Magit made a show of squinting up at the sky, which was a pale and unwholesome yellow, a peculiar shade, such as none of the Knights had ever before seen.
“It is now twilight,” he announced sententiously. “I do not want to find myself benighted in the mountains. We will make camp here and ride out in the morning.”
The Knights stared at their commander incredulously, appalled. The wind had ceased to blow. The song no longer sang in their hearts. Silence settled over the valley, a silence that was at first a welcome change but that they were growing to loathe the longer it lasted. The silence weighed on them, oppressed them, smothered them. None spoke. They waited for their commander to tell them he’d been playing a little joke on them.
Talon Leader Magit dismounted his horse. “We will set up camp here. Pitch my command tent near the tallest of those monoliths. Galdar, you’re in charge of setting up camp. I trust you can handle that simple task?”
His words seemed unnaturally loud, his voice shrill and raucous. A breath of air, cold and sharp, hissed through the valley, swept the sand into dust devils that swirled across the barren ground and whispered away.
“You are making a mistake, sir,” said Galdar in a soft undertone, to disturb the silence as little as possible. “We are not wanted here.”
“Who does not want us, Galdar?” Talon Leader Magit sneered. “These rocks?” He slapped the side of a black crystal monolith. “Ha! What a thick-skulled, superstitious cow!” Magit’s voice hardened. “You men. Dismount and begin setting up camp. That is an order.”
Ernst Magit stretched his limbs, making a show of being relaxed. He bent double at the waist, did a few limbering exercises. The Knights, sullen and unhappy, did as he commanded. They unpacked their saddle rolls, began setting up the small, two-man tents carried by half the patrol. The others unpacked food and water.
The tents were a failure. No amount of hammering could drive the iron spikes into the hard ground. Every blow of the hammer reverberated among the mountains, came back to them amplified a hundred times, until it seemed as if the mountains were hammering on them.
Galdar threw down his mallet, which he had been awkwardly wielding with his remaining hand.
“What’s the matter, minotaur?” Magit demanded. “Are you so weak you can’t drive a tent stake?”
“Try it yourself, sir,” said Galdar.
The other men tossed down their mallets and stood staring at their commander in sullen defiance.
Magit was pale with anger. “You men can sleep in the open if you are too stupid to pitch a simple tent!”
He did not, however, choose to try to hammer the tent stakes into the rocky floor. He searched around until he located four of the black, crystal monoliths that formed a rough, irregular square.
“Tie my tent to four of these boulders,” he ordered. “At least I will sleep well this night.”
Galdar did as he was commanded. He wrapped the ropes around the bases of the monoliths, all the while muttering a minotaur incantation meant to propitiate the spirits of the restless dead.
The men also endeavored to tie their horses to the monoliths, but the beasts plunged and bucked in panicked terror. Finally, the Knights strung a line between two of the monoliths and tied the horses up there. The horses huddled together, restive and nervous, rolling their eyes and keeping as far from the black rocks as possible.
While the men worked, Ernst Magit drew a map from his saddlebags and, with a final glare around to remind them of their duty, spread the map open and began studying it with a studious and unconcerned air that fooled no one. He was sweating, and he’d done no work.
Long shadows were stealing over the valley of Neraka, making the valley far darker than the sky, which was lit with a flame-yellow afterglow. The air was hot, hotter than when they’d entered, but sometimes eddies of cold wind swirled down from the west, chilling the bones to the marrow. The Knights had brought no wood with them. They ate cold rations, or tried to eat them. Every mouthful was polluted with sand, everything they ate tasted of ashes. They eventually threw most of their food away. Seated upon the hard ground, they constantly looked over their shoulders, peering intently into the shadows. Each man had his sword drawn. No need to set the watch. No man intended to sleep.
“Ho! Look at this!” Ernst Magit called out with triumph. “I have made an important discovery! It is well that we spent some time here.” He pointed at his map and then to the west. “See that mountain range there. It is not marked upon the map. It must be newly formed. I shall certainly bring this to the attention of the Protector. Perhaps the range will be named in my honor.”
Galdar looked at the mountain range. He rose slowly to his feet, staring hard into the western sky. Certainly at first glance the formation of iron gray and sullen blue looked very much as if a new mountain had thrust up from the ground. But as Galdar watched, he noticed something that the talon leader, in his eagerness, had missed. This mountain was growing, expanding, at an alarming rate.
“Sir!” Galdar cried. “That is no mountain! Those are storm clouds!”
“You are already a cow, don’t be an ass as well,” Magit said. He had picked up a bit of black rock and was using it like chalk to add Mount Magit to the wonders of the world.
“Sir, I spent ten years at sea when I was a youth,” said Galdar. “I know a storm when I see one. Yet even I have never seen anything like that!”
Now the cloud bank reared up with incredible speed, solid black at its heart, roiling and churning like some many-headed devouring monster, biting off the tops of the mountains as it overtook them, crawling over them to consume them whole. The chill wind strengthened, whipping the sand from the ground into eyes and mouths, tearing at the command tent, which flapped wildly and strained against its bonds.
The wind began to sing again that same terrible song, keening, wailing in despair, shrieking in anguished torment.
Buffeted by the wind, the men struggled to their feet. “Commander! We should leave!” Galdar roared. “Now! Before the storm breaks!”
“Yes,” said Ernst Magit, pale and shaken. He licked his lips, spit out sand. “Yes, you are right. We should leave immediately. Never mind the tent! Bring me my horse!”
A bolt of lightning flashed out from the blackness, speared the ground near where the horses were tethered. Thunder exploded. The concussion knocked some of the men flat. The horses screamed, reared, lashed out with their hooves. The men who were still standing tried to calm them, but the horses would have none of it. Tearing free of the rope that held them, the horses galloped away in mad panic.
“Catch them!” Ernst screamed, but the men had all they could do to stand upright against the pummeling wind. One or two took a few staggering steps after the horses, but it was obvious that the chase was a futile one.
The storm clouds raced across the sky, battling the sunlight, defeating it handily. The sun fell, overcome by darkness.
Night was upon them, a night thick with swirling sand. Galdar could see nothing at all, not even his own single hand. The next second all around him was illuminated by another devastating lightning bolt.
“Lie down!” he bellowed, flinging himself to the ground. “Lie flat! Keep away from the monoliths!”
Rain slashed sideways, coming at them like arrows fired from a million bowstrings. Hail pounded on them like iron-tipped flails, cutting and bruising. Galdar’s hide was tough, the hail was like stinging ant bites to him. The other men cried out in pain and terror. Lightning walked among them, casting its flaming spears. Thunder shook the ground and boomed and roared.
Galdar lay sprawled on his stomach, fighting against the impulse to tear at the ground with his hand, to burrow into the depths of the world. He was astounded to see, in the next lightning flash, his commander trying to stand up.
“Sir, keep down!” Galdar roared and made a grab for him.
Magit snarled a curse and kicked at Galdar’s hand. Head down against the wind, the talon leader lurched over
to one of the monoliths. He crouched behind it, used its great bulk to shield him from the lancing rain and the hammering hail. Laughing at the rest of his men, he sat on the ground, placed his back against the stone and stretched out his legs.
The lightning flash blinded Galdar. The blast deafened him. The force of the thunderbolt lifted him up off the ground, slammed him back down. The bolt had struck so close that he had heard it sizzle the air, could smell the phosphorous and the sulphur. He could also smell something else—burned flesh. He rubbed his eyes to try to see through the jagged glare. When his sight was restored, he looked in the direction of the commander. In the next lightning flash, he saw a misshapen mass huddled at the foot of the monolith.
Magit’s flesh glowed red beneath a black crust, like a hunk of overcooked meat. Smoke rose from it; the wind whipped it away, along with flecks of charred flesh. The skin of the man’s face had burned away, revealing a mouthful of hideously grinning teeth.
“Glad to see you’re still laughing, Talon Leader,” Galdar muttered. “You were warned.”
Galdar scrunched down even closer to the ground, cursed his ribs for being in the way.
The rain fell harder, if that were possible. He wondered how long the raging storm could last. It seemed to have lasted a lifetime, seemed to him that he had been born into this storm and that he would grow old and die in this storm. A hand grabbed hold of his arm, shook him.
“Sir! Look there!” One of the Knights had crawled across the ground, was right next to him. “Sir!” The Knight put his mouth to Galdar’s ear, shouted hoarsely to make himself heard over the lashing rain and pounding hail, the constant thunder and, worse than rain or hail or thunder, the song of death. “I saw something move out there!”
Galdar lifted his head, peered in the direction the Knight pointed, peered into the very heart of the valley of Neraka.
“Wait until the next lightning flash!” the Knight yelled. “There! There it is!”
The next lightning flash was not a bolt but a sheet of flame that lit the sky and the ground and the mountains with a purple white radiance. Silhouetted against the awful glow, a figure moved toward them, walking calmly through the raging storm, seeming untouched by the gale, unmoved by the lightning, unafraid of the thunder.
“Is it one of ours?” Galdar asked, thinking at first that one of the men might have gone mad and bolted like the horses.
But he knew the moment he asked the question that this was not the case. The figure was walking, not running. The figure was not fleeing, it was approaching.
The lightning flared out. Darkness fell, and the figure was lost. Galdar waited impatiently for the next lightning flash to show him this insane being who braved the fury of the storm. The next flash lit the ground, the mountains, the sky. The person was still there, still moving toward them. And it seemed to Galdar that the song of death had transformed into a paean of celebration.
Darkness again. The wind died. The rain softened to a steady downpour. The hail ceased altogether. Thunder rumbled a drumroll, which seemed to mark time with the pace of the strange figure of darkness drawing steadily nearer with each illuminating flare. The storm carried the battle to the other side of the mountains, to other parts of the world. Galdar rose to his feet.
Soaking wet, the Knights wiped water and muck from their eyes, looked ruefully at sodden blankets. The wind was cold and crisp and chill, and they were shivering except Galdar, whose thick hide and fur pelt protected him from all but the most severe cold. He shook the rain water from his horns and waited for the figure to come within hailing distance.
Stars, glittering cold and deadly as spear points, appeared in the west. The ragged edges of the storm’s rear echelon seemed to uncover the stars as they passed. The single moon had risen in defiance of the thunder. The figure was no more than twenty feet away now, and by the moon’s argent light Galdar could see the person clearly.
Human, a youth, to judge by the slender, well-knit body and the smooth skin of the face. Dark hair had been shaved close to the skull, leaving only a red stubble. The absence of hair accentuated the features of the face and thrust into prominence the high cheekbones, the sharp chin, the mouth in its bow curve. The youth wore the shirt and tunic of a common foot knight and leather boots, carried no sword upon his hip nor any sort of weapon that Galdar could see.
“Halt and be recognized!” he shouted harshly. “Stop right there. At the edge of camp.”
The youth obligingly halted, his hands raised, palms outward to show they were empty.
Galdar drew his sword. In this strange night, he was taking no chances. He held the sword awkwardly in his left hand. The weapon was almost useless to him. Unlike some other amputees, he had never learned to fight with his opposite hand. He had been a skilled swordsman before his injury, now he was clumsy and inept, as likely to do damage to himself as to a foe. Many were the times Ernst Magit had watched Galdar practice, watched him fumble, and laughed uproariously.
Magit wouldn’t be doing much laughing now.
Galdar advanced, sword in hand. The hilt was wet and slippery, he hoped he wouldn’t drop it. The youth could not know that Galdar was a washed-up warrior, a has-been. The minotaur looked intimating, and Galdar was somewhat surprised that the youth did not quail before him, did not even really look all that impressed.
“I am unarmed,” said the youth in a deep voice that did not match the youthful appearance. The voice had an odd timbre to it, sweet, musical, reminding Galdar strangely of one of the voices he’d heard in the song, the song now hushed and murmuring, as if in reverence. The voice was not the voice of a man.
Galdar looked closely at the youth, at the slender neck that was like the long stem of a lily, supporting the skull, which was perfectly smooth beneath its red down of hair, marvelously formed. The minotaur looked closely at the lithe body. The arms were muscular, as were the legs in their woolen stockings. The wet shirt, which was too big, hung loosely from the slender shoulders. Galdar could see nothing beneath its wet folds, could not ascertain yet whether this human was male or female.
The other knights gathered around him, all of them staring at the wet youth; wet and glistening as a newborn child. The men were frowning, uneasy, wary. Small blame to them. Everyone was asking the same question as Galdar. What in the name of the great horned god who had died and left his people bereft was this human doing in this accursed valley on this accursed night?
“What are you called?” Galdar demanded.
“My name is Mina.”
A girl. A slip of a girl. She could be no more than seventeen … if that. Yet even though she had spoken her name, a feminine name popular among humans, even though he could trace her sex in the smooth lines of her neck and the grace of her movements, he still doubted. There was something very unwomanly about her.
Mina smiled slightly, as if she could hear his unspoken doubts, and said, “I am female.” She shrugged. “Though it makes little difference.”
“Come closer,” Galdar ordered harshly.
The girl obeyed, took a step forward.
Galdar looked into her eyes, and his breath very nearly stopped. He had seen humans of all shapes and sizes during his lifetime, but he’d never seen one, never seen any living being with eyes like these.
Unnaturally large, deep-set, the eyes were the color of amber, the pupils black, the irises encircled by a ring of shadow. The absence of hair made the eyes appear larger still. Mina seemed all eyes, and those eyes absorbed Galdar and imprisoned him, as golden amber holds imprisoned the carcasses of small insects.
“Are you the commander?” she asked.
Galdar flicked a glance in the direction of the charred body lying at the base of the monolith. “I am now,” he said.
Mina followed his gaze, regarded the corpse with cool detachment. She turned the amber eyes back to Galdar, who could have sworn he saw the body of Magit locked inside.
“What are you doing here, girl?” the minotaur asked harshly. “Did
you lose your way in the storm?”
“No. I found my way in the storm,” said Mina. The amber eyes were luminous, unblinking. “I found you. I have been called, and I have answered. You are Knights of Takhisis, are you not?”
“We were once,” said Galdar dryly. “We waited long for Takhisis’s return, but now the commanders admit what most of us knew long before. She is not coming back. Therefore we have come to term ourselves Knights of Neraka.”
Mina listened, considered this. She seemed to like it, for she nodded gravely. “I understand. I have come to join the Knights of Neraka.”
At any other time, in any other place, the Knights might have snickered or made rude remarks. But the men were in no mood for levity. Neither was Galdar. The storm had been terrifying, unlike any he’d ever experienced, and he had lived in this world forty years. Their talon leader was dead. They had a long walk ahead of them, unless by some miracle they could recover the horses. They had no food—the horses had run away with their supplies. No water except what they could wring out of their sodden blankets.
“Tell the silly chit to run back home to mama,” said one Knight impatiently. “What do we do, Subcommander?”
“I say we get out of here,” said another. “I’ll walk all night if I have to.”
The others muttered their assent.
Galdar looked to the heavens. The sky was clear. Thunder rumbled, but in the distance. Far away, lightning flashed purple on the western horizon. The moon gave light enough to travel. Galdar was tired, unusually tired. The men were hollow-cheeked and gaunt, all of them near exhaustion. Yet he knew how they felt.
“We’re moving out,” he said. “But first we need to do something with that.” He jerked a thumb at the smoldering body of Ernst Magit.
“Leave it,” said one of the Knights.
Galdar shook his horned head. He was conscious, all the while, of the girl watching him intently with those strange eyes of hers.
“Do you want to be haunted by his spirit the rest of your days?” Galdar demanded.
Dragons of a Fallen Sun Page 2