“Because we have prayed to the Star-Maker for victory,” Dariad answered, and Lucoyo rolled his eyes up in exasperation—but Ohaern felt oddly heartened. Yes, Ulahane was also one of the Star-Maker’s creations—but that did not mean Dariad’s One God approved of his doings. From what the nomad had told Ohaern of his deity, the Star-Maker had very clear notions of right and wrong, and Ohaern felt sure He would, at the least, not strengthen Ulahane’s hand.
But if the Star-Maker did not want Ulahane to cause so much suffering, why did He not intervene and put a stop to it? Of course, that was what Ohaern and Dariad were doing, and if they were the Star-Maker’s agents, they would win. Still, it seemed that a deity who could make stars would be able to put an end to Ulahane’s misdeeds much more quickly and neatly than humans could—but Lucoyo could almost hear Lomallin’s answer within him: they had to do their own work. They were not babies, to have everything done for them.
It was not a complete answer, but it was enough. Perhaps there was more—perhaps they were being forged, as a sword is forged, into an instrument for the Star-Maker’s purposes; perhaps they were a part of a grander scheme. Whatever it was, it did not truly matter at the moment—all that did was facing Ulahane’s forces and striking through them to Kuru.
It was well he realized that, for as they came out from between the hills, they saw the plain before them crowded with monsters of all shapes and sizes, things part bird and part animal, part insect and part fish, giant arachnids and midget boars with steel tusks, many with human heads or human breasts or human legs. To one side came marching an army of Klaja; to the other, a horde of writhing lamias. Behind them, pacing from wing to wing of that gruesome host, an Ulharl towered, roaring and whipping them on with chains. The monsters shrieked in anger and pain and surged forward, pushing the ones in front of them, and the wave rolled forward until the front rank came charging at Ohaern and his companions.
Ohaern shouted a battle cry, and the nomads charged forth. For a few minutes the shaman disappeared and the warrior came to the fore as Ohaern wielded his sword, leaning low and chopping down at the monstrosities. They shrieked and gibbered and howled in anger as they reached for him with long claws and sharp teeth, lances of flame and coils of scales, but he met each attack with dagger or sword and did not count his wounds. Beside him, Lucoyo chopped valiantly, screaming in terror and strewing the ground with bodies as he hewed and hacked. Behind them the nomads shouted approval and charged in, determined not to be outdone by the Northerner— but behind them came an army of forest hunters, determined not to be outdone by mere desert herders! Side by side the black army and the white chewed into the heart of the enemy horde, leaving a wake of slain monsters and writhing headless coils, of bisected giant spiders and beheaded boars roasting in their own flames.
But Dariad ignored them all, screaming in frenzy and chopping his way through the ranks of the monsters with a single-minded battle lust that bordered on madness—though if it was, it was divine madness, for he hewed himself a path straight to the Ulharl who drove the horde.
Ulahane’s half-human offspring was so busy whipping on his monsters with his chain that he did not even see the human until Dariad’s sword scored his side. Then, roaring with rage, the Ulharl turned on the upstart, swinging his chain high to crush this impertinent miniature.
Chapter 31
The chain lashed down, but Dariad was no longer there. His camel stepped to the side, slipped in a gory mass, and fell, bawling. Dariad leaped free and landed on his feet, slashing backhanded at the Ulharl’s Achilles’ tendon. The blade cut through, and the giant fell, roaring with shock and sudden fear. On one knee, he swung that mighty chain again, a chain that glittered with razor-sharp barbs, swinging straight down toward Dariad. The nomad sidestepped, but not quite quickly enough; the barbs shredded his robe and left red trails. But Dariad ignored the pain and stepped down hard on the chain, holding the Ulharl’s arm down just long enough to chop into his elbow. Blood spurted and the giant screamed, but even screaming, he caught up the chain with his left hand and yanked, sending Dariad spinning away. The chain flailed high, hissing down— but Dariad rolled away, and the links only caught his robe. He leaped to his feet, the robe tearing away, and swung with all his strength. The Ulharl brought an arm up, to block with a bronze bracelet, but Dariad turned the sword at the last instant and hacked into the giant’s forearm an inch above the band. The Ulharl screamed again, but Dariad swung in from the other side and sliced deeply into the giant’s neck. The scream cut off into a gurgle, blood gushed, and the Ulharl fell over, eyes wide in shock. Dariad looked down at the agonized, still-living face, braced himself, and drove his sword straight down in a blow of mercy. The giant’s body gave one last convulsive heave—and the chain whipped about in a dead man’s blow, cracking across Dariad’s shoulders. He cried out in pain, then clenched his jaw as blood flowed down across his back in a dozen streams.
“Sever the head!” the judge cried, following down the aisle Dariad had cut. “Hack it off, that we may be sure he is dead!”
Dariad yanked his sword out of the giant’s chest, but another nomad came running up with his sword high and swung it down at the Ulharl’s neck. It bounced off, ringing, and the nomad stood staring.
Dariad gathered himself for another effort and swung down. His blade cut halfway through the Ulharl’s neck.
“Enough!” the judge cried. “Surely nothing can live so sorely wounded!”
“We must finish what we have begun,” Dariad grunted, and swung again. This time the head rolled free, and the nomad looked up to see his tribesmen staring in awe. He frowned. “What? Have you never seen a blow struck home before?”
“Aye,” said the judge, “but never a stroke at which another man had failed.”
All across the field the monsters howled in terror as word of the giant’s death passed. They turned and ran, flowed, and flew. The African war chief cried out in anger, and his warriors pursued, slaying as they went.
“Not all!” Ohaern cried. “Let a few escape, to lead us!”
Dariad called to his men, and a few of them galloped after the Africans, calling to them. The black warriors nodded, though with exclamations of disgust.
Ohaern stared. “When did they learn one another’s language?”
“In the cavern,” said Lucoyo, “while you conferred in the spirit world.”
The Africans continued their slaughter, and the Biharu, not to be outdone, rode in among them and helped when monsters turned at bay, snarling—but all in all, there were a dozen monsters left to lead them through fields and over causeways into the center of the plain, where the walls of Kuru towered in the distance. The warriors, Biharu and African alike, gave a shout of joy and proceeded to ride down the remaining monsters. They turned to fight, pulling into a knot of scales and beaks and talons, hissing.
“Hold back!” Lucoyo shouted, and some of the Biharu relayed the message to the Africans, who hesitated just long enough for the half-elf to shoot a dozen arrows into the knot of monsters. The Africans shouted approval and threw their extra spears. Monsters howled, biting at the shafts; some came roaring out to seize and maul the humans, but more often than not their targets slipped aside, and their comrades chopped the monsters to shreds. Ohaern stood and watched, amazed to see manticores and lamias so quickly cut apart—though it was scarcely surprising, with a dozen battle-mad warriors to each of them.
Then he looked up and saw a horde of monsters approaching across the plain, driven on by whip-wielding giants. More titans came behind them, leading the soldiers who poured out of the gates of Kuru. The shaman shouted, “Pull back! Rally! The defenders come!”
The warriors looked up, saw, and pulled back into their own bands. Heartened, the embattled monsters came roaring after— and died, with a score of spears in each. Lucoyo’s arrows found vital spots, and some died with only one shaft buried in a heart or a brain.
Then a roar went up from the attacking army as the largest giant
of all shouldered through the gates of Kuru, driving his lesser kin before him. A shout of alarm went up from Ohaern’s people, and Lucoyo cried, “What monstrous form is that?”
“It is Kadura,” Ohaern answered, from his newfound shaman’s lore. “It is Kadura, first of the misbegotten spawn of Ulahane, eldest and most hate-filled of the Ulharl.”
“Can it be killed?” An African warrior called out in the Biharu tongue.
Surprised, Ohaern turned to him and called back, “As surely as any mortal can!”
“Then we kill!” the African said with determination, and his companions shouted in affirmation. Together with the Biharu, they marched toward the monsters, singing songs of death.
But shouts echoed from all around the city, and looking up, Ohaern saw other troops of hunters and nomads charging into the fray. Monsters and soldiers came pouring out of other gates, and the battle was joined in earnest, all around that blood-colored city.
Ohaern, however, was not about to let his army face the monsters alone. He called out two spells that he had heard Manalo chant, and flame fountained up from the plain in the midst of the Kuruite host. Monsters and men alike screamed and crowded frantically away, and a towering fiery form demanded, “Who calls?”
“I, Ohaern!” the shaman answered, though every nerve in his body screamed at him to run. “I call you by the promise you gave to Manalo! I implore you, salamander, turn upon this host and burn them to ashes!”
The salamander turned its head, pondered the horde of men and monsters, and said, “I owe them nothing, and owe their master spite. I will.” Then its mouth opened wide and a jet of fire swept over the creatures below, turning them instantly to ash. They screamed and pulled back, jammed back, scrambled back over the living bodies behind them, and a semicircle of confusion spread inward over the plain even to the city walls as the salamander began its slow, steady advance, charring all before it. Ohaern’s troops pulled back in alarm, too—at first, but when they saw that the elemental fought their foes, they began to follow in its wake, slaying those at the circle of its ashen half ring, but giving a wide birth to the creature itself.
Behind them came marching another army, of beings who looked half finished, doughy and soft. Their leader came up and cried out to Ohaern in his own odd language.
“Agrapax’s homunculi!” Lucoyo cried. “What did he say?”
“He said, ‘You have summoned us by Manalo’s call. What would you have us do?’ “ Ohaern translated, then replied to the homunculi in their own tongue. “Slay those minions of evil!”
The homunculi answered with a shout and turned to charge, clumsily but irresistibly, into the Kuruite host.
“The allies are summoned and the fight is joined.” Ohaern drew the broadsword from its sheath across his back. “It is time for me to join them.”
“You are too valuable!” Lucoyo cried. “They will fail and be slain if you are killed!”
“Lomallin will protect me from Ulahane.” Ohaern hefted his sword. “This will protect me from men. Come, Lucoyo! There is glory to be won!”
Just then, though, Kuruite soldiers erupted into the air, screaming and howling, in a curve that expanded outward like a wave rolling in from the sea, and the ground trembled beneath Ohaern’s feet—but stopped short of the armies of nomads and hunters and began to roll back.
“The dwerg!” Ohaern shouted. “Grakhinox and his kindred, shaking the ground beneath our foes, sliding it out from beneath their feet! Charge in and slay while you may!”
Apparently all the other shamans heard, for the nomad armies howled and charged in, reaping death about them.
Then a howling rose from the plain, a howling more like that of a wolf or dog than a man, and another army came charging in to slay monsters and Kuruites with whetted swords and sharp fangs, an army that looked to be as much jackal as man, and all throughout Ulahane’s horde, knots of similar jackal-men turned on their allies to bite and chew and slay.
“The Klaja!” Ohaern cried. “He has returned as he said, and brought hundreds of his people with him! Who would have thought they hated Ulahane so, or sought revenge upon him for having made them! Come, Lucoyo! Or there will be no glory left for us!”
“I could live without it,” the half-elf grumbled, but he followed his friend into the battle.
There followed a timeless interval of fear and panic and stabbing and slaying, trying desperately to keep sharp fangs and sharper spears from Ohaern’s body. Lucoyo followed his friend back-to-back, with frequent glances over his shoulder to make sure Ohaern had not charged away from his rear guard— but he frequently did, leaving the half-elf to curse and retreat, parrying and thrusting frantically until his own spine jarred against something that he hoped was Ohaern’s back. Fortunately, he was almost always right, and on the other two occasions, the Kuruite soldier was more surprised and less ready than the half-elf—also, it would seem, more mortal. The slaughter seemed to go on and on forever, and only the increasing weight of his sword and the sight of the red slick on his forearms told Lucoyo that a few of his enemies’ blades had reached past his own. He hoped frantically that Ohaern was faring better than he.
Then a scream went up all across the field. Fighting stopped as attacker and defender alike paused to look upon a sight that froze them in their tracks.
A city gate burst asunder and a figure taller than the walls of Kuru strode forth—a scarlet figure of death and depraved delight that Ohaern had seen before, a figure with a skull-helmet atop a head whose cavernous eyes glittered with malice and whose fangs clashed with anticipation.
The armies of men, who had stood bravely against Kuruites twice their number and a horde of monsters that would have frightened a dozen ordinary people, now moaned in fear and shrank away from that terrible visage. Ulahane laughed aloud with cruel delight and advanced, sweeping all before him with a chain of fire and a curving sword twice the height of a man.
“Lomallin!” Ohaern cried. “If ever you have stood by humankind, stand by us now! If you do not save us from this paragon of evil, we are lost, and the younger races doomed! Strike now, I pray, if still you exist!”
But there was no answer, and Ulahane’s laugh of delight boomed out over the plain, forming itself into words. “Fool! With an army of fools! Lomallin is dead! I slew him myself—as I shall do to you, to all who oppose me! I shall do what all my misbegotten sons could not: slay the defenders of humankind! Slay those treacherous Klaja who turned their hands against me! Even the salamander I shall rend asunder and stamp down deep into the earth, to crush—”
A lance of green light stabbed down from the sky to bathe the Scarlet One in its beams. Thunder rolled as green and scarlet mixed, and Ulahane stood in light-born black, a living, screaming shadow. The scream endured as his eyes fell in and smoke boiled out of their sockets—smoke that swirled up into the heavens to take on the form of Ulahane, even as his body still stood frozen on the plain below, frozen even as the green light receded, gathering itself back up into the heavens, where it took on the form of a man, a giant with a gentle face now creased in sternness, a green and glowing form that cast aside its glowing robe to stand in a loincloth only, hands open and ready for battle.
They stood a moment, while the armies below held their breath—the red ghost and the green, squared to one another and readying themselves for what they knew must be their final battle, for both their bodies were dead now, and victory could be gained only by destroying the ghost that remained. Far below them, men forgot their own battle in their dread anticipation of the ghost-battle above them, between godlike spirits who seemed to tower up into the very stars.
More than “seemed to”—for Ulahane roared and reached for a star. He caught it and hurled it, a flame-tailed ball of light sailing straight toward Lomallin’s heart.
Lomallin seized a star of his own and hurled it at his foe—or rather, at his missile. Star met star and exploded in a soundless burst of light that dimmed the two ghosts for a moment. When they be
came clear again, the watchers saw that Ulahane had seized a string of stars and was whirling it about his head, like an Ulharl with his chain, as he advanced on Lomallin.
The Green One reached out and plucked one star after another, then as Ulahane came close, hurled them into his face. Silent explosions filled the night as star met star and burst. Ulahane fell reeling back, but even as he staggered, he caught the raw star stuff about him, then advanced again, molding the glowing mass and forming it into an axe of light with a blade half his own height. He swung it at Lomallin, but the Green One sidestepped, and the force of the blow swung Ulahane’s ghost about. Lomallin stepped in and laid green hands against scarlet skin, only laid them, but smoke boiled up where they touched, and a skreeling scream filled the night as the red ghost bucked and thrashed, trying to rid himself of Lomallin’s touch. Finally he dived, leaving the Green One behind. Below, his own men and monsters howled with fear and fought to escape the spot where he seemed doomed to strike—but the Scarlet One turned his dive into a spring, leaping back up into the sky even as he remolded the axe, shaping it into a war club. As he came back level with Lomallin, he hurled the weapon at his enemy. Lomallin reached out and caught it, though its momentum whirled him about in a circle—and as he whirled, he reshaped and modeled and forged. Ulahane leaped in, thinking to take the Green One unawares, then pulled back, as if remembering the pain of Lomallin’s touch—and Ohaern cried, “It was true! In dying, Lomallin gained greater strength than Ulahane!”
A moan swept through the army of evil even as Lomallin hurled a spear of light straight at the heart of Ulahane. The Scarlet One dodged and whirled, but the spear followed his every movement until it exploded against Ulahane’s chest, flying apart into five shooting stars that fell to earth. One fell straight down toward Ulahane’s forces; his armies howled with fear and scrambled to get away, slaying one another and trampling one another in panic—until it winked out, as did the fragments that fell to the east, west, and south. But the largest fragment shot away to the north, trailing fire beyond the horizon, even as Ulahane’s ghost broke into a thousand points of light that flew apart, winking out one by one—and below on earth, his charred husk crumbled to dust.
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