obey the Church, my lord.”

  “Damn you,” Bartram growled. “I’ll have an accounting for this betrayal.” He drew his sword.

  Which Amadis knocked from his hand, settling his lance point against Bartram’s chest to topple the older man from his horse.

  “Your day is done, old man. I follow Per Fendur now.”

  Bartram landed on his back, winded. He struggled to rise, but his armor was too heavy and all he could do was shout for help as his men stared in confusion and looked about to see who commanded them. Drak began to dismount, but Amadis shouted that the soldier ignore his fallen lord, and smiled from under his golden helmet as Per Fendur commenced the fashioning of his magic.

  Lord Bartram lay like an overturned turtle, helpless and furious as the battle began.

  “BEWARE!” EBEN YELLED, his bellow near deafening Cullyn. He raised his own hands, muttering furiously as light seemed to gather about the priest so that Fendur’s black-clad form grew indistinct, like a shimmering mirage. Power gathered, palpable, about him, and then he was hidden altogether as the light became incandescent and erupted.

  It was akin to that other attack, when Cullyn had first encountered Lyandra, but far more powerful. Myriad fires shot from where the priest stood his horse, great licking tongues of flame that seared the morning and struck like lightning at the Durrym ranks. Cullyn kicked Lyandra’s feet from under her and flung himself on her even as she protested, cursing volubly. Laurens dropped to the ground beside them as the morning was filled with a sulphurous stench, as if some great furnace gate had been opened. Durrym died without a sound, torched by that dreadful fire too swiftly to cry out. Rather, they were reduced to crisped corpses that collapsed into drifting ashes. Tents took fire, the grand pavilions burning so that for a while flame held the Durrym trapped. Some sought refuge in the river, more followed Cullyn’s example and fell to the ground. Cullyn looked up, wondering if his hair burned, and saw Eben standing like some ancient monument, his hands thrust out even as little flames danced over his robe and across his hair. And then it was as if a great wind blew, conjured from his hands to gust against Per Fendur’s magic and drive the flames back toward the priest. Cullyn gasped as the light died to reveal Fendur again, seated angry on his black horse. He ignored the fallen men, gazing furiously down the slope.

  Eben slapped at the embers scorching his robe and shook his head, sending ashes and hanks of burning hair to fall in a cloud around him. “The priest is strong,” he muttered, “but it shall take him a while to recover.”

  “And you?” Cullyn rose warily. It seemed to him that Eben was suddenly aged, his already ancient face now haggard.

  “I’ll survive. I’ve lived too long to die now. But until that bastard gathers his strength again, it’ll be sword work.”

  As if to confirm his words, Per Fendur shouted a command, and from over the ridge came the might of Lyth Keep, a flood of horsemen that thundered down toward the Durrym pavilions, armored and bearing lances, waving swords as the bowmen shafted arrows that pricked men and tents in equal measure.

  Cullyn saw a Shahn taken through the throat by a shaft, and ran forward, toward the charge.

  “No! This is madness!”

  He ducked as arrows flew past his head, and turned to Lyandra.

  She crouched beside him, holding a shield and her long knife. Three shafts stood upright on her shield; a fourth plucked at her cap, and Cullyn felt madness encompass him. He saw a golden-armored horseman thundering toward them, riders on his flanks, and all charging with couched lances that seemed angled entirely at Lyandra. He sprang to face the assault.

  The leading rider held a lance and a shield, all armored in gold, and his horse was kitted with gilded mail. Cullyn saw the lance angled at Lyandra. He chopped it aside, and saw her toppled by the charger’s path even as he was flung away and the rest of the charge went past in a confusion of hoofs and sound and trampled sod. He tumbled, dizzied by the impact, his head spinning as the lancer brought his horse around in a tightly dancing circle and charged again.

  Cullyn glanced to where Lyandra still lay and saw the lance’s point aimed at his chest. He raised his sword, thinking that he was about to die.

  Then Laurens was there, swinging a Durrym blade against the horse’s muzzle, against the armor, so that the animal swerved away from Lyandra and Cullyn and came crashing down, screaming in pain.

  The rider staggered to his feet, his armor dented and bloodied. He lofted a sword that Laurens smashed aside, then delivered a cut that sent sparkling pieces of golden armor lofting like jewels into the rising sunlight.

  He chopped again, a butcher’s game, down into the helmet, and through, and Amadis died.

  “Thank you. You saved my life,” Cullyn gasped

  “I enjoyed it,” Laurens answered. “I never liked him.”

  Then the battle raged about them and it was all survival, parry and cut, hack one man down and avoid the next blow. Cullyn lost sight of Lyandra, who darted limber amongst the Kandarians, her long knife flashing until it was all bloody.

  LORD BARTRAM FOUND HIS FEET with difficulty. Shame filled him as he located his sword and sheathed the blade. He caught his nervous horse and, with an effort that seemed to take what little breath was left him, mounted. He turned to Fendur. “I gave no order to attack. We might have spoken with them!”

  “With Durrym?” The priest’s face was sallow, his eyes hollow and reddened. “Durrym are only good for slaughtering.”

  “And Abra?”

  “What of her? Her only importance is that she brought us here.”

  “My daughter is no pawn.” Bartram’s sword was suddenly in his hand, as if he were young again. He saw the battle before him, his men and Du
rrym dying needlessly. He wondered how his daughter fared amongst such carnage, and what betrayal was planned by Amadis and the priest.

  “Of course she is,” Fendur sneered, “as are you. Only pawns.”

  “I command here,” Bartram growled, and reached for the horn that would call his men back.

  “Think you so, old man?” Fendur laughed wickedly. “Your wife sleeps with your captain, and your daughter takes a filthy Durrym for her lover. What command does that leave you? No, I command here. In the name of the Church.”

  Lord Bartram raised the horn.

  Per Fendur said, “You’ll not call them back,” and stuck his blade into Bartram’s side, between the joining of the pauldron and the breastplate. The horn fell from fingers that were abruptly numbed by the terrible pain that filled the old man’s body. It was as if the horn became filled with cold and heat simultaneously, running down his arm into his throat, his chest, his ribs.

  He was dimly aware of his charger prancing beneath him, bucking and shaking its head. The terrain swirled before him and then he was staring at the freshly blued sky, all the breath smashed from his body. He realized that he was dismounted, stretched on the trampled grass, his sword gone. Fendur danced his black horse around the fallen lord, laughing.

  “Your time is past, old man. You grew too soft, eh? To contemplate alliance with the Durrym? No!”

  He left Bartram and set his horse to moving down the slope, already fashioning a further spell.

  “THE WOMEN AND CHILDREN?” Isydrian parried a Kandarian blade and smashed his own against the soldier’s ribs.

  “Tended.” Pyris drove his sword’s point into his attacker’s throat and spun to stab into the back of the man assaulting Isydrian. “Mallandra takes them to safety.” He chanced a glance at the burning pavilions. “And Abra, too, I think.”

  Isydrian looked toward the river. A pall of smoke hung above the tents, swirling where it met the breeze coming off the water. Folk splashed through the shallows, ushered on by the two women, gathering on the farther bank, where nervous animals watched from the trees.

  It was one of those curious lulls that occur in the midst of battle, so that for a moment the two Durrym lords stood alone, the fighting raging bloody around them but they cupped in a moment of solitude.

  “You fight well,” Isydrian said.

  “As do you.”

  “We might be friends.”

  “Are we not, now?”

  Isydrian nodded, then raised his sword and returned to the combat.

  CULLYN STOOD back-to-back with Laurens. Both their blades were sheathed in blood and Cullyn feared he might vomit. How many Kandarians had he slain, men he might have known in other circumstances?

  “This is madness.”

  “This is war.”

  “Then war is madness.”

  “Likely, but …” Laurens brought up his shield as a javelin arced at Cullyn. He caught the missile and hacked off the shaft. “What choice have we?”

  “If I could talk with Lord Bartram …”

  “I doubt he’s in the mood for talking.” Laurens took a sword blow on his shield, parrying the counter to drive his point hard through chain mail, into the man’s belly. Then gasped as the dying man fell back. “Drak? Is that you?”

  Drak tottered, sword forgotten, his shield too weighty now to hold up. For a moment they stood facing one another. Then Drak said hoarsely, “You’ve killed me. Damn that foul priest.”

  “Yes, forgive me,” Laurens answered, and stabbed Drak’s throat that he die swiftly. He turned to Cullyn: “I’ve no more liking for this than you. I’m killing men I knew—drank with; men I’d name as friends—but destiny names our paths, and mine runs alongside yours. So …”

  He ducked, raising his shield as arrows flew, and then they were again encompassed by the battle and there was no time for further debate: only the business of bloody survival.

  LOFANTYL SAW ABRA and Mallandra take the defenseless ones across the river, saw them gather on the far bank and prayed they be safe.

  Afranydyr said, “You fight well, brother. Better than I thought you capable of.”

  “I don’t enjoy it,” Lofantyl replied. “This is stupid.”

  “The Garm delivered it.” Afranydyr swung his sword as one of the few still-mounted Kandarians thrust a lance at his chest. He knocked the lance away with his shield and ducked to deliver a blow that broke the horse’s knees. The beast screamed and fell, pitching its rider from the saddle. The man landed on his face in the bloodied grass, and Afranydyr hacked at his neck, breaking it, then plunged his blade into the wounded horse that it suffer no longer. “We have no other choice,” he said.

  “We might have talked with them. I think they came to find Abra.”

  “Or conquer Coim’na Drhu.”

  “Even so, we might have spoken.”

  “With Garm’kes—”

  Afranydyr was unable to finish the sentence because an arrow drove into his throat and his mouth filled up with blood. It spurted from his gaping mouth as his eyes opened wide in disbelief. He coughed gobbets of crimson and dropped his blade as he reached for the projectile that pierced his windpipe.

  Lofantyl gaped, for a moment stunned. The shaft protruded from under the cheekpieces of his brother’s helmet, the fletchings set firm against the neck, the bloody tip jutting from the jointure of Afranydyr’s spine and skull. Streamers of blood flooded from his nostrils as he fell to his knees. He clutched the arrow and snapped the shaft, then tugged it clear.

  “I’m slain,” he mumbled through the flooding of his mouth. And then fell down on his face and lay still.

  Lofantyl turned. The archer was dismounted, nocking a fresh shaft. Lofantyl raised his shield and charged. An arrow hit the shield, driving through hide and wood, the tip protruding through the inner side. He ignored it, slamming the shield into the bowman’s face as the archer snatched at his narrow sword.

  He had no time to draw the blade, for Lofantyl was caught up in the battle madness. He smashed the archer down and plunged his blade into the man’s chest, twisting it as his victim screamed, then hacking at the writhing body. “For Afranydyr!”

  “THIS IS MADNESS.” Eben watched Per Fendur bring his black horse down the slope. “Why do you do this?”

  He knew the answer: power; dominion; conquest. All the stupid, pointless ambitions of petty men. And all of them delivering other men to death.

  Am I any better? he wondered, and then dismissed the question: I know that I must oppose him, because I believe he is evil, and it becomes his belief against mine. So I have no choice save to hold my own beliefs and oppose what I believe is wrong.

  So he faced the priest.

  Behind them the fighting slowed—too many dead, sword arms weary, archers’ fingers sore from the plucking of the bows, arrows used up; men on tired horses that panted for want of water finding their lances heavy. The morning stank of blood and burning. Armored men—Durrym and Kandarian—rested on their swords as a great stillness filled the valley.

  And Per Fendur rode toward Eben.

  TWENTY

  CULLYN WATCHED afraid as Per Fendur brought his black horse down the bloodied slope to where Eben stood. Bodies lay about him and the air stank of blood and dying, and the foul aftermath of Fendur’s magic. He squinted as he saw a brightness shimmer about the priest—as if the man were girded in mirage-light. He was suddenly aware of Lyandra at his side, and the tremendous relief he felt that she was alive; nor less when Laurens joined them.

  “What now?” he asked. “Is there not an archer can put a shaft into that black crow?”

  “It’s between Eben and him,” Laurens said. “I think it’s what Eben wants.”

  “And if Eben is slain?”

  “Then I’ll face the priest.” There was honest loathing in Laurens’s answer.

  “Or I, were that possible. Save it’s not.”

  Cullyn realized that Pyris had joined them, and Isydrian, who said: “And if not you, the
n me. I believe that man deserves to die. But it’s as Pyris says.”

  “Surely he cannot face us all?” Cullyn asked. “What of your magic?”

  “Useless against this priest.” Pyris shook his head.

  Cullyn frowned, frustrated and afraid for Eben. “What do you say?”

  “His magic is of a different kind,” Isydrian explained. “Ours is of wood and stone, the animals.” He grimaced. “Could I aid my son, I would. But …” He shook his head helplessly.

  “Give me a bow,” Laurens suggested, “and I’ll put a shaft into the bastard.”

  “He protects himself too well,” Isydrian returned. “He’s shielded against harm. Do you not see?”

  Laurens cursed and Cullyn narrowed his eyes again, and saw the shimmering brightness that enveloped Per Fendur extend farther as he approached Eben. The priest dismounted and waved his black horse away as he faced the older man. It seemed that they stood contained within a faint, flickering globe that simultaneously absorbed and reflected the bright morning sunlight. It was as if silvered gnats darted about them, holding them within a dancing sphere that somehow defied entry.

  “Is there nothing we can do?” Cullyn gripped the hilt of his bloodied sword, urgent to fight, to aid his friend. Then felt Lyandra’s hand gripped hard on his arm, urging him to remain still.

  “I sense it now.” Isydrian looked to Pyris. “You?”

  Pyris nodded. “He owns even more power than I’d thought.” He turned to Cullyn. “Only one blood-bonded with the priest can approach him now. A blood relative, or one whose blood he’s shared or shed.”

  “He tortured me,” Lofantyl said, sword ready in his hand.

  “But did he cut you?” asked his father.

  “No. Only stretched me.”

  “Then you’d die,” Isydrian said. “It must be blood. Only blood can break that protection.”

  They watched helplessly as the two men faced one another, priest and wizard, one in the prime of his power, the other old. Drawn to different callings, youth and rampant ambition confronting age and wisdom.