Michael looked behind him as he spoke, and his eyes widened even as he went rigid. The sky beyond the mountains was swirling, and as they watched it seemed to tear, from top to bottom like a curtain opening. What was beyond was black.
The Blackness on the other side of the Veil began to seep through and then take shapes: beasts, warriors, dark figures. And they were gathering and swarming in one place, just beyond the homestead. Gathering around the Nameless One and his High Police.
Somehow the dead man had unleashed the Blackness.
We are at war, said Gwyrion’s voice in Michael’s ear.
The clann chieftain swallowed back his fear. His face was pale.
“Will your traps keep that horde back?” the Ploughman asked.
“As much as anything can,” Michael answered.
“Trigger them, then,” the Ploughman said. “Anything that will delay them is a boon—even if only for a moment.”
“And what do you mean to do?” Michael asked.
The Ploughman’s eyes flashed gold. “I mean to fight.” He started forward as though he would go and meet the hordes before the burning homestead, but Michael grasped his arm and stopped him. His eyes were on the valley.
“Wait,” he said.
A moment later the valley erupted in fire and smoke as an explosion shook the sides of the hills.
* * *
“He did what?” Nicolas shouted. Wind was shrieking down the narrow gorge, rattling the stones till they were loud as hornets. A sound like a terrific explosion had momentarily thundered through the shriek, silencing it, and Nicolas had turned at the sound to see that the Ploughman was gone.
“He turned back!” Maggie said again. “He went to help them fight!”
“Why didn’t you tell us before?” Nicolas shouted.
“He said to keep going,” Maggie said. She shook her head, willing out the noise and confusion. She pointed at the light at the far end. It wasn’t much further.
“The sea is just beyond there,” she said. She looked at Miracle, pleading. “Isn’t it?”
Miracle nodded. Her face was stricken, and Maggie’s heart hurt to realize how much every step was costing the Healer. She and Michael had told them together that Miracle would go with them, because that was the King’s will and they would fight for it. But now—
“Move forward, all of you,” Huss said. “This is not the place to remonstrate. We must get out.”
With an expression as though he had swallowed something bitter, Nicolas turned and began to push through the gorge again. The others followed, and before long they came out on the side of a bluff, sand tumbling twenty feet below to a beach. The beach was protected, the water fairly calm though the sea beyond was choppy under the shadowy sky.
Miracle began to lead the way down, steadying herself with roots that protruded from the side of the bluff and picking her footsteps carefully. The drop had seemed almost sheer from above, but as the others followed, they recognized the presence of a pathway.
Overhead, clouds were beginning to whirl in dark shapes, ominous and black against a sky that was already much too dark.
* * *
Heat from the explosion burned the Ploughman’s face as he vaulted down the mountainside, closer to the hordes and their shrieks of anger and pain. They had been passing around the homestead when the trap had gone off—how many explosives they had buried under their own homes, the Ploughman could hardly guess.
Enough to wreak terrible damage, even on Morning Star’s army. As the Ploughman came closer, he smelled burning flesh and knew, with a sick feeling in his stomach, that many of those who had gone through the valley first had been men. High Police, commanded to be here by whom? Cratus in the guise of a mad emperor? Or by the man who now led them—a man who was supposed to be dead? For an instant the Ploughman thought he could see his own men in the High Police’s stead, and his heart ached with a compassion he had never before felt for them.
The fire spread up the hillside, where the Ploughman now saw that the clannsmen had laid a patchwork of dry grass, straw, and wood, haystacks of brush, and bundles of explosives, fuel to ensure that the spreading fire would flare and keep spreading, keep feeding, keep jumping up until the hills were ablaze. Had they planned to burn their whole island? He shook his head, amazed and saddened at once.
The Ploughman stayed behind the leaping walls of flame and smoke, keeping himself out of sight even as he watched the hordes. They had begun to swarm over the mountainside, but a series of small explosions and the almost constant building of the fire pushed them back down—back toward the gorge. He caught his breath for a moment as he saw them hesitating.
Had the clannsmen stopped the Blackness?
Was that even possible?
But something else was happening now. They were gathering in a strange formation, and a rumbling chant began to sound, growing until the flames shivered with the sound of it. The Ploughman remained riveted, his sword in his hand, his eyes glowing golden. The sound was enough to destroy courage, but his held. He had to hold it.
The Blackness began to advance. At first he thought the sound was pushing the fire back; it seemed to bow into itself as they marched forward. Then the tips of the flame changed colour, from orange to blue, down the tongues of fire, until the center of the valley was burning blue. Out of it more creatures came, released upon the world, let through the Veil.
The Ploughman turned his head toward the pass where he knew three men and a boy were waiting. His lips moved in prayer.
King, keep them.
Help us.
Come to us.
And suddenly he knew he was in the wrong place. He should not have come here—he should be leaving the island even now with the others, because what mattered now was not that the Ploughman could fight but that the King could return. That he had to return. There was truly no other hope. He thought of Libuse in Pravik, his heart and his hope. Together they had resisted believing fully in the King. But now—now they had no other choice.
The wall of flame before him was burning bright orange and yellow, but as he watched, thin blue veins began to lick up it, and then the smoke turned blacker and the flames turned blue. In the rising heat he saw the air tearing itself open. He tightened his grip on his hilt.
As the first creature brought itself out of the rip in the air, taking shape as massive muscle and sinew, bull’s head and lion’s teeth, the Ploughman lifted his arm and called, “To me! Golden Riders, to me!”
* * *
Black lightning was cutting through the sky over the water as they reached the beach and raced across the sand to a longboat hidden beneath brush and driftwood. Miracle found it quickly and began pulling the trappings away, her eyes tearing themselves from the sky to focus on the work. The sound of the wind had not ceased; it was not, they were beginning to realize, wind.
Nicolas and Pat tore driftwood and branches away from the ship and began pushing it toward the water almost before Maggie and Huss had reached it. Maggie grabbed Pat’s wrist.
“What?” Pat asked.
“Should we leave without him?” Maggie asked.
“The world is coming apart!” Pat shouted. “The sooner we’re off this island, the…”
Her words were silenced by a crack of thunder that drove them all to their knees, and through a rift in the sky thousands of bat-like creatures poured into the air, all of them flying inland. Maggie turned to follow their trajectory and saw a glow rising above the island—blue and gold mingling in the air.
“What is that?” Pat asked.
“It’s the Ploughman,” Maggie said.
“He wouldn’t have called on the Golden Riders just to fight men,” Pat said.
No one answered that.
Almost as one, they turned back to the sea. Nicolas and Pat laid their shoulders to the boat and pushed it into the water, wading in nearly to the waist before Miracle, Huss, and Maggie pulled them in. There were oars, but for a moment no one took them. Thunder crac
ked again—over the sea.
From the island, a deep rumble sounded.
* * *
Archer and Jack pumped their fists and cheered as the man-made landslide poured into the pass, crushing all who stood in its way. Boulders and logs rumbled like thunder over the ground and pitched over the edge. Clouds above them were wreathing and intertwining, dark and threatening like eyes glaring down at them, but for the moment victory was theirs. Michael smiled grimly as he watched them, but his eyes quickly went back down to the pass under the rising dust. He could hear the screams of anger and pain, the roar that meant the Blackness was momentarily stopped.
But the moment would be short, he knew.
“Further in!” he shouted, and Jack and Archer responded, climbing up the mountainside to the very top, Stocky going with them, up and over.
Michael O’Roarke stood near the top of this hill his countrymen called a mountain, beneath the writhing sky and over the dust and smoke of battle. He watched as the Blackness was unleashed on his island and on his world. The irony did not escape him—all his life he had dreamed of standing atop a mountain and seeing there what his father had once seen, a vision of a Burning Light, of a terrifying and beautiful King who came to free and to purify. Now, on his mountain he saw only death and dust and approaching ruin. The end of his clann, perhaps. The loss of the woman he loved. But he would give her up willingly, for in her there was still hope of the King’s coming again.
Not only a hope, he reminded himself, seeing again the figure in the stars and the white light that had blazed all around him. A promise.
He looked toward the sea. The sky was raging; black lightning and crashes of thunder. There was a good chance Miracle and the others wouldn’t escape. But there was a slight chance they would—and it was that chance he fought for, as he had been fighting for his clann and their survival since the day his father had died in their defense.
He started up toward the tortured sky and the crest of the mountain. Behind him was the golden glow of the Ploughman’s fight on the mountainside, a fight Michael had only glimpsed and was grateful for. It looked as if the Ploughman was holding back a whole new contingent of the Nameless One’s hordes. Rain was beginning to fall, making the ground beneath Michael’s feet slick; he slipped and grabbed a sapling to steady himself. Archer, Jack, and Stocky had disappeared into the gloom, though he heard a shout indicating that they were getting into place.
At the top of the mountain, just below the final jutting height where the cascade flowed, was also the pinnacle of the pass: a deep gorge cutting the mountains in half, sheer sides dropping away. A rope bridge leading from one side to the other swayed in the rain, evidence that the others had just crossed it. Below, the gorge was just wide enough to allow marchers through, three abreast on their way to the sea. And just narrow enough to make an attack from above especially deadly.
It was time to unleash the Clann O’Roarke’s masterwork. Jack had nicknamed it “fire, flood, and fury.” Working together in the heat of the sun, digging trenches and building frameworks, with sweat running down their backs and camaraderie high, even Michael had sometimes forgotten how deadly serious it all was. That this intricate work of defense which would have made his father proud was not a game but a weapon meant to be used on just such a black day as this.
Michael uttered a prayer for Miracle as he followed a muddy trench just a little further, around the top to the last peak where the spring cascaded down. In a normal day it would have been beautiful, a sparkling fountain amidst green grass and white rock, but now the day was dark, and the water darker still. Michael swung himself up onto the rocks alongside the fall, careful to keep his footing, and crossed the little river on a narrow bridge of stepping stones, wet and treacherous.
The rain was falling harder now, and the drops seemed to bring darkness down with them, obscuring the mountain so he could hardly see. He could just make out the shape of the dam in the shallow river, a dam full of open trapdoors that let the river through—until one would come to shut them and force the water down the trenches toward the pass.
The machinery to close the dam was built into the small tower on the far side of the river. Michael reached it and began to climb to the top when pain jolted through him and his fingers released their hold, the strength of his arm gone in blinding pain. He held on with his other arm and twisted his head, barely able to see the arrow sticking out of his shoulder, entirely unable to see the bowman in the darkness.
He dropped to the ground and crouched, scanning through the rain for the edges of the mountain. There. He drew his dagger slowly, eyes fixed on the black thing that had moved just enough to give its position away. Pain was throbbing through his shoulder, hot and demanding, his shoulder growing heavy with blood and lost energy. His arm hung limp, and he snarled with frustration, still crouched so the bowman couldn’t get a line on him again. He gritted his teeth. The wound was bad—the arrow had nearly gone through his shoulder. But he couldn’t afford to be overcome by it now. He had to stay conscious, focused, alert.
And he had to close the dam.
Another arrow shot out of the darkness, and Michael sent his dagger spinning in its direction before the shaft embedded itself in the wood. He heard a howl of pain and drew his sword, leaping up and rushing his attacker. The creature had stationed itself in a cluster of rocks just below the clearing. It was small and spindly, its eyes glowing green in a beetle-like face, and Michael dispatched it quickly. His breath was coming in short gasps. He reached for the arrow but could only just grasp it with his fingertips. He couldn’t pull it out.
Groaning, Michael looked around him for help. The tower. He jumped back up to the clearing and ran to it, stumbling as he went. Gritting his teeth anew, he stood with his shoulder to the tower and used it to push the shaft through his flesh until he could grab the end. A cry escaped him as he pulled it out, and he fell to his knees and fought to keep vision and consciousness. The rain drenched him, gathering around his knees in puddles, mixing with blood and stinking much like it. He staggered back to his feet and climbed the tower slowly, using one hand and his feet only. He reached the wooden platform and the small door, locked and chained, which he opened with some effort.
Behind it was a wooden wheel and the whole pulley system that would close off the river and flood the pass.
He grasped the wheel with his good hand and tried to turn it. It didn’t move. The pressure against him was too great, and he was losing too much blood. He could see blood splashing the wooden planks beneath his feet, not diluted by the rain. He groaned as he put his shoulder to it and tried again, but still it was no good—still he didn’t have the strength. He tried again, crying out with the effort.
And two more hands grasped the wheel on the other side and began to pull as Michael pushed. It turned—just a little. His eyes widened as he looked into green eyes much like his own.
“Push, Michael!” Shannon yelled, and he did as she said.
The chains creaked as the pulley moved. Shannon was moving the wheel with all her strength, and suddenly a small boy appeared at her feet—Seamus, working too, pulling too. He was just enough help. The wheel began to turn on its own, and they all fell away as the trapdoors slammed shut and the river was closed.
The rush of water and the pounding rain made it almost impossible to hear. “Where are the others?” Michael shouted, clasping his shoulder as it jerked in an uncontrollable spasm.
“With the boys!” Shannon answered. She tore strips away from her skirt and began to bind Michael’s shoulder, pushing his hand away.
“You were supposed to hide!” Michael shouted again.
Shannon shook her head, and there were tears in her eyes—tears of resolve. “It’s the end of the world, Michael,” she said. “Let us play our part.”
Not far below them, the men and women of Clann O’Roarke readied a new assault.
* * *
Morning Star, in the body of the Nameless One, stood in the valley befo
re the crater that had once been the clann’s homestead. With eyes that could see far more than any man’s, he watched.
He watched the battle on the mountainside, where the Ploughman and his Golden Riders still held a contingent of late-released creatures back. They had killed—who knew? Hundreds. But there were more. Still pouring out through the flames. Still coming up from Morning Star’s ranks. The Ploughman was holding them back as no other man alive had ever done or would ever do, but he would fall.
The chief ranks, led by the men of the High Police, had pushed through the burning wreckage of the homestead and made for the pass. The clann’s man-made avalanche had crushed many, men and demon alike. But there were more.
Now he watched as the gorge was flooded from above, the footing suddenly treacherous, the water turning everything to deep mud. That had been their plan too, he realized; the ground of the gorge was soft, without stones and rocks, a manufactured ground meant to become a sinking swamp. It was clever. It would delay his forces.
Worry flickered through the Usurper’s eyes. He could see also beyond the gorge. He could see the Gifted, three of his coveted, escaping in a ship—against all odds, for his creatures kept coming, and surely they should be able to overrun every adversary and reach that ship! But the Ploughman and his Golden Riders held the side of the mountain against those who would climb it to reach the clannsmen, and the clannsmen held the pass.
The High Police were getting the worst of it, as they led the hordes through the gorge. But that was a problem in itself. They were in the way.
Morning Star raised his arm and called the creatures to him. Three came in a rush of black wings. The tallest bowed, black wings closing around it, twisted horns glinting.
The Seventh World Trilogy omnibus Page 77