“Hold on!” growled Flan to Alik, kneeing his horse into a gallop alongside the cavalry and unsheathing a second knife from a sling beneath his shoulder. Then they were over the rise, scattering lizards and scorpions left and right, and the army of Labrion was before them.
A rocky field stretched a little more than a hundred yards forward, then began to rise into the plateau. Through a light mist a host of tents was visible with black-uniformed soldiers suddenly turning and staring or running for their arms. An alarm clarion sounded: it took Alik a moment to realize it was not their own. The charge was taking too long, he thought: the Northerners would be prepared for them: there’d be a trap for them: they were all doomed. But no.
The first wave of Cerregan’s cavalry let loose a volley of arrows and crashed into the camp. Black-clad soldiers scattered round them. Frantic shouts and scrambling could be heard and seen. The neighing of horses, the sound of collapse, the thunder of hooves added to the din. For some reason he found himself unable to focus on the death he knew was happening all around him. Then they were through.
An arrow hissed toward him but was deftly sliced out of the air by one of Flan’s knives. Then he was conscious of Flan again and the rest of all the cavalry. They were through: they had gone right through the camp. Arrythh was riding beside him on one side, Piachras and his two elves on the other, and just beyond them: a horse, chestnut, riding saddled and bridled, its reigns flapping against the white-flecked neck, empty and wild. A sudden sense of nausea struck him again, he could not tell why. He could not remember where he was or what he was doing. Was it about time to go fishing for breakfast in the sea? Where was the shard? The fish wouldn’t come. He swayed dangerously to the left with a jolt, and Flan’s hand, with knife, steadied him.
On the left, the Therian cavalry smashed through the opposite flank of the Labrian army, and behind them, before the Northerners could regroup or form up lines, the masses of General Pendrax’ and Sianna’s armies struck.
Carrion birds scattered away from the approaching cavalcade, fluttering through the mist toward Labrion Tower above. Alik saw rats large as dogs start scampering out of dens and burrows in the shattered rock face of the plateau. One of them jumped at his feet and he jerked back, nearly losing his balance as at the same time Flan vaulted the horse into the air over another rat. The horse’s eyes gleamed in terror. Behind them one of the horses had actually been drawn down by a pack of rats and was screaming inhumanly—but Flan only urged the grey mare on faster.
Higher, higher they rode. Now Alik could see forms moving in the mist ahead: people, a small party. Deran.
Deran turned, scowling. He could not have made out Alik at that distance, but he knew they were no allies. “Therians and bloody elves,” he muttered. “Very, very bold.”
“You have on’y one hope now,” General Krythar hissed at him. “Giving to me the shard.”
“Is that a threat, Master Grand General?” Deran sneered. Around him his Narrissorean scouts bristled. “If there were danger yet, it would not be difficult for me to be redeemed, even in elves’ eyes...by the capture of Krythar.”
“You sha’ regretting those words before Morin,” Krythar growled—then, as though rethinking, he added, “Ah, but we are not, as you are saying, yet in dangering.”
The cavalry pounded closer and closer up the plateau slope. The small group moved out at double-time, not fearful but thoroughly coordinated. The ground between them and the cavalry shrunk away.
And then, up out of the rocks, a figure like a mountain yak loped forth directly into the cavalry’s path. It was shaggy white, standing stooped on two thick stumps, nearly human in size but bearing horns like a ram and bluntish claws. Cerregan, who was in the lead, reared up, and the beast, whatever it was, plunged beneath the horse’s hooves, butting it in the ribs and knocking it backwards to the ground. Cerregan fell free. Two elf-guards rode down on the monster from either side. Cerregan’s horse twisted to its feet wild-eyed, screaming, intestines slithering out through gaping tears. Cerregan drew out a long knife. A second horse was down. Sabers slashed into it from either side and Cerregan’s knife from the front...and it was down.
For a moment Cerregan stood alone, gory knife in hand, the cavalry of Emeria gathering around him. Then the onslaught began.
From every direction at once a mob of scorpions and giant rats swarmed toward them, driven by a line of froth-toothed, rippling, mange-ridden hounds barking madly. Then, from the loose outcroppings of the broken plateau, a line of the yak-like beasts that had attacked Cerregan arose, waving crude bone clubs and hooting for war.
“Thaurim’s crimes revealed,” Flan muttered under his breath. “Behold the hidden defenses of Labrion.”
Cerregan swung up behind a nearby elf and shouted, “Arrows and sabers!” A wave of bows cocked back to the sky with glinting arrowheads and a line of saberers formed up before the front ranks. The sky suddenly filled with the hail of the arrows and the flecks of blood. The wave of the beastly army struck the front line. The readied saberers plunged into them with deadly skill and staggered back under the force. Scorpions and rats strewed the ground; some of the newly arriving beasts turned on their own fallen before them. They came so thickly that the ground seemed to crawl. The few saberers were quickly overrun.
For a moment Alik saw Krythar and Deran turn satisfiedly; then he saw the onslaught of beasts coming on into the curtain of arrows; then the line of horses before them broke, rearing up in every direction or falling or simply scattering in terror. The front line fell back, streaming into organized lines to clear a field of fire for the second line. Then all about him arrows were rushing: so many arrows he wondered if anything could remain. A sheet of arrows, crushing and pinioning the ranks of beasts as they came on. He saw Cerregan, riding on a now-wounded stallion, swinging a saber. He saw Stuart with his mighty sword ablaze and hair caught by the wind, pointing in his general direction and shouting orders as he fought. He saw Arrythh’s little steed prancing and partway rearing to stamp at scorpions. He saw Arrythh somehow managing to keep the control of his mount and strike now and again with his knife. He heard the wild neighing of the horses around him—all but Flan’s mare, cool as ice—and could feel the line about them start to buckle and collapse. Flan swung to the ground in front of his mare, cooing soothingly to his horse all the while, and with a flash of double daggers he whirled into the onslaught as it hit them. Giant rats heaped around him, caught at full run or in mid-pounce. Flan was a tornado, whirling in coordination with the stamping hooves of his mount. The beasts streamed around him; the rest of the line was already falling back. Then the mare whirled. A rat charged Alik from the side, and he cried out in surprise and kicked it away with his foot. Flan turned suddenly, realizing his position, and with two steps he was mounting the ashy mare just ahead of the beastly wave, and they were escaping behind the fourth line of the cavalry.
Alik’s head buzzed with adrenaline and with the heady, all-too tangible presence of the now-receding shard. The mare whinnied plaintively and Flan patted her and surveyed her legs, saying, “It’s all right, my good mare, how are you, Ashes?” At that Alik noticed a large, purpling cut on Flan’s pant leg...and he noticed also the skin beneath for the first time. It was covered entirely with fire-lacerations. Helpless to do otherwise, he touched Flan’s leg. Flan glanced back. “It is nothing,” he said: “a fatal wound, but I feel nothing.”
Then the fourth line fell back, and Flan hurled himself down to the ground again with the same speed and prowess as before, fighting as though to make up for the loss of Finnlagh and Doughal and Donnell and Caelhuin around him, as though calling on a higher power to replace his lost sense of feeling. Then Piachras was beside them, appearing from out of nowhere wielding his broad falchion like a scythe, throwing giant rats twenty feet into the air with every swing. And then Stuart and Cerregan were there on the other side, having worked closer during the fighting. A sudden realization struck Alik: that meant there were no more or
ders to be given, except perhaps retreat. He did not look behind him or he would have known they were surrounded. But they could not retreat! Deran was getting away! The shards with their laughter were escaping! He heard:
“We cannot hold them off forever, Cerregan; it is a hopeless battle.”
“Emeria has not slept so long to be destroyed by any mob of mice!”
Alik’s heart leapt. He also wanted to help! Arrythh’s elven knife! He had forgotten. Now he drew it, cold and bright, and readied it to defend.
The buzzing in his head slowly resolved into the sound of hooves. Reinforcements! He thought—from where? The Therians were pinned down just as they were, on their flank... unless more were coming. Or was there some other force?
Flan looked up, sensing the change in the battle even before he heard the hooves. Then out of the haze before them he saw a stampede of riderless, twisted horses thundering toward them, scattering rats and scorpions and yak-men alike. Not reinforcements, he realized—with horror—but Thaurim’s cavalry arriving on the scene at last to deliver the final blow.
Alik’s heart squeezed as he saw what was coming over the horizon. Panic curdled in the horses that yet remained, and between the undiminished onslaught and this sudden new craze, the riders could not control their mounts. Even Stuart could do little more than hang onto his furious steed, one hand waving his sword and the other securely wrapped over the stallion’s eyes. Only Flan’s horse, Ashes, was unmoved.
Flan mounted in front of him; Cerregan and Piachras were on either side. There were precious few moments before the monster cavalry would strike but Alik still could not discern any details of the threat. A panic like that of the disarrayed cavalry mounts around him seeped insidiously into his own mind, but more horribly haunting than any terror for its edge of... familiarity. “Stuart!” Flan shouted, “O’er the edge! O’er the edge!” He waved wildly—toward the edge of the plateau, the hundred-foot drop. Something rose up out of the ground, a blur of sodden grey, a streak of claw. Alik saw a pink muzzle soiled by icy dirt, then Ashes screamed, rearing up. Mud and broken rock lay everywhere, red and grey: a creature like a giant mole reared up at Alik. He raised his hands to ward it off and found the Ristorian knife still in his hands. The horse reeled sideways. “Over the edge!” someone shouted.
Alik forced his mind from madness. It was an insinuating voice trying to terrorize him, not like a true enemy but like a close acquaintance on a moonless night or a bard before the marketplace hearth. He struck the ground hard without even seeing it approach. He rolled. The horse somehow did not land on his legs. Then an eerie howl was blasted out of the mole-creature by a heavy blow from Piachras’ axe.
The army was falling sideways. Warriors formed a phalanx streaming past them. “Eye-oh, Ashes,” Flan murmured. Alik could see the horse would not survive: blood and broken bone were everywhere. He only didn’t see how it could still be alive, or how Flan could try to coax it up upon its mangled leg and chest, or how it somehow did careen up on three legs, trailing ever yet more blood. Flan took Alik by the hand and Alik was too stunned to resist, found himself also up again on his own feet—and all the while the horse uttered barely a sound.
The attack around them intensified. The idea came to Alik that the insidious terrorist was Deran, wielding the shard...but how? Deran was insidious but Alik knew the shard would not confide in him. Instead, the terror was coming from...up there—the tower. And he found that, terror apart, he was weeping! He was weeping bitter tears for this beloved horse, who though mortally wounded and barely able to walk, was willing to rise again under its master’s hand and bear him on. The attack around them intensified but became less focused. The beasts, he sensed, were no longer driven by blood-lust, but by terror. They were fleeing into the Emerian army.
The Emerian army side-slipped into the high rocks overlooking the cliffs. The horse limped valiantly onward, Stuart and Cerregan and Piachras all around, protecting it. She stumbled in the rock where half a dozen scorpions had hid themselves. Sabers whirled; the scorpions formed a diamond-head, but Stuart and Cerregan were already on their flanks, shattering them apart.
Up the crest they went. Louder and louder grew the rumbling of hooves and claws. “Emeria! Amrill! Emeria!” the cry went up. In answer came, “Ristoria! For Caimbrand and his heir! For Camber and Alyxia, and by Channon’s light! Remember Laerandis and Andrai, Aldus Scribe and Lady Itherra! Fly, O Falcon!” And then in response came, “Fly, O Osprey!” to which was replied a cannonade from the Therion clarions as mighty as the very wind.
Alik could hear cries behind him of death and war but his head was lost with the sudden dizziness of coming over a rise upon a sheer drop fully twice as deep as he had thought possible before. The cliff’s face fell down, down from them through a rocky canyon floor into a chasmic precipice. They dismounted. Flan leapt into action beside him but Alik did not notice. A surreal squeal, connected to something in the corner of his eye, echoed in his ear. Echoes reverberated upwards.
Alik was disoriented by echoes and roars, a forest of monstrous sounds like a swarm of thrashing birds. He no longer seemed to be standing, but falling. As he fell his vision went completely crystalline and surrounded him like a forest of glass. The crystals of the world reechoed into his vision the roars of lions, the howls of arctic wolves, the squawks and caws of varicolored birds, the squeaks and chitters of rats and squirrels and vermin, and all the sounds of all the animals the world had ever held. And out of them: a figure of a man, reflected crystally, shining darkly with the purple light of a shard like his own blue shard, scowling at him triumphantly.
A flash of hair and fangs lunged over the body nearest him beside him and crashed bodily into him. They tangled and rolled for the precipice. “Alik!” Stuart shouted—but Alik didn’t hear. He saw like crystal the muzzle of a horse with teeth twisted into fangs and hair smeared with blood. A knifelike hoof struck for his face, and he intercepted it with Arrythh’s knife. The blade sliced bone and tendon and jammed both knife and hoof into a wedge of rock, suddenly arresting their rolling movement at the brink. The monster horse snapped at Alik but he lashed back at it and rolled free just as Piachras’ axe crushed through the monster’s head. He had a brief glimpse of the head tumbling free into the air, felt the edge depart, and at the last minute was caught by Piachras’ strong hand.
“Don’t go over without these,” Flan said with a half-smile, hoisting a coil of rope and a set of picks out of the pack on Ashes’ back. “And this.” He flipped Arrythh’s knife out of the wedge it had lodged in with his foot and caught it by the hilt. “’T is a hero’s blade.”
Alik looked around. “Ky...wh...where is Arrythh?” he asked.
“I do not know,” said Flan, tying the rope about Alik’s waist.
The army had closed into a semicircle about them held together at its apex by Stuart and Cerregan. On every side the snarling, clawing horse-beasts pressed into it. The numbers of the elves had grown alarmingly few, and he could see no Therians at all. And now he could make out yet another threat: in the mist over the plateau’s edge, heading straight for them, there loomed a fleet of shapes like giant birds lit up with fiery nets. His mouth gaped and he pointed toward the threat.
“Ah-ha!” declared Piachras, seeming delighted. “So the day is not lost even yet!”
But the meaning of this strange reaction Alik had not the time to learn, for at that moment Flan struck the grapples of their rope into the ground, took Alik, and pushed off. They sailed through the air a moment or two, hit the rock face, and began climbing down.
Alik gazed up into the sky as though after a friend never to be seen again. The shapes fighting on the edge above receded over the rim and became clouded by the haze of melting snow. The rocks shot up higher and higher. Then, as the army above had all but disappeared, the birdlike shapes—great canvas wings mounted with elven warriors trailing nets burning with liquid fire, General Eathril’s Emerian reserves arriving at last on the scene—sailed through h
is field of view over the precipice rim.
Flan transferred Alik to a shallow ledge, wielded his pick, and struck it into the rock face, sending a little avalanche of dry, icy gravel into the abyss. Alik only held on, too numb or fearful to even consider looking down. Flan struck again into the rock, this time catching something solid, and anchored the rope to this new hold. A moment later it went slack, and with an echoing war-cry Piachras sailed overhead. Then, before Alik was ready, Piachras was anchored below them and it was their turn to push off.
The light grew colder and dimmer, the plateau face more treacherous, Flan more and more spent. In between drops he rested, heaving, face against the stone, supporting his whole weight from the anchored pick. Then it was time to jump off again and he came back to life as though perfectly healthy, took Alik by the waist, and sailed off again. The air made Alik’s head spin with its deathly velocity till he could hardly think, but a whistling fire burned up through his ears and inner mind.
Again they crashed into the rock face. Flan shifted Alik to a ledge, took out the pick-axe, took a deep breath, nearly falling, and struck. The axe slipped—wasn’t aimed exactly straight—sent a splinter of rock sideways and fell loose. Flan glanced down, the life fading out of his face. His body went slack and he fell.
Alik yelped and reached out. Flan hit the ground—two feet below.
Alik gaped: they were at the bottom.
For a moment he could not force himself to let go. There was he; there was Flan; there was the bottom. “The axe,” Flan murmured.
He came down. “Wh...a?”
As if in answer, a great boulder that was laying still just a meter away shifted and turned beady eyes his way. His heart froze. The boulder stood: a huge, misshapen creature with grime-streaked, rocky skin, limpid from lack of sun, covered with bulbous growths and rough abrasions and...wearing a faded, dirty loincloth.
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