For the Killing of Kings

by Howard Andrew Jones

  “Do you think that they’ll have archers with them?” she asked N’lahr. The Naor used archers, but owing to their general preference for larger, less refined bows, few carried them on horseback.

  N’lahr continued to work at prying a larger boulder. “If they do, they’ll be in small numbers. They’ll station them to either side of the bluff and try to shoot up at us, although they’ll be hard-pressed to see us, so they may try volleys.”

  Naturally he’d already thought it out.

  He was unusually loquacious, for he went on: “They may attempt javelin volleys, but given the height of our post that’s even less likely to help them. Before long they’ll want to close with us.” He succeeded at last and sat down Denaven’s sword to turn over the rock, which partly rolled and partly slid a few feet down the hill. It left a large, saddle-shaped depression. N’lahr clapped dirt from his hands. “I’ll manage the rest of this. See if you can aid Lasren. He’ll need to be in better shape for the fight.”

  Elenai wasn’t sure what she could manage, especially not if the Naor mage was watching for them, but she obediently looked through the inner world, and immediately she noted the relative levels of strength of their glowing energy matrices. N’lahr, still working the terrain, appeared in the best shape, though his lines were thin. Lasren’s energies were tapped and graying, and Gyldara and Kyrkenall, both working farther downslope, were only a little better. Well, she could restore herself somewhat by drawing from the hearthstone. Why not try it with the others? To imagine was to do. When she activated the hearthstone this time there was no sign of her watcher, so she quickly sent threads of strength toward all four of her comrades and their weakened energy matrices glowed, shifting toward golden.

  Kyrkenall straightened shoulders, then grinned up at her. “Was that you?”

  She smiled.

  “Hah! Nicely done.”

  “It’s the best I can manage. I’m no healer.”

  “I’ll take it.”

  Lasren and Gyldara waved and called their own thanks.

  She nodded, then closed down the stone and surveyed the opposition. Small groups of Naor riders slid past their position into the canyon below. They, at least, weren’t going to attack. Others were only a few hundred yards behind, and after them were the hundreds in good order led by Mazakan’s bannerman. Maybe they’d just follow the others into escape. She could hope.

  “I’m afraid I don’t have quite enough arrows,” Kyrkenall said dryly. “But I’m tempted to start picking some of them off.”

  “Wait,” N’lahr replied. “If they have archers, take them out when they start to range themselves. If possible, save some arrows for their charge up the hill.”

  “Right.” Kyrkenall studied the slope. “I’d like to arrange a nice grouping of bodies they’ll have to climb over.”

  N’lahr nodded. “Of course.”

  Elenai was struck by their astonishing matter-of-factness.

  Lasren limped up, sword sheathed. “I wish I had a good spear,” he opined. “I’m not nearly as agile as I’d like to be for a sword fight.”

  “Use Decrin’s shield,” N’lahr suggested. “Gyldara brought it up.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  She glanced over to Kyrkenall planting arrows, then looked back to N’lahr and saw his jaw tense as dozens of horsemen around the bannerman stopped near the gentle south approach to their bluff. Dozens grew into hundreds. Elenai saw that some, riding double, were dropping from saddles and, at shouted command, arranging themselves in lines encircling their bluff.

  A score to the east were readying longbows, and someone was shouting to let fly on his command.

  “Pick your targets fast,” N’lahr told Kyrkenall, and motioned everyone else back from the edge.

  The archer nocked an arrow to Arzhun. “You know, this thin volley’s going to be easy to see coming. I bet we can duck it in this light and encourage another.”

  “Why risk it?” N’lahr asked.

  “So I can use their arrows.”

  N’lahr nodded appreciatively. “Stand ready, everyone. Over here,” N’lahr indicated. “Farther from the edge. And look to the skies.”

  Kyrkenall was the last to quit the verge, and a moment later a harsh Naor voice shouted to fire.

  Elenai tensed, blade before her, ready to try slicing arrows from the air. She actually heard them whizzing as they arced up and over the side of the bluff, though it was more challenging to spot them against the unevenly lit sky than she would have liked. She knew a stab of fear and swirled her sword directly overhead, worried that one would come in at a slant and strike her neck.

  But the Naor were challenged by their inability to see their targets. Most of the arrows passed over the Altenerai and struck the soil behind. Gyldara was the only one of them who had to step out of the way. Three landed near their feet, and two clanged off Decrin’s shield. “I wasn’t even trying to block them,” Lasren asserted.

  Kyrkenall stepped to the edge and made a rude gesture.

  “Fire!” the Naor voice cried a second time.

  N’lahr motioned to everyone. “Back farther now.”

  Elenai almost stepped on a perfectly fine arrowshaft from the first attack in her haste to comply.

  The instincts of the seasoned Altenerai had been right. This time the arrows fell a little closer to the edge. The Naor were “walking” their attack forward from where they’d shot the first time. Four of the missiles came in blazing redly, trailing smoke. One of those aflame soared close to Elenai and she managed to slice it aside. The others fell harmlessly, except for one Kyrkenall snatched from the air.

  It was still smoking as he pressed it up to his bow and dashed to the edge. There was only a brief delay before he fired, and from below came a garbled scream even as Kyrkenall launched a slew of his own arrows, from the line he’d set in the dirt. More outcry followed. Only a few shafts streamed up in response. Apparently most of the archers were too busy running or dying to launch new attacks of their own.

  Kyrkenall drew back with a grim smile. “That’s most of them.” He looked to Lasren. “They’ll try javelins next. Try to give them a target and catch them on your shield.”

  Lasren nodded once and accepted the assignment without flinching, limping boldly to the edge so he was in clear sight. All the Altenerai had been taught how to endure javelin or spear fire. When given time to ready, all but the most incompetent could avoid them, lest they came out of the sun or utter darkness.

  “What are you waiting for?” Kyrkenall asked the rest of them. “Help me gather the Naor arrows.”

  Though it seemed at first they had almost three dozen, only twenty or so proved fully serviceable. Kyrkenall set quickly to repairing the fletching on three more, using his supplies, while the javelin fire began. He screamed once, as if in pain, to encourage the Naor to launch more.

  Lasren caught five on his shield during three separate volleys, and Gyldara gathered another seven that fell nearby, returning a few with deadly effect.

  After that the Naor ceased their distance attacks. The sound of riders fleeing into the canyon to the west grew louder. During the brief lull, N’lahr’s attention shifted, like Kyrkenall’s, to the line of scrub at the bottom of the slope. Elenai could hear the clop of horse hooves and the rustle of twigs as the Naor pushed through.

  “Looks like they’re going to try a horse charge,” Kyrkenall said.

  “Doesn’t seem very wise,” Gyldara offered.

  “Well, they’re Naor.” Kyrkenall nocked one of the light feathered arrows preferred by their enemies. “This will make clogging the slope a little easier.”

  “Any moment now,” N’lahr said. “Lasren, keep an eye on the rear in case they try more javelins, or some madman tries to climb.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Gyldara, hold your axes until the real assault starts.”

  “The real assault, sir?”

  Elenai understood her confusion.

  N’lahr patiently e
xplained. “They won’t send their best troops first. Kyrkenall will be able to take most of these.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  At her acknowledgment, the first horsemen appeared on the slope and kicked their mounts forward. Eight in all, they wore dark helms topped with horsehair. They tried to hold their line steady, but the ground was too uneven and soon they were advancing with little gaps.

  Kyrkenall was merciless. He winged arrows into the oncoming mass, starting with the riders on either end. He fired again, and again, sometimes pausing deliberately until he had his targets just where he wished before he dropped a horse through the eye or sent it screaming to careen into a neighbor with a knee shot. All the carnage bunched the rest of them toward the middle as they struggled to escape his attacks, but that was right where Kyrkenall wanted them, dead center of the slope, in a line ending a few feet shy of the summit.

  Those few Kyrkenall didn’t slay N’lahr moved out to finish off with astonishing economy of motion before performing a few mercy killings of the animals. He retreated just as a line of ground troops emerged from the brush and ran screaming up.

  “A nice grouping,” N’lahr said to Kyrkenall as he regained the height.

  “Thanks.”

  “How are you on ammunition?”

  “Enough for a little more mayhem.” Kyrkenall let fly with the first arrow as a line of fifteen Naor ran at their position. More poured up behind the first, and Elenai struggled for calm. Kyrkenall and N’lahr seemed nonchalant, but soon the archer was going to run out of arrows, and there were a lot of Naor out there.

  Their bluff shook as more hoofbeats slammed the earth to the west. Another group was bypassing them to escape the battlefield.

  Finally Kyrkenall announced he was done, and N’lahr and Gyldara capped his attack with a few well cast javelins. One moment there was a group of charging warriors. The next there was a mass of dead and dying bearded men. The rank smell of death was borne up the wind toward them even as Kyrkenall laughed unexpectedly. He slid his bow home into its holder between his shoulders, then drew Lothrun in a flash of blue steel.

  The bodies were strewn thickly upon the hillside. More Naor footmen advanced with spears, a dozen in front with four well-ordered lines behind.

  Less than twelve paces out they had to divide around the bodies.

  Kyrkenall looked at N’lahr and grinned. He glanced to Elenai, a mad gleam in his eye. “Come! If this be our numbered day, let us send these numbers before us to their end!”

  N’lahr nodded grimly.

  Five Altenerai against almost fifty Naor. And providing they survived, more would surely follow. But there was no time to worry about the future. Elenai could only focus upon getting through the present.

  The helmed warriors at the forefront hurled javelins as they charged. N’lahr sidestepped, graceful as a dancer, and cut one inbound toward Gyldara from the air with his magnificent sword. Kyrkenall simply ignored them all and none came close. Luck, Elenai wondered, or would he have moved if one had?

  Those who came after parted before the knots of corpses Kyrkenall had arranged so well, struggling up through the bodies in two groups. Elenai and Gyldara waited to one side, Kyrkenall and N’lahr the other. Lasren, shield on his arm, Naor javelin in hand, guarded their rear.

  All then was madness as the enemy warriors rushed, some stumbling over the uneven ground. There were the screams of the dying and the scent of entrails, the war cries of Naor, the laughter of Kyrkenall and, from time to time, his macabre poetry, spoken as if in a trance. It was eerie and strange and seemed unconscious, like the way Gyldara exhaled audibly with every blow or block.

  So fast did everything move that Elenai had but fleeting impressions. N’lahr, impossibly deadly with that sword that sliced equally well through flesh, bone, or steel. It seemed only necessary to touch someone to send them plunging with a torrent of blood. He swung clear of countless axe blows and spear shafts, always silent, always sure, and soon the bodies around were an impediment to reach him. She’d thought Kyrkenall the most amazing swordsman she’d ever seen, but N’lahr, with Irion, was almost deific.

  Not that the swift archer was less deadly than usual. He was more active than N’lahr, taunting the Naor and shouting at them to taste his steel. Lothrun’s gleam was hidden by gore, and Kyrkenall himself was a blur of motion.

  Gyldara fought with a mix of Kyrkenall’s eagerness and N’lahr’s pinpoint precision, preferring straight thrusts to Kyrkenall’s wide slashes. She dealt death with either hand, driving in now with her sword, then with a deft, deadly blow to head or neck with her offhand light axe.

  Elenai herself was one with her blade, and one with the moment of possibilities. Blocking, thrusting at a leering face, once dashing forward to parry when Gyldara exposed her back, once cutting down a spear thrown at Kyrkenall.

  Lasren was mostly out of Elenai’s visual range, but he ran forward to shield his comrades when three daring Naor strove to flank them, and he bought space later with well-timed spear jabs. His teeth were gritted in a mask of pain and determination.

  Quite suddenly the attacks halted, and Elenai marveled, her sword low, her breathing heavy. The dead were mounded before them. It actually looked like more than fifty.

  “By the gods,” Lasren panted beside her, “we’re doing it.”

  Kyrkenall raised his bloodied blade to the dark: “Five they were who stood as one against the Naor tide, a blood-red wave of vicious men who came and bled and died.”

  “Nicely done. Relax a moment. Conserve your strength.” N’lahr unlimbered his waterskin, sipped, then passed it over to Gyldara.

  “What are they waiting for?” Elenai asked. She glanced overside to their left where more than a hundred Naor still sat saddle. Lasren had retreated to watch them again.

  “Now’s when they send their best,” N’lahr answered. He wiped his sword. Despite his advice, he didn’t look particularly relaxed.

  Gyldara passed the water to Elenai, who drank eagerly despite the acrid flavor, conscious not to drain it dry. Kyrkenall handed his nearly empty wineskin off to Lasren, who toasted him with it before taking a deep drink. The archer had been nursing that sweet liquid for weeks.

  “Good stuff,” Lasren said. The big man didn’t sound the least bit sarcastic.

  “He’s got taste,” Kyrkenall remarked to N’lahr, who broke into a smile. Lasren looked uncertain until Kyrkenall stretched up to clap him on the shoulder.

  The respite ended the moment additional Naor emerged from the screen of trees, led by the bannerman. These were the largest warriors yet, bearing well-made swords and matching shields, armored in heavy shivering chain and leather. Three feathers stood out from each of their helms. Behind them were a line of seven men in resplendent and varied armor, but they remained just this side of the copse of trees; they parted deferentially for a single mounted figure who rode up past the bannerman and the nearer warriors on the largest, blackest horse Elenai had ever seen.

  He was a tall, broad figure in a flat helm topped with a jawless, silvered skull inset with large faceted rubies. They shone faintly under the shifting aurora.

  “Here he is,” Kyrkenall said. “Mazakan’s lost too much honor now. He’ll have to prove himself to his underlings.”

  This, then, was Mazakan? Elenai stared. It was difficult to imagine that a person actually existed behind the legend.

  The newcomer dropped heavily from his horse and strode forward. He stood a head higher even than the honor guard around him, a veritable giant among Naor, who were never small. Part of his chest and shoulder armor was fashioned from blue khalats. At least two Altenerai, Elenai recalled, had personally fallen to him, among them Temahr, one of the finest swordsmen of the previous generation.

  She had no good view of Mazakan’s face until he stopped among the dead, only three spear lengths out. He had a square, thick head with a dense beard shot with gray, two bright eyes glittering with malice, and a scarred nose that had been broken multiple times
and twisted leftward.

  As Mazakan’s honor guard ranged neatly to either side, she spotted another figure just behind, armored but narrow-shouldered and round, picking his own way through the dead behind Mazakan. And she knew, with certainty, that this was a sorcerer. Not just owing to his carriage, but by a palpable aura about him. She tensed. “They’ve a weaver,” she whispered to her companions.

  The Naor halted their advance and Mazakan showed blocky teeth in something that might have been a grin, if there’d been any humor in it. He was clearly taller even than N’lahr.

  “It is N’lahr.” Mazakan’s voice was surprisingly warm and vital. “I don’t believe in ghosts. So I know that you’ve been cowering somewhere. Was this eshlack trick your doing?”

  “It was our doing,” N’lahr answered. For some reason, his ring lit.

  Mazakan’s voice rose and he indicated the surrounding territory with a sweeping gesture. “This is but a brief setback. You fey are weak, and divided. Ready to fall before a greater power. Even as we speak, another of your cities is being plundered. More will follow.”

  “You must think your men are pretty stupid if you’re going to sell this as a ‘setback,’” Kyrkenall cut in. “Your army is smashed, Mazakan. And N’lahr’s going to take your head.”

  The Naor king grinned at him. “Brave noises won’t save you, nagging wasp. The truth here is plain to see. N’lahr, the coward who hid from me for seven years, has nothing left but you, a cripple”—at this he indicated Lasren with a negligent wave—“and,” he said spitefully, “two women.”

  The honor guard laughed roughly, as if this were high theater.

  N’lahr’s answer was cool. “We are Altenerai. We strike as one.” The others set their sapphires aglow and Elenai hurried to do the same.

  Mazakan answered after a brief pause. “Soon you’ll strike at none. Come, N’lahr. Let us put an end to talk of this prophecy.” So saying, he unlimbered a massive sword and turned to the man on his right. “Have the others!”