Lord of Lies

Chapter 32

Morjin's army invaded Mesh on the sixth of Ioj. The Galdans, under the Saroch, Radomil Makan, as the high priests of the Kallimun were called, moved a day later, on the seventh. Messengers brought us word of this desecration of our sacred soil. My father saw no point in wasting warriors at the passes, and so he had ordered the garrisons there to remain within the kel keeps, behind their walls. This presented Morjin with a difficult choice: he could lose part of his army besieging the keep, which might take a month, or simply march around it. But if he did that, then his line of supplies would likely be cut, and his army would be forced to live off whatever they could take from Mesh's countryside. And more, in the event of his defeat, his retreat from Mesh might be hindered. So it was with Radomil and the Galdans. It encouraged no one when Morjin decided to march straight down the road to Lashku and across the Lake County. He paused only to ravage the abandoned farms there, and he bypassed Lashku altogether, leaving that walled city inviolate behind him. He clearly desired a showdown with our army as quickly as possible. It seemed that he did not fear defeat.

The Galdans, however, gave sign that they were at least as interested in plundering Mesh's mineral wealth as they were in giving battle. Reports came that the Galdans laid siege to Godhra for half a day before they broke off and resumed their march north. Morjin must have commanded them to leave its despoliation until their return, after our army was destroyed. As it was, the Galdans raided several armories outside Godhra's walls, and made off with many bushels of diamonds. And worse, they slew half a dozen swordmakers and their families, and others.

Most of my people, however, at least for the time, found safety behind thick stone walls or in the fastnesses deep within mountains. They made sure that there was little to feed these two great armies, taking with them as many cattle, sheep and sacks of grain as they could. In revenge, Morjin ordered the burning of their fields. A line of flaming wheat and barley followed the line of his march like the track of a fire-breathing dragon.

On Ioj the twelfth, the Sakayans and Galdans met up outside Hardu and my father finally marched south. There followed a series of threats and maneuvers as my father strove to destroy or at least decimate Morjin's combined forces as they crossed the Arashar River. A small battle was fought at Kinshan Bridge, and the Meshians had much the better of the day, killing some three hundred Caldans and even more of Morjin's mercenaries. But Morjin was a skilled and hardened warlord, and he seemed not to mind spending the lives of his men to achieve his objectives. He used this sacrifice at the bridge to move the main body of his army across the river lower down, toward Lake Waskaw where it was shallow enough in this dry season for his baggage train to cross without being swept away.

My father was forced then to order a retreat back north, for he would not give battle in the mostly flat and open country between Lake Waskaw and Silvassu. There it would be too easy for the Sarni to harry his warriors or even ride around, them and attack his army from the rear. And in a pitched battle, it would be too easy for Morjin's men, with their much greater numbers, to swarm like ants around our army's flanks and push their spears into our backs.

It wasn't hard for my father to outmaneuver this unruly and motley mass of men. Three armies Morjin had to co-ordinate, counting the Sarni, and his problem in this regard was even worse than it seemed, for the Sakayan force was itself composed of disparate elements: nine thousand heavy infantry out of Argattha; three thousand Blues from the mountains of western Sakai; seventeen thousand mercenaries from Hesperu, Karabuk and other realms of Ea; a thousand Ikurian horse and five thousand of Morjin's famed Dragon Guard, decked out in steel armor that had been tinctured bright red. The Galdans, though all of the same realm, did not all appear to be of the same quality. Twenty thousand heavy infantry formed their core, supported by as many light infantry and eight hundred light cavalry. These, it was thought, could not hold up to the deadly strokes of Valari kalamas. The two hundred Galdan heavy horse were too few to withstand the charge of our knights, and the Galdans were weak in archers, as well. No doubt Morjin counted on the Sarin's arrows to rain down death upon us from afar.

I spent those days of waiting in prowling about the castle and discussing the enemy's strengths and weaknesses with Sunjay Naviru and the Guardians, as well as with Sar Vikan, Sar Araj, Sar Jovan and the other captains in charge of the castle's defenses. Five companies of knights and warriors my father had left behind to man the battlements. Some thought that these were too many, that my father could have made better use of them on the field facing the Sakayans spear to spear and shield to shield. Others argued that they were too few. Whenever I walked through the wards and beheld the mothers reassuring their children that everything would be all right, it seemed that ten thousand warriors lined up along the walls could not be enough to protect Mesh's greatest treasure.

On the evening of the fourteenth, I took my dinner in the great hall with my mother and grandmother, and with Lord Rathald and his family, who shared our table. Lord Tomavar's young wife, Vareva, joined us, too. We had fresh lamb that night, all bloody and red the way we Meshians liked it. There were peas and mashed potatoes, as well, and blueberries with cream. It seemed that it might be the last such feast we would have, for everyone was saying that the battle would begin the next day. But Vareva hardly touched her meal. She was only twenty-three and beautiful, even for a Valari, with shiny, sable hair, ivory skin and eyes so large and full of light that people would find excuses to engage her in conversation just so that they might look upon her. It was something of a scandal that Lord Tomavar had married such a young woman after Vareva's husband had fallen at the battle of the Red Mountain. But it seemed that both of them had married for love. Lord Tomavar, more than once, had endured the laughter of his former rivals when they had caught him picking wildflowers for Vareva to put in her hair. And Vareva, more than once, had been heard to say: 'What do I care if my husband is older than I when he has the hands of a sculptor and the soul of an angel?' It was Vareva who helped me understand how hard it was on the women left behind when their men went off to battle.

When I told her that she should try to eat and gather her strength, she pressed her palm into her belly and said to me, 'Lord Valashu, you were gone on your first journey for how long? Half a year?'

'Yes,' I told her, 'that's right.'

'And on how many of those days were you close to death? Thirty? Sixty?'

'Perhaps,' I said.

Vareva looked down the table at my mother, who had piped between bites of blueberries. And she told me, 'Your mother died, a little, every day that you were gone. And a thousand times every night.'

That night I could not sleep for worrying what the next day might bring to my brothers and countrymen. A messenger from my father had informed me earlier that our army had set up on good ground below the Kurash River, near the village of Balvalam only five miles from the castle. There, on the morrow, on the Culhadosh Commons where only a week before many sheep had grazed on its acres of grass, the warriors of Mesh would stand and bleed the ground red with the blood of our enemies — either that or die themselves.

The ides of Ioj dawned clear and bright with the last of summer's warmth. I was up early, and I put on my battle armor in the quiet of Yarashan's room. As the roosters in their coops gave call, I mounted the stairs to the Swan Tower and stood in the crenel between two thick merlons gazing out at the countryside beyond Silvassu. The warriors stationed there did not speak to me. I shielded my eyes against the sun's fiery glister as it rose over the mountains to the east. The fields and forests below the Kurash were shrouded in haze and seemed as peaceful as a meadowlark singing its morning song. But I knew that only five miles away, obscured by green hills and a swathe of woods, my father's army would be marching out of its camp and lining up to face the hordes of men that Morjin had summoned out of Galda and Argattha.

I listened for the booming of the great kettle drums, but Culhadosh Commons was too far away, and the pounding of blood in my ears was too loud. The streets and yards of Silvassu below were quiet, and so were the houses, for my people had deserted the city to take refuge in the castle or in the mountains to the west. I listened for the sound of silver bells fastened to the ankles of my father's warriors and jangling out into the stillness of the morning. But all I could hear was the squealing of a pig being slaughtered, the sawing of wood, and hammers beating against ringing iron in the shops off the middle ward as the casde awakened and people went about their business. The glowing charcoal of their cooking fires sent plumes of dark smoke into the air. Along the battlements, my warriors stood ready to light fires of their own, beneath cauldrons of oil or sand, should the enemy appear and attack the castle. I leaned out over the crenel and breathed in deeply; my nostrils and throat burned as I recalled the smell of a battlefield's blood that could drive both men and beasts mad. I kept gazing off toward the Culhadosh Commons. The land grew greener and brighter as the sun rose higher in the sky. The air began to heat up; so did the steel plates reinforcing the shoulders of my armor. Sweat slicked my skin down my sides and stung my eyes.

And then, out of the east, a rider appeared. I squinted, trying to make out the details of his tiny form as he made his way up the River Road toward the castle. He drew closer. Just as he entered Silvassu and the houses blocked my line of sight, I caught a glimpse of his colors-a great blue rose shining out from a gold field. Now that Baltasar was dead, this could only be the charge of Lord Lansar Raasharu.

I nearly flew down the Swan Tower's long spiral of stairs in my haste to know why he had returned to the castle. I ran across the middle ward, dodging around pots of bubbling porridge and boys playing with wooden swords. Maram happened to be taking breakfast there with a woman named Ursa. He followed me as 1 crossed the west ward and then shouted out for the guards in the gate tower to open the sally port set into the locked gates. This they did. I greeted Lansar as his horse galloped across the bridge over the Kurash River.

'Lansar!' I called out as he came to a halt. 'What is it?'

I looked closely at him, to make sure that it really was Lansar, that some enemy knight hadn't stripped the surcoat from his dead body and donned it to deceive us. But the same homely and noble face that I had known all of my life looked out from beneath his helm. His dark eyes burned with pain; the gold of his surcoat, I saw, was soaked with blood.

'You're wounded!' I cried out.

'Yes, a Sarni arrow,' he called back. 'But never mind that now. You must be told: your father has fallen.'

As the guards from the gate tower came out and gathered next to Maram behind me, I stood there on the bridge above the river. I could not breathe; I could not move against the agony of the terrible spear that Lansar had thrust into my heart.

'My father is dead,' I whispered. 'My father is dead.' The rushing of the river swept my words away, but not before one of the guards behind me cried out: 'The king is dead!'

From within the gate tower, I heard this dreaded phrase echoing from the stones there, and then I heard shouts from the west ward and deeper inside the castle: 'The king is dead! The king is dead!'

'How?' I asked Lansar. I stood there shaking my head. His sorrowful face was a blur in front of my eyes. 'How … did he fall?'

'In a charge against the Galdan knights.'

'And the battle?'

'Nearly lost. Asaru is king, now. He sent me to tell you this: you are to ride to the battle, as quickly as you can. Your sword is needed, now.' I drew Alkaladur and pointed it toward the southeast. Its long blade blazed like a streak of molten silver. My eyes burned as the features of the world seemed to form up into a face that I both loathed and longed to behold: the proud, gloating face of Morjin.

'If Asaru needs my sword,' I said, 'he shall have that, and more.'

Lansar forced his lips into a grim smile. 'It will be as it was when you were boys. How often did you play that game where the two of you held the Telemesh Gate alone against a whole battalion of Ishkans?'

I tried to smiled, too, but I could not. I told him, 'You remember things that I had forgotten.'

'I remember the story of how you and a few friends slew nearly a hundred men in Argattha.' Here he looked at Maram. 'Asaru remembers this, too. He has asked that you and Maram join him on the field — with a company of knights.'

I nodded my head, and hurried back into the castle. I called out to a squire to summon Sar Vikan, and to another to prepare Altaru for battle. I raced across the middle ward and into the great hall. Lansar and Maram followed me. Fifty of the Guardians stood on the dais speaking in hushed tones as I cried out, 'Sunjay Naviru! My father is slain, and Asaru is now king! I must go to him immediately! You will take charge of the Guardians!'

Sunjay bowed his head to me, and there was no pride in his new command, only acceptance. 'Who will take charge of the castle?' he asked.

I looked at Lansar, standing tall and grave next to the great pillars that held up the roof. My father, I thought, had trusted no man more. And so I said, 'Lord Raasharu, if he is able.'

Lansar rubbed his bloody side and said, 'I'll have to be.'

I turned to say goodbye to Skyshan of Ki, and I grasped hands with Sar Jarlath. Then I stepped over to the Lightstone. I took the golden cup in my hands and pressed my face against it. I set it back on its stand. Its radiance seared my lips as if I had kissed the sun.

Sar Vikan hurried into the room then. He was a compact, energetic man who was an excellent horseman and quick with his sword. I explained to him what must be. As he went off to assemble the company of knights who would ride with us down to the battlefield, I turned to Maram. He neither protested this dreaded new duty nor bemoaned his fate. He just looked at me with his sorrowful eyes as if it were his father who had died. I never loved him so much as I did then.

At last my mother came into the room, leading Nona by the arm. I hugged them both to me. My grandmother stood there in silence stroking my fevered hand. My mother, whose insides had just been ripped out, held herself tall and straight like the queen she was. Her eyes held back a whole ocean of tears. She looked at me as if seeing me for the last time.

'Asaru needs me,' I said to her. 'You know how it has always been between us.'

She bowed her head and pressed her lips to my hand. She clasped it in hers so tightly that the force of her long fingers squeezed mine together, bruising the bones against the silver and diamonds of my ring.

'Please, Mother, don't worry. After the battle is won, I will return to you. I promise.'

'Go then, if you must,' she finally choked out. For a moment, I thought that she wanted to tell me that war was stupid, ugly and evil and that I shouldn't throw my life away against the enemy's swords. But in the end she was Talanu Solaru's daughter and Shavashar Elahad's wife — and a Valari warrior down to her bones. And so she told me, 'Go and slay Morjin, if you can. Avenge your father's death.'

I let go of her hand and rushed out into the middle ward, where Sar Vikan sat on top of his armored warhorse, with a hundred and fifty other knights and their mounts. The women and children there made room for us; the news of my father's death quieted even the most boisterous of boys, who stood in silence gripping their wooden swords as they gazed at me. Squires brought out Maram's horse and Altaru, my huge black stallion, jacketed in steel and digging his great hoof into the ground. I climbed upon him. I checked to make sure that my long lance was secure in its holster. Then I led forth into the west ward, and the castle's gates were thrown open. We pounded across the bridge in a single column of glittering diamonds and heaving horseflesh. So loud was the beat of iron against wood and paving stones that it almost drowned out the clanging of the gates being slammed shut behind us.

Good roads led down from Silvassu to the village of Balvalam. We were to follow them almost the whole way to the battlefield. I had to restrain Altaru from winding himself in a gallop. He must have felt my blood lashing at my veins, for his surging body seemed driven by my terrible urge for haste. Battles could be won or lost in minutes, and this one had been raging for at least an hour. It took us only part of an hour to leave Silvassu's houses far behind us and race through the woods south of the farms along the Kurash. We rode mostly downhill, and that gave us more speed. The trees to the left and right seemed to fly past us. The sky's bright blueness beckoned ahead like the end of a dark tunnel — or rather like a doorway into fire, agony and death

Fire consumed me now. The robe of fire that I called my fate blazed around all my limbs and burned me down to the bone. It maddened me with grief and a raging desire for revenge. My hatred of Morjin, like the kirax in my blood, drove me on and on, whether toward triumph or doom, I almost didn't care.

'Morjin,' I whispered to myself, again and again. 'Morjin, Morjin.' About a mile from Balvalam, we turned off to our left down a path through the woods, for the reports told that the deserted village was held by the enemy. Now we had to make our way more slowly through the oaks that grew across the low hills, and that was a torment. But this shortcut was the only way to reach the Culhadosh Commons quickly. We heard the clamor of the battle a mile away, through the trees. The blaring of horns, the clash of steel against steel, men and horses screaming — it all seemed to merge into a single, terrible sound that shook the very earth.

We came out of the woods just to the north of Balvalam Hill. Some called it the Mare's Hill — no one knew why. Culhadosh Commons spread out east of this grassy prominent two and a half miles of green pasture ending at another great wall of woods. Masses of men thrusting spears and swords at each other covered much of it. I had some good height above the clashing armies, and I could see much of the battlefield. Asaru's knights, just below Balvalam Hill, drove against the more numerous Ikurian horse: a great melee of maces beating against shields, shivered lances and flashing swords that fell against both men and beast. To their left, a slender strand of diamond-clad warriors extended east almost all the way to the woods. These eight battalions of Meshian foot, led by Lord Tanu, were stretched very thin, into only three ranks. They faced much deeper blocks of the enemy all across this long front: ten thousand Galdan heavy infantry trying to break the joint between Asaru's knights and the Meshian line; eight thousand mercenaries to the east of them using their ten ranks of spears to beat against my people's shields; a great swarm of naked Blues ululating their hideous war cries as they swung their axes against steel and flesh. In the very middle of the field, two thousand of the Dragon Guard worked furiously to cut a hole through our center. They were supported to the left by more mercenaries and another great mass of Galdan foot soldiers. On the far left of the field, nearest the woods, the Galdan heavy horse fell against the rest of the Meshian knights. They would have been cut to pieces but for the support of the Sarni warriors, firing arrows point blank into the faces of my countrymen, meeting our terrible kalamas with their sabers and dying themselves. Somewhere in this haze of glittering diamonds, steel and brightly colored blazons, my father had fallen. Lord Avijan would be leading our knights now, or perhaps Lord Harsha, if they hadn't fallen, too.

'Father,' I whispered, gazing out at all this carnage. 'Father.'

Sar Vikan and Maram came up to me as our company of knights drew up behind us. We held quick council, deciding what we should do.

'The center is hard-pressed,' Sar Vikan called out, pointing at the Meshian line, which was beginning to bow back toward us under the great weight of men massed in front of it.

'Yes,' I called back, 'but there is still a reserve.'

I drew Sar Vikan's attention to the single battalion of warriors two thousand yards to our left and standing a few hundred yards behind our lines. They were under Lord Eldru's command. I thought I could make out the red and white of his charge gleaming in the sun.

'It seems,' Sar Vikan said, holding up his hand to shield his eyes, 'that Radomil Makan holds back the Galdans, too.'

The enemy, I saw, had reserves of their own, at least twenty times more numerous than ours. Culhadosh Commons spread out to the south, too, down a gentle slope toward a little winding water called the Clear Brook, and beyond. Grouped along this stream, half a mile beyond the killing zone, was the greater part of the Galdan light infantry, nearly twenty thousand strong. A thousand archers gathered to the right of them, behind a curve in the stream. And further to the west, just where the stream bent back toward the village of Balvalam, the Galdan light horse assembled in neat lines with a battalion of the light infantry behind them.

'Look!' Maram cried out. 'I do believe they're going to attack!'

Directly in front of them was grouped the very far right of Asaru's knights, pushed up against the lowest part of Balvalam Hill only four hundred yards from us. And farther up its slopes, most of our archers had been stationed. They stood behind a fence of stakes pounded into the ground, with their sharpened ends pointing outward, toward the enemy. The archers wore only light armor and were without shields, and were vulnerable to attack — which is why they had taken a position on ground that would be difficult to attack. But it seemed that the Galdans were going to try.

A horn blared out, and the Galdans began moving forward. How long, I wondered, would it take them to charge across half a mile of clear ground?

'What shall we do, Lord Valashu?' Sar Vikan shouted at me. I could hardly make out his words against the tumult of shields banging at fields, axes splitting steel, and men and horses screaming as they died. I stared out across the battlefield, west to east, north to south. I looked for a flashing yellow banner, with its great, red dragon, that might tell me where Morjin was. I looked for the red and gold of Morjin's surcoat and his steel armor, said to be stained red like that of his Dragon Guard. Two thousand of these masterful warriors fought on foot, still working furiously at our center, but where were the rest of them? Perhaps, i thought, Morjin was holding them in reserve to the far southeast, where the Clear Brook disappeared into the woods. At any moment a horn might sound, and these men might come crashing out of the trees in a charge that would cave in our army's entire left flank.

'Val, what shall we do?' I heard Maram say.

I looked for Kane, where the fighting was the thickest, but all across the field men were hacking at men with a fury that seemed to grow more desperate with every moment. I looked for Atara, too. Morjin might be in hiding, waiting to charge against our left, but our right flank was being attacked even as we stood watching.

'Forward!' I called out, drawing my long lance. 'Half speed, and stay together!'

It wouldn't do to charge recklessly up Balvalam Hill, where its uneven ground could trip a horse and send both horse and rider crashing down with a snap of broken limbs. The Galdans, however, had different considerations. In the face of the arrows that the archers began firing into them, they galloped up the south slope of the hill as quickly as they could. Some of their mounts did stumble and break their legs — and the necks of their riders. More screamed as they fell out of their saddles with arrows sticking out of them. But they were brave men. They kept charging up toward the archers, with the Galdan light infantry running behind them.

In truth, they were no match, man for man, with the Meshian archers, who now laid down their bows and drew their swords. But they were many, and our archers were few. Now the Galdan horse came pouring around the ends of the stake fence, as with a stream splitting in two. The archers met them with flashing kalamas; steel ran red as my countrymen slashed upward at the Galdans who were trying to stick their lances into them. My knights and I pounded closer, up the grassy slope from the north. Both Galdans and Meshians were dying by the tens and twenties — but more Meshians, for the light infantry had finally forced their way through the fence and were falling upon the archers with shield and spear. In front of us loomed a mob of men screaming and shouting out challenges as they hacked and stabbed at each other. Fifty yards only separated us from them. And then suddenly we were upon them, and the world narrowed into a corridor of rearing horses, red lance points and Galdans in their flimsy leather armor throwing themselves at me.

Within the first minute, I lost my lance through the ribs and back-bone of one of these. I drew Alkadur then, and my sword's silver gelstei gave me the strength to bear the agony that ripped through me. I swung this bright blade, once, twice, thrice — and three Galdans fell dead or dying to the ground. Maram fought to my right, working his lance against two horsemen opposing him. I heard him bellow out: 'Come! Come! Test your lances against Five-Horned Marant?' He stabbed one of his enemies through the face just as the lance of the other took him in the chest. But the point crunched against the diamonds of Maram's armor, and failed to penetrate. Maram pulled his lance out of the first horseman's cheek and thrust it through the other's groin. So it went ail around me, with Sar Vikan and our company of knights. Many of these had drawn their kalamas. and they slashed through the Galdan's armor as if it was paper. Founts of blood sprayed out into the air. The ground began to thicken with hacked limbs, torn bodies and men crying out as they held their hands over their necks or bleeding bellies.

Then a horn blared, signaling the Galdans to retreat. Many of them, however, had already broken; they cast aside their shields and ran back down the hill. Some of the archers pursued them and buried their kalamas in their backs. The Galdan horse fled in better order, and more quickly. I was tempted to ride after them, all the way down to the village and around the wing of Morjin's entire army. But the captain of the archers called for a halt just as I became aware of a new crisis in the middle of the battlefield.

'Lord Valashu!' the captain cried out. He was a tall man with a sharp nose and chin like the crags of a mountain. He stood grasping his dripping sword as he said to me, 'Where did you come from?'

All around us the surviving archers were sheathing their swords and taking up their bows again. Sar Vikan and Maram, with our knights, formed up on the side of the hill behind me.

'You seemed hard-pressed,' I said to the captain. I did not want to tell him or his archers that their king had been slain.

'Hard-pressed and worse,' he said. He wore in his silver ring the three diamonds of a master knight, and I suddenly remembered that his name was Sar Yulmar. 'We might have died to a man keeping the Galdans front coming behind your brother's knights.'

At the base of the hill only twenty five yards away, the knights at the very edge of Asaru's command were battling against the Ikurians a broad-faced, thickset people from the central plateau of Sakai. Farther down the line of this mass of snorting horses and shouting men, two hundred yards to the east, I caught sight of a swan and stars blazing bright silver in the fierce morning light. Asaru sat on top of his gray stallion slashing his sword against two enemy knights in front of him. He, too, was hard-pressed, as were his hundreds of knights. I wanted desperately to ride down to them, to find Yarashan and join him in fighting to Asaru's side so that we might turn back the flood of these skilled and relentless Ikurians. But then Sar Vikan called to me, and pointed farther east, at the center of the Meshian line.

'Lord Valashu!' he said. 'They're about to break!'

The massed ranks of the Dragon Guard and the Blues, I saw, with phalanxes of mercenaries to either side of them, had pushed deeply into Lord Tanu's and Lord Tomavar's battalions. Our whole line, from Lord Avijan's command in the east to Asaru's knights, had now bent so far backward that it was near to buckling. It was like a long, curved wall of diamonds holding back a flood of steel. In several places only a single rank of warriors kept the enemy from breaking through.

I glanced behind me, taking the measure of the knights in our company. Maybe seven of a hundred and fifty had fallen. I looked back toward the center of our line. Somewhere, in all this fury of swords hacking apart shields and men dying, Mandru led a company of warriors in Lord Tomavar's battalion, as did Jonathay in Lord Tanu's.

'Back!' I shouted to Sar Vikan and the knights behind me. 'Back to the center!'

We rode down the hill too quickly and then burst into a full gallop as we pounded across a mile and a quarter of grass. We came up behind the center of the Meshian line just as Lord Eldru's reserve battalion came forward. But Lord Eldru no longer commanded it. He had finally weakened and fallen from an arrow that had pierced his neck in the first minutes of the battle. Sar Jessu had replaced him. He was a thickset, serious, master knight whose bushy black eyebrows were set with determination.

'Hold, Sar Jessu!' I called to him.

'Hold?' he called back. He stood facing me at the front of twelve hundred men formed up into three neat ranks.

'Wait!' I called to him.

'Wait?' he shouted. 'Our line is about to break!'

Ahead of us the Meshian line was like a bow bending nearly double under the pressure of attack. And as it bent, the Meshian warriors worked quickly to extend the line, and thin it, to two ranks and then only one.

'Lord Eldru ordered us forward!' Sar Jessu shouted. 'And I'm ordering you to hold!'

Horns sounded from hundreds of yards away back toward the Clear Brook. We still had enough height above the two armies to see the entire reserve of Galdan light infantry, in their thousands, pouring across the stream and marching forward toward the battlefront at double-pace.

'The enemy are too many!' Sar Jessu shouted. 'Don't you see! Don't you see!'

I saw the Dragon Guard, like a great red hammer, pounding at our very center. Next to them stood the hideous Blues, whose naked bodies had been stained with the juice of the kirque plant from head to toe. They howled and cursed as they swung their axes through our shields and chopped down our warriors by the dozen. To their sides, the mercenaries and Galdan heavy infantry, sensing victory, threw themselves forward against our bowing line, which forced them up against the Dragon Guard. Behind them, the Galdan light infantry had abandoned all sense and good order in their lust to rush forward and take part in the kill.

Where was Morjin? I wondered.

'Lord Valashu!'

I stared out at the diamond warriors in our line, which now looked more like a gigantic V than a line. I saw, in my mind's-eye, the funnel-shaped walls of the escarpment at Shurkar's Notch where my knights and I had fought Duke Malatam. I gripped my sword as my heart beat like an axe against my breastbone.

'When the line breaks,' I said to Sar Jessu, 'then we shall go forward!'

Now the Galdan light infantry came up behind the Dragon Guard and the mercenaries, and pressed their backs. The Guard fought furiously to cut down the thin wall of warriors who stood before them. Then the Meshian line, at the joint of the V between Lord Tanu's and Lord Tomavar's battalions, suddenly broke. The Dragon Guard, with the frenzied Blues, screamed out in bloodlust as they smelled victory. The whole center of Morjin's army fell mad with a rage to rush through this hole and destroy us. They threw themselves forward, no longer ranks of well-drilled warriors, but a great mob of murderous men.

'Sar Jessu!' I cried out. 'Forward to fill up the break!'

I turned to Sar Vikan and shouted to him and our knights: 'Cut down anyone coming behind our lines! Now! Attack!'

With Maram and Sar Vikan beside me, I galloped forward. The Meshian warriors at the mouth of the break were fighting with the last of their strength to keep the Dragon Guard and the Blues from streaming through and falling upon their rear. One of these warriors was Mandru. His shield, it seemed, had long since been hacked apart or riddled with spears and cast away. I watched in horror as he thrust his kalama through the throat of a red-armored warrior at the same moment that a great, squat Blue came up behind him with his bloody axe. He swung it down upon Mandru's helm, splitting apart steel, bone and brains. And so the fiercest of my brothers died before he could even open his mouth to scream.

'Mandru!'

I urged Altaru forward, straight toward two Blues working their way behind Lord Tomavar's battalion. My sword took off the head of the first, and then I chopped down at the second, cleaving him from his neck through his thick body and out the opposite side. Other Blues came at me; one tried to vault off the ground and knock me from my horse. I killed them all. I turned to look for more victims for my sword. The enemy were all around me.

How easily a man is made into meat! With every stroke of my sword, it seemed, I cut someone else into pieces. Blood soaked the grass beneath me; it sprayed over me, reddening my hands, chest and face, and ran in rivulets from the grooves in Altaru's steel armor. I kept cutting and thrusting until my arm burned like a knot of fire, like the valarda burning inside me. And still men came at me trying to kill me.

And then a terrible scream split the air, and 1 looked through a mass of the Dragon Guards toward the frantically struggling warriors in Lord Tanu's battalion. Jonathay stood there. One of the Guards had thrust his spear through Jonathay's armpit and deep into his body. It drove all the sweetness from his face so that only agony remained. He fell beneath the boots of the Dragon Guard, and I did not see him rise again.

'Jonathay!'

Blood filled my eyes, and I pushed Altaru forward into the Dragon Guards. My sword cleaved the steel of their armor; I killed several of them. A spear rammed into my back, nearly knocking me out of my saddle. A sword slashed open the underside of my jaw. One of the Guard hammered his shield against my leg in a rage to break it. Altaru, in a rage of his own, let loose a great whinny as he wheeled and kicked out with his great hoof. He pulped the Guardsman's face and snapped back his head with a 'crack' loud enough to be heard above the great noise of the battle. Then he drove forward into another Guardsman and trampled him to death beneath his savage hooves.

Thus we fought for many minutes. Sar Vikan and the knights fought near me, too. None of them wielded lance or sword so well as Maram, who rode downS least five of the Dragon Guards before they could turn against the warriors in the broken Meshian line. Sar Jessu's reserve companies finally worked their way forward to fill up the gap between Lord Tanu's and Lord Tomavar's battalions. They drove their spears and shields against the enemy still trying to pour through. And suddenly, there was no one nearby left to slay.

'To me!' I called out. 'Sar Vikan! Maram! Knights, to me!'

Sar Vikan's company gathered to me. Twenty of them lay among the many hundreds of dead carpeting the grass. As many bore serious wounds. These, if they could ride, I sent off to the field infirmary a mile to the north, at the Meshian encampment behind the battlefield. Those who couldn't ride, I could do nothing for.

'Look!' Maram called to me. 'The line holds!'

The line of my countrymen fighting on foot in front of us, I saw, was holding — and more. Now nearly the whole of the Galdan and Sakayan armies had forced themselves as down into a funnel, as with Duke Malatam's knights at Shurkar's Notch. But there were a hundred times as many of this enemy, and the walls of the funnel were not immobile rock, but matchless Meshian warriors thrusting swords and spears as they pressed forward. The Galdan heavy infantry was packed together so closely with the mercenaries, with the Dragon Guard and the Blues, that they could hardly move. They could not lift their shields to protect their bodies against our long, sharp spear points; they could not raise their swords to parry our. murderous kalamas. The two wings of the V of the Meshian line began dosing upon them like jaws of diamond and steel.

'Your stratagem is working!' Maram said to me. 'I've never seen men fight so!'

In truth, the Meshians were now fighting like the well-drilled warriors they were — and with a fury that struck terror into Morjin's men. They locked their long, rectangular shields together like a wall and pushed at the enemy even as they pierced them with their spears or drew their tharams and stabbed these vicious short swords into their faces. Many of my countrymen had cast down both shields and spears; these fought with their long kalamas, which left hideous gaping wounds in the bodies of men wherever they fell. Those of Sakai who tried to push forward in desperation and break through our line, thin though it was, were cut to pieces. Our enemy could do little more than stand and die. 'Father,' I whispered. 'Mandru. Jonathay.'

Horns sounded from behind the mass of men in front of us, and knew that someone had ordered a retreat. The Galdan light infantry, I sensed, would be turning to withdraw, or panicking altogether, casting down their weapons and running. And the rest of the two armies caught in the funnel of death would want to run. But so many thousands caught like fish in a net could not so quickly break away

'This is our chance!' I said to Maram. 'Do you see?'

Just then, I caught a flash of gray and red to my left, and I turned to see Kane and Atara galloping behind our lines straight toward us Kane's mail, from neck to knee, was spattered with blood. But I saw that Atara's quiver was still full of arrows. She rode trusting to the sure-ness of Fire's quick stride, and I swallowed back a surge of fear to see her so helpless and blind.

'Val, why are you here?' Kane called out to me.

He reined in his horse and drew up in front of me. Somehow, Atara found her way to me, too.

'Asaru sent for me,' I told him. 'My father is dead.'

'So, I saw him fall, but I did not know that he walked the stars.'

Atara turned her beautiful face toward me. Her white blindfold showed splotches of red. She said to me, 'You shouldn't have come — why have you come?'

'I came to kill Morjin!' I shouted, shaking my sword at the sky.

'Ha, Morjin!' Kane growled out. 'We've sought him, too, for an hour, all across the left flank.'

'Who leads our knights there now?' I asked him.

'Lord Avijan.'

'And my brothers? What of Karshur? Have you seen Ravar?'

Kane's blazing eyes softened with sadness as he told me about them.

This is how Karshur died: Just as he pushed his lance through the chest of an Urtuk warrior, another dose by fired an arrow into his horse's side, causing this great beast to rear up in screaming agony. And in that moment, a charging Galdan knight collided with them. Karshur crashed to the ground, and his huge warhorse, Jurgarth, fell on top of him, crushing him to death.

This is how Ravar died: Just as he cast his throwing lance through the eye of an Urtuk captain, one of the captain's men fired an arrow through Ravar's forehead, killing him instantly.

Upon hearing this, I stared out at the armies battling in front of me. The din of clanging steel faded to a hiss. And I opened my mouth to cry out a single name in a shout that seemed to shake the world: MORJIN!

In that moment, Atara sat up straighter on her horse, and I knew that she had regained her second sight.

'There's a great chance here,' Kane said to me. He pointed toward Balvalam Hill, where Asaru's knights were slowly pushing back the massed Ikurian horse. 'Do you see? If we could break them, we could encircle the rest of the army. And kill Morjin, if he is there.'

'Let's ride then/ I said. I nodded at Maram, who nodded back So did Sar Vikan and several of his knights. 'Let's finish this, if we can.'

I nudged Altaru's sides, and my great-hearted horse fairly leapt into a gallop. Everyone followed me. We rode west behind our lines, turning toward the north as we neared Balvalam hill. We made our way straight into the snarl of knights and screaming horses there. The clash between Asaru's knights and the black-bearded Ikurians had degenerated into hundreds of individual battles, as knight fell against knight in a frenzy of stabbing lances and scything swords. Hundreds of men lay dead or dying on the bloodstained grass. Riderless horses wandered about looking for a way to escape the carnage all around them. We rode through this shrieking chaos seeking out Morjin or the lord and captains of the Ikurians — or anyone else we could find to cut down with our swords.

In the first minutes of this new battle, I killed two of the Ikurian knights, stabbing one through his mail and cleaving the other's fur-trimmed helm. I looked for Asaru in the throngs of heaving horses and panting men around me. I looked for Yarashan, too. And then, from forty yards away across the pasture, my brother called out to me. Yarashan, who had somehow lost his helm, raised up his bloody lance as he shouted, 'Valashu!' He took great courage from my gladness to see him. He smiled to see the new knights that I had led onto the field. I felt in him my own burning desire to end this battle, now, in one blaze of violence that would sweep the field clean. I felt in him as well a deep urge to inspirit others by showing brave. And so he bowed his head to me, and then turned his horse toward two Ikurians thirty yards from him. And he let out a shout of challenge as he lowered his lance and charged straight toward them.

'Yarashan!'

My brother's aim was true, and he speared the first Ikurian knight through the throat. He held up his shield to cover himself from the second knigt's revenge, even as he freed his lance and wheeled about. But this second knight had great skill at arms. He knocked his own shield into Yarashan's, and then slammed his mace into the side of Yarashan's head. My brother died as he would have wanted to, with the eyes of many Meshian knights witnessing his valor.

Then I charged upon this proud Ikurian, and my sword chopped through his upraised arm and then cut the mail covering his neck. I heard Kane, somewhere behind me, let loose a great cheer to see me kill the knight who had killed Yarashan. But the Ikurians on their stamping horses nearby did not celebrate my feat. One of them cried out that their captain had been slain. Then two others cried out their rage, and the three knights charged me from three different directions. I cut through the lance of one of these, but the steel point of his friend's lance slammed into my back and propelled me from my saddle. I hit the ground with a crushing force that drove the breath from me.

'Yarashan!' a voice called as if from far away. And then, louder now 'Valashu!'

I tried to rise from the ground, but I could not. My fierce black stallion stood above me, frantically kicking his hooves at the two knights trying to stick their lances down into me. Then three other Ikurians whipped their horses to a gallop and bore down upon me to take part in the kill.

'Valashu!'

I looked up to see Asaru appear like an angel from out of the hundreds of knights spread across the field. He rode in a full-out fury to intercept the three charging Ikurians. I saw that he had already fought too hard that day. Mace blows had knocked loose diamonds from his chest and back, and he had lost his shield. A sword or lance had cut his cheek to the bone. I could feel the stabbing pain in his shoulder that hadn't quite healed. He was exhausted, anguished, bloody — but he had eyes and heart for only one thing.

'Valashu!'

Just before he closed with the Ikurians, he looked at me. There was death in his bright black eyes, and something more. What is it to love one's brother? Only this: that you would die for him so that he might live.

'Asaru!'

He stabbed his lance through the face of the first knight even as the lance of the second knight split open a bare patch of his armor and drove clean through his body and out through his back. I would never know how Asaru managed to keep his saddle with this great shaft of wood transfixing him. Or how he drew his sword and killed first the knight who had killed him, and then kept the third knight away from me long enough for Maram to come forward and deal him a death blow with his mace. The last wild surge of his heart ripped through me with an unbearable pain, and I cried out in astonishment as he died in utter gladness.

ASARUUU!

I pushed myself up to one knee; just then my faithful warhorse kicked out yet again and struck down one of the knights still trying to spear me. Then Kane rode up and killed the other knight. He reached down, grasped my hand, and pulled me to my feet I climbed on top of my horse. I stared at Kane. There was death in his eyes too, and something more: a terrible joy the wrath he saw building inside me.

Atara and Maram rode up then. My best friend seemed sick with what he had seen. He could hardly bear to look at me. And I could hardly bear myself. The robe of fire had burned me so completely that nothing remained except the fire.

'To me!' a deep voice boomed out from across the field. 'To me!'

Eighty yards away, a score of Ikurian knights gathered around a large, thick-bearded man with ostrakat plumes sticking out of his golden helm. The red dragon leaping out from his golden surcoat was larger than those of any of the knights or captains around us. I took him to be the Ikurians' lord. I hated him upon sight. Although he was not Morjin, in his person, he was all of the Dragon's evil, visited upon my people of his own twisted will.

I touched Altaru with my own flaming will to destroy, and my stallion surged forward into a gallop. Maram, Atara and Kane followed closely behind me. Atara's bow cracked twice as she sent arrows burning into the bodies of two of the enemy knights. And then we were upon them.

Next to me, Kane's sword struck out like the head of a cobra, and one of Ikurians grabbed at his throat and tried to scream. Kane slashed out to the side, cutting through the body of another knight with such savagery that he nearly cleaved him in two. He growled like a great, killing cat as he thrust and parried and lay about him with his long sword. Blood sprayed his wild face; he licked his lips and screamed out all of his old joy in rending and slaying. The ancient Elijin warlord out of legend, in all his wrath, rode upon the reddened field, and he was terrible to behold.

And I, too, that day was an angel — an angel of death. For this, I feared, was also part of the One's design. Altaru bore me into the mass of our enemies, and I whirled about on top of him, left and right, swinging my bright sword in a blaze of death. With every knight that I maimed or killed in vengeance for my father and brothers, I seemed to desire only more killing. My sword flared like pure flame then, and I could hardly hold onto it. It seemed to have a life of its own. And yet I knew that its life was only my life, swelling like the sun, growing stronger and more brilliant every moment as my fury to destroy swept me away. Men screamed before me. I cut them down. Men screamed out my name all arournd me and from farther across the field. They shielded their eyes as from a lightning bolt. The whole world seemed to ay out in agony.

And then, for the moment, there was no one left to kill. I sat on Altaru's back gasping for air. Dead knights lay on the grass all around me. It seemed that I had slain the Ikurian lord, for his great body had been cleaved in half, from neck to groin. Or perhaps Kane had sent him on to the stars, for my terrible friend sat perched on his horse, looking wildly about him as he held up his dripping sword. Maram and Atara pressed close to me on my other side. I couldn't guess how many men Maram had dispatched or Atara had added to her count.

A great fear struck into the Ikurian knights who had witnessed this terror. It passed like a sick heat into the bellies and limbs of their brethren all across the field. Without a word being spoken, ten knights turned their horses to gallop back toward the village and across the Clear Brook. And then twenty more broke, and then a hundred, and suddenly the entire mass of Ikurian knights lost their will to battle and fled the field in a panic to save their lives. A few score of our knights galloped after them. But then I called out to Sar Vikan, and to the other captains, and all the rest of the knights of Mesh: 'Hold! Help our line! Take the enemy from behind!'

Where was Morjin?

To our left, the two wings of our line had now closed in even more tightly upon the elements of the two armies caught between them. Many men, however, were fleeing from this death trap. To the far left, two thousand yards across the once-green pasture near the woods, the Urtuk warriors had given up the battle as lost. They simply rode off the field, and would keep on riding, as I later learned, clear across the Lake Country and through the southern passes out of Mesh. The Galdan heavy horse, those still alive, fled ahead of almost the whole of the Galdan light infantry. But the others could not retreat quickly enough.

Lord Avijan led the charge around the enemy from the left, and I led Asaru's knights against the enemy's rear from the right. We charged around and forward, meeting up with Lord Avijan's companies, and we thrust our lances through the backs of many Galdans and Sakayans. A few of them managed to turn toward us, and these died facing the terrible weapons that laid them under. Only a few battalions of the Galdan heavy infantry had escaped the enclosing Meshian line, and almost none of the mercenaries, Blues or the Dragon Guard. These were caught in a ring of steel a mile wide; they were packed together like cattle. They moaned and screamed like cattle, too, as the ring drew tighter and tighter and we killed them without pause or mercy.

What followed then was sheer butchery. I had no care to stop it, nor did Lord Avijan, nor Lord Tanu, nor any of the other Meshian knights or warriors who had lost friends, brothers or sons there that day. We kept striking our swords into the enemy until our arms grew so tired that we had to rest and let our companions next to us deal out this unrelenting death. The ground beneath us grew soggy, like a bog. Blood overflowed the close-cropped grass, and ran in little, snaking rivulets down to the Clear Brook, turning it red. Hours it took to slay all of our enemy, down to the last man. When the battle was finally over, the sun was an unbearable smear of red raining down fire from the sky.

I wandered for a long time among the heaps and-twists of bodies. Later there would be a count of them, but all I knew was that there were too many thousands of them. In truth, even one man killed this way was too many — unless he was Morjin. I looked for him everywhere. Had he somehow escaped this dreadful battlefield? I looked across the Culhadosh Commons, from one end to the other. Nearby a young man lay moaning as he clapped his hands to his belly, trying to keep his insides from spilling out. Farther away, the horses of the enemy were grazing peacefully where they could find a clear patch of grass. Lord Tanu and other lords were calling out to reform their battalions, trying to bring order, if not sense, to the madness that had befallen here.

Then a rider picked his way among the dead and found me where I stood above Asaru's body. He said to me, 'Lord Valashu, King Shamesh calls for you.'

I stared at him as if he had spoken words to me out of a cruel dream. I told him, 'My father is dead.'

'No, his wounds are mortal, but he still lives,' the messenger informed me. He pointed toward the woods to the east of the battlefield. 'I am to take you to him.'

I shook my head in amazement. Hadn't Lansar Raasharu seen my father die? Perhaps he had only assumed the worst And reported this to Asaru, and me. Such mistakes were often the result of the fog of battle.

I mounted my horse then, and followed the messenger across the field. We came to a place next to the woods ringed by many lords and knights. And at the center of this ring, my father sat back against a tree. Someone had removed his helm. His long black and silver hair, tied with many battle ribbons, spilled across his shoulders. His eyes were closed as he coughed up blood and gasped for breath. A bright red froth bubbled from the great hole in his armor over his chest. He held his long, bloody sword across his knees. I dismounted, and the knights made way for me as I walked forward and knelt by my father's side. He opened his eyes and looked at me. It seemed to take a great effort for him to speak my name: 'Valashu.'

Lord Harsha stepped up to me and laid his hand on my shoulder. His cheek was bleeding where a saber had nearly taken out his remaining eye. He pointed at my father's chest and said simply, 'A Galdan lance.'

'But we've got to get him to Master Juwain!' I said. 'He's healed such wounds before!'

'Your father wouldn't allow it,' Lord Harsha told me, shaking his head. 'Not while the battle was still being fought.'

My father reached out and grasped my hand. He said to me, 'I told you not to come.'

'But I thought you'd been slain! Lord Raasharu told me that Asaru was king and had sent for me!'

A spasm tore through my father's body as he worked to breathe. Then he gasped out, 'Lord Raasharu. . was not himself.'

His eyes cleared and touched mine. And suddenly I knew. I saw the evil tapestry that Morjin had woven for me, all of a piece.

'Asaru is dead,' my father said to me. 'All of my sons, gone.. except you.'

He let go of his sword as he smiled at me. With all the strength left in him, he pulled off his ring, with its five bright diamonds. He pressed it into my hand and said, 'Now you must be king.'

I squeezed this heavy circlet of silver in my fist. I shook my head. 'No, there is still time!'

'No, there is no time'

I held his hand as his breath sucked in and out, in and out, growing weaker and weaker. Then he raised his finger to point over my shoulder, west, toward Telshar, Arakel and the other mountains. And he said to me, 'You should never have left the castle.'

He coughed, once, very hard, and his whole body shuddered. He gripped his sword with one hand and my hand with his other. For a moment, his eyes grew incredibly bright, like stars. He gazed at me as if he had finally come home. And then he died.

I kissed his hand and laid it upon his sword. I kissed his lips. I stood up slowly. I pulled off my surcoat and laid it over him. I could not weep for him, not yet. I could not grieve for Asaru, or Yarashan or any other warrior of Mesh who had fallen here today. For the battle was not yet over. In truth, it was only beginning. I turned to look up the grassy slope of Culhadosh Commons, where the hills beyond blocked a clear line of sight of my father's castle high above Silvassu. It was my castle now, I told myself, what was left of it. I stared up at the great plume of smoke that my father had pointed out to the west, and I watched it rise like the souls of the dead into the sky.