Our forces came together in a clash of lances against shields, swords clanging against swords and horses whinnying in terror as they kicked against the earth and drove themselves against other horses in a great collision of flesh against flesh. To the west, below the hill, Lord Sharad led our rear guard in a hopeless battle against the Red Knights trying to cut off our route back to the hole that Ymiru and Lord Tomavar’s men had torn in the Dragon Army’s lines. But our way back no longer existed, for the Yarkonan phalanx had marched straight into it like a great steel plug. Soon the Red Knights and Count Ulanu’s cavalry would complete their encirclement of my knights. There could be no escape for us so long as Morjin lived and kept shouting out his command that his men should destroy us.
I turned to meet the attack of the Red Knights riding ahead of Morjin. The foremost of these – a big man with a great scar seaming his black beard – I killed with a quick thrust, driving my sword through the rings of red steel protecting his chest. Alkaladur might be the Sword of Light, but it still had terrible uses, too, and the needs of battle drove me to wield it in order to protect Estrella and those I loved. Two more times my bright sword flashed out, and two more of my enemy plunged to the ground. And then others, many others, pressed forward in a rage to kill me.
Kane, slightly ahead to my right, drove his horse forward to put himself before the Red Knights coming at me. I did not know what had happened to his sword. He had hold of a broken pike, which he used like a staff to protect me. It was a poor weapon to wield against heavily armored knights. Kane, in fighting to kill, had often fallen into a fury so terrible that his enemies had bitten off their own tongues in fear of him. And now, in fighting not to kill, as I realized he did, he had to call upon an even wilder and fiercer force. His speed and strength stunned me; I had never seen him move with such certainty, fire and grace. The end of his pike became a blur of wood as he whirled it past his enemies’ lances and swords. He drove it straight into their chests, unhorsing them, and with savage blows he broke arms and elbows and even men’s faces. But he would not slay them. The killing angel had at last become a true Elijin lord, and of all the great feats of arms I had witnessed upon any battlefield, I had never beheld such a marvel.
Joshu Kadar, Sar Jonavar and Sar Shivalad tried to come up on my left and push ahead to protect me. They hated it when I led the way straight into the lances and swords of our enemy, but expected it, too, for I was a Valari king. Sar Shivalad cast the last of his throwing lances at a Red Knight trying to stab a spearpoint into me, while Joshu fell into a vicious combat with Zahur Tey.
Then Atara pressed foward. I had commanded her to remain close to the cross with Estrella and the others, but she would not wait out the last of the battle helplessly. With Karimah guiding her horse, Atara was sighting the last of her arrows at a large Red Knight who was calling out curses and preparing to hurl a mace at me. He died clutching his hand to the shaft buried in his throat, and I heard Atara cry out: ‘Ninety-nine!’ At that moment, Salmelu bore down on both women swinging a bloodstained kalama. He killed Karimah with a quick slash that nearly cut off her head. And then he turned on Atara.
I did not see how she could withstand his attack. He had the longer sword and good steel armor against her Sarni saber and leather corselet; he cried out his rage to cut her to pieces so that he could get to me. As I chopped through the lance of yet another knight trying to impale me, I drank in the terrible sight of the bare-armed and blind Atara slashing out with her saber in a desperate struggle to keep Salmelu’s sword from cutting her open.
‘Atara!’ Daj cried out. He, too, had disobeyed my command to wait with the others. Wielding a long lance that he could barely hold, the youth drove his horse almost straight into Salmelu, all the while stabbing with his lance. ‘Val! I’ll save you!’
It was upon me, I thought, to save him – and Atara. But I could not move to my left just then to engage Salmelu. For Morjin, still kicking his horse’s flanks bloody and screaming out his hate, fell upon me from straight ahead.
‘Die, Valari!’
Altaru whinnied out a challenge and reared up to strike his hooves into Morjin’s white stallion. His teeth gnashed the air as he tried to bite Morjin or his stallion – I could not be sure which. It took a moment to steady him and position him next to Morjin’s huge mount, side by side. Then Morjin’s sword smashed down against mine. A shock of pain ran up through my arm bones; I did not know how Morjin called upon such a terrible strength. Again and again, we swung our swords against each other, slashing and parrying, thrusting and trying to cut our way through. My sword’s silustria rang from the quick, powerful blows that he rained down upon me.
‘Elahad!’ I heard Salmelu shout out from my left. Steel clashed against wood as Daj furiously parried Salmelu’s sword with his lance. ‘I will cut off your woman’s head and hand it to you! The boy’s, too!’
I had no time to take in the battle raging next to me. I gasped and sweated and grunted with the great effort of keeping Morjin from splitting my flesh. Our horses screamed and pushed at each other, and our swords burned the air. I should, I thought, have been able to vanquish him. I had the better blade; I had youth and fire and recent practice in such deadly duels from all the combats that my war with Morjin had forced upon me. Above all, I had Kane as my teacher, and every lesson that this matchless old warrior had ever drilled into my nerves and bones lived on with every lightning stroke and thrust of my sword. But Morjin, some legends told, was the greatest swordsman ever to walk upon Ea. He had killed thousands of his enemy, sword to sword. He had a fount of power that only the Elijin could call upon. And he had his hate.
‘Valari!’ he shouted to me. Our swords slammed together and then sprang back. ‘I will kill you and everything else on this world before I will ever become your ghul!’
We battled on with hundreds of other knights cutting and cursing at each other in a great circle at the top of the hill. The muscles in my arm burned from the great effort of swinging my sword; the sun’s rays stabbed like daggers into my eyes. Morjin threw himself at me with an almost reckless rage, as if he did not care that I might slash him open so long as he could slaughter me. And Estrella. He kept looking over toward her, standing beneath the cross. I felt his furious will to tear her apart. With a ringing of steel, he managed to slide his sword away from mine and slice it down against my shield arm, nearly breaking it. Then he stabbed it at my face. I jerked back my head in time to keep him from piercing my brains – but his sword’s point drove into my cheek and scored the bone beneath. I gasped at the jolt of pain that shot through my head, and I blinked against the blood that worked its way into my eye. I counterattacked with all the fury that I could find, but it was not enough. Why, I wanted to shout to the wind, could I not kill this man?
And the wind whispered back: Because you do not want to see something beautiful perish from the earth.
Love, I knew then, could destroy as easily as it could create. If I let it, my regard for Morjin would slow my sword and steal the blood from my heart. Then he would slay me. His men would overwhelm the nearly defenseless Kane, and cut down Atara, Joshu Kadar, Lord Avijan and all my other knights fighting so heroically upon this hill. They would slaughter Abrasax and Master Juwain and all the Seven. And Alphanderry and Liljana, too. After Morjin had clawed the Lightstone from Estrella’s fingers, would he then put her on a cross next to Bemossed?
‘No!’ I called out him. ‘It is you who must die!’
I knew that he must. He seemed to know it, too. I saw it in his red, anguished eyes and felt it in his blood as an unbearable burning that had grieved him for too many thousands of years. His whole being trembled as if haunted with his life and all the dreadful deeds that he had done. He fell at me slashing his sword in a frenzy and a fearful will to seize his fate.
‘One hundred!’ Atara cried out to the sky. Her duel with Salmelu had carried her ahead of me, and I caught sight of her jerking her bloody saber from Salmelu’s throat. It seemed that
somehow Daj had directed her precisely where to cut him. Then she called to me: ‘Val! If you kill him …’
I did not hear the rest of her words, for her vision of what would befall me had long since found its home inside my heart: If you kill him, you kill yourself!
I knew that I would. It did not matter. My grandfather had once told me that some men are marked out to make their own fate.
And so I called upon all the radiance still pouring from the cup in Estrella’s hand and the light coursing through my sword. A vast will, as fiery as Kane’s, blazed through me. I swung Alkaladur at Morjin, once, twice, ten times, seeking for advantage with a controlled fury that Kane had burned deep into my soul. I finally beat aside Morjin’s sword in a ringing of silustria against steel. His eyes opened wide, drinking in the light in mine. Love, I knew, might be the most beautiful force in the universe, but it was also the most terrible.
‘Strike!’ Kane shouted as from a million miles away.
And then a closer and deeper voice as Atara called to me in despair: ‘Val!’
I rose up, standing in my stirrups as I lifted the Bright Sword toward the heavens. Then, before Morjin could move his sword back to cover himself, I swung Alkaladur’s blade down against Morjin’s shoulder with a tremendous force. The silustria split his armor and sliced through his body at a slant, cracking bones and tearing his lungs. With a shock of agony, I felt it cleave his heart. Then it drove down through his belly toward his opposite hip, nearly cutting him in two.
No Elijin, not even Kane, could survive such a wound. Morjin died in a torrent of blood, staring at me. Then his torn body plummeted from his horse to the ground with a great crash.
I gasped as I waited for the agony to sweep me away. Strangely, however, I felt no pain. I gazed down at the ground, and there, hovering over Morjin’s still form, a dark cloud took shape as a man. It had a head the size and shape of Morjin’s, and so with its legs, torso and arms. I could not make out any feature of its face, lost within a black nothingness. The Ahrim – for such I knew it was – suddenly reached out its hand to me and grasped hold of my hand. I could not let go, and neither could I resist it. I felt Morjin calling to me from wherever he had gone, and Bemossed, and my father and my mother, my brothers, too, and all the thousands of men dead or dying upon this field. Down, I fell, down and down through a dark hole that opened through the ground. It seemed to have no bottom.
And as I fell through a terrible cold, faces appeared, glowing out of the gloom. I stared into the eyes of Raldu, the assassin, and at a shaggy hill-man of Alonia and at one of the hideous Grays. There must have been hundreds of these men: all those I had ever put to the sword. I had not realized that I had slain so many. And then, as I fell and fell, I saw that there were really millions of them. For the One had brought me forth – some flaming part of my soul – as a warrior countless times on countless worlds. And I had killed uncountable multitudes since the beginning of time. When I looked at the dead more closely, it astonished me to see that each of their faces was really my own.
And then I looked no more. There was nothing to see, nor did anything exist by which it might be seen. I heard nothing and I felt nothing, for I was nothing. The darkness deepened down into an even more utter blackness that went on and on forever.
Valashu.
And then there was light. As hate contains the seed of love and the black gelstei holds a firestone’s flames, the neverness that had devoured me gave birth to a dazzling darkness. Faint, at first, it slowly grew brighter. And then quickly brighter and still brighter until it swelled outward and blazed like a sun. And then ten thousand suns, ten million of millions and all the stars in the universe pouring out an impossibly perfect splendor. I could not perceive it, as the eye takes hold of a flower’s beauty. I could only be it, utterly interfused, for as it opened out and out into an infinite glory, the light and I were one.
‘Valashu.’
I heard Estrella calling to me, but I thought that I must be dreaming, for Estrella could not speak. I felt a hand pressing down upon my chest, and my heart beating against it. My breath burned past my lips like a fiery wind. Then a fierce light filled my eyes. The sun – Ea’s sun, warm and bright – sent its golden rays streaming down upon me. I blinked my eyes and squinted and gasped. Bemossed’s blood-streaked body hung upon the cross just above me. I tried to sit up, but several hands pushed me back to the earth. Breaking metal and a terrible screaming filled the air.
‘Val!’ Atara called to me. She knelt by my side, while Estrella crouched down next to her.
‘You live!’ Master Juwain cried out from above me. ‘You were dead, but now you live!’
He explained that after I had fallen from my horse, the Seven and Liljana had dragged my body to the foot of the cross. My heart had stopped, and so had my breath. No skill of Master Juwain nor even the life-strengthening powers of the Seven’s gelstei had been able to revive me. But Estrella had.
‘She called you back!’ he said to me. ‘She put her hand upon you, and your heart started beating again!’
As I looked up Estrella, smiling at me, Master Juwain went on to declaim that this was a miracle and irrefutable proof that she was the Maitreya. I could hardly hear him, for the sound of clashing steel and men screaming drowned out his words. I forced myself to sit up. All around us, at the top of the hill, the Red Knights and the Yarkonans had finally encircled my warriors and pressed them inward into an even tighter ring. With Morjin hacked to pieces, his Red Knights worked even more ferociously to exact revenge. So did Count Ulanu. He led his Yarkonans against my knights. His ugly face contorted in wrath as he tried to cut his way through in order to kill all of us, and his old enemy Liljana first and foremost. But just then, Liljana brought her blue gelstei up to her head. She must have put something into his mind that maddened him, for he suddenly looked at her and screamed and fell from his horse. His own men trampled him under, crushing him to death with another hideous scream. But it was not enough to keep his men from pressing on.
Nor could Kane turn back the tide of battle. Now fighting on foot, the better to protect Estrella, he whirled his broken pike about like a magician’s staff, felling many, but he could not beat back an entire army. Neither could the bloody kalamas wielded by Lord Avijan, Joshu Kadar – and many others – as they sliced into the masses of men pressing them. Soon, I knew, the Red Knights would close in upon the cross and annihilate me and mine.
‘My sword!’ I heard my voice croak out. ‘Where is my sword?’
Atara pressed Alkaladur’s hilt into my hand, and my fingers closed around it. A surging of blood through my veins, like the Poru in flood, gave me the strength to stand up. Then Atara swept up her saber and turned to face our enemy.
‘No,’ I told her, laying my hand on her arm, all bloody from the arrow that had pierced her and her butchery of Salmelu. ‘You have slain your hundredth man.’
I looked out across the war-torn steppe below the Detheshaloon, and I saw many thousands of men still slaying each other, pushing spears and swords past shields. And women, too. At the center of the field, where the enemy poured through the broken Alonian lines, I saw a battalion of Valari knights appear as if from nowhere and ride forward into the gap. The diamond armor of these hundreds of knights sparkled in the sun. I caught sight of a great blue rose against a white surcoat and other emblems that I did not recognize; I suddenly realized that somehow Vareva Tomavar and the woman warriors she had trained had found their way to the battle. Their kalamas gleamed like shards of silver. The tremendous tumult nearly deafened me; the sun’s red flash off bronze and steel nearly burned out my eyes. I could not tell who was winning the battle.
‘Estrella!’ I called turning to this lovely young woman who had shown me so much. ‘Will you help me again?’
Her smile was like a warm ocean washing through me. She nodded her head as if she had been waiting all her life for me to ask her this question. He hands grew bright from the radiance pouring out of the cup that s
he held.
I raised my sword up to the sky, aligning it with stars that I could not see but only sense. I pointed it toward the Seven Sisters and Agathad, where the Galadin dwelled, and Ninsun, source of the Golden Band at the center of all things. Then I brought Alkaladur down and swept it out across the battlefield, from our lines of knights and warriors in the west to the trampled grass in the east, where Sajagax’s Sarni had now nearly routed the enemy’s tribes. It was strange to think that Morjin’s death had done nothing to dismay the men whom he had led here but had only caused them to fall against my men with an even greater savagery.
But I will give them dismay, I thought. That – and much, much more.
For I had brought back from the land of the dead a great gift.
‘Val!’ Atara cried out from next to me. ‘Your sword!’
Once again, the Lightstone poured out an impossibly bright radiance. So did my sword. All the fire of life that blazed within me flashed out of it. The valarda was that force which opened one man or women to another, heart to heart. At the heart of all things, I knew, there shimmered but one light. It was this splendor that interconnected all beings together as one.
There is nothing to fear.
Truly, there was not. But so long as flesh burned with life, there would always be much to suffer. Now, as men battling in both the Dragon army and mine thrust steel through flesh, they suffered themselves the terrible agonies that they inflicted on each other. The screams of the wounded and dying, in thousands, were joined by the shrieks of those who would cleave or slay them. No man could strike another without feeling the white-hot pain of a spear or axe or arrow or sword ripping through him. So it has always been with me. And so now I gladly – but with great grieving – shared my gift with them.
They cannot bear it!
Who, I wondered, could? For I, who had called upon my sword to help me endure the torments of those I had slain, had in the end driven myself down into death. Perhaps only Kane, I thought, of any man on earth or the stars, had the strength to drink in the anguish of those he struck down and keep on fighting.
The Diamond Warriors Page 50