“They will ask who won,” Azak said softly.
“Just tell them you lost.”
“They will ask why.”
“ `Why’ doesn’t matter to the dead. Tell them you died in vain.” For a moment there was silence. Even the wind dared not speak as it stirred the grass around the youth’s calves.
Azak spoke again: “Remember what the poet says—nothing frightens like tomorrow’s war, inspires like today’s, or saddens like yesterday’s.”
She glanced up at him in surprise. “You believe that?”
He looked abashed and showed his teeth. “I care nothing for yesterday, and today we must ride. Say good-bye to your pixie, my lady. He will keep his vigil here until long after we are gone.”
Once more Inos met the accusing stare of the stone eyes. Then she shivered and headed back to the mules.
But that pixie was only the first. Soon they came to two others, lying facedown. And then more, and more. The forest died away, as if ashamed to conceal such disaster, and the whole width of the valley floor was exposed, all littered with stone corpses. The road itself was completely blocked, compelling the travelers to leave it and pick their way across the turf and rocks, around and between the silent multitude.
The river, wandering to and fro over the centuries, had swept whole areas clear of the gruesome remains, piling them in shoals and burying them in sand, but it would need many centuries yet before one river could hide so great a slaughter. Creepers and ivy had tried, also, wrapping some of the figures in grotesque green fur.
Many lay flat, especially solitary runners, who would have been off balance, and the fallen had often shattered. In the more crowded areas, and where the ground had been soft, most were still upright, or leaning against their neighbors. Unless broken, though, every statue in that great naked throng was as well preserved as the first: roughened in spots by erosion and splotched with lichen, but exact in every detail of hair and muscle.
Hundreds and thousands of them . . . faceup or facedown or standing in their huddles like mourners . . . all had been going the same way. As Azak had guessed, they had been fleeing from something, and now the intruders must ride their trembling mules into the warning, accusing glares of a myriad stone faces.
Most were young males, a routed army, but there were many civilians also. Inos saw women of all ages, and one whole heap of old men with their knees up, all traces of their wagon long since vanished. She saw family groups: children grasping adults’ hands, men bearing toddlers on their shoulders, and one stone infant clutched to a stone nipple. She saw men stooped beneath burdens of earthly possessions that had long since disappeared, leaving only the memory of their weight. She saw helmeted soldiers brandishing rusted swords to clear a way through the mob, with plates of bronze tumbled around their feet because the leather had perished.
Some armored men lay on their backs with their legs bent, nested in the shattered bones of their horses. The weeds must hide not only stirrups and bits and buckles, but also coins and jewels, gold plate and works of art. With a bag and a shovel, Inos thought, she could gather a great fortune here in a few days—and lose her wits in the process. Those eyes . . .
She developed a shiver that she could not control. She kept glancing hopefully at Kade, wishing her aunt would insist that they all turn back and find another way over the hills or even flee back to Zark; but Kade said nothing, although her face was pale and drawn with horror. Even Azak looked nauseated. No one spoke as the little caravan wound its way through the grisly mausoleum.
Beyond the last stragglers, the valley was again deserted for a space and then ended abruptly in blue sky framed by spectacular cliffs.
Once a mighty fortress had stood proud on a high spur, guarding the mouth of the pass. Some trace of the eastern salient and tower still remained, bent and grotesquely twisted. But the main buildings and much of the spur itself had melted like butter, flowing down to engulf the little town below. All that was left was a great frozen spill of black glass and a few protruding gables and chimneys, burned red and fractured by the ancient heat, warped and half melted themselves. Here was what the pixies had been fleeing.
Inos did not say so, and neither did the others. They had lost the pavement, and the forest returned. They rode through in single file without a word or a shared glance, all bearing thoughts too somber to profane with speech.
Then daylight showed through the trunks, the land fell away, and the valley had ended. Azak reined in and the others came to a halt at his side, overlooking an open meadow, sloping gently westward. In the far distance silver flashed from a very large river, twisting lazily over the plain. Beyond that the sky and the land went on forever, merging eventually at the limits of human vision in a vague orchid haze. A warm breeze rustled leaves overhead, bringing a faint hint of the sea.
“Thume,” Azak said softly. “The Accursed Place!”
“It doesn’t look accursed to me,” Inos retorted. “It looks peaceful. Welcoming.” But anything might look welcome after that petrified army.
She glanced across at her aunt, and was astonished to see an expression of . . . worry? Concern . . . almost an expression of fear. Kade’s normally plump and contented face seemed haggard and sickly. True, for an elderly lady accustomed to a life of genteel inactivity, she had endured an incredibly wearying journey—but she had survived the rigors of the desert and the hardships of the taiga without looking like that. Her scanty silver hair was tousled and tangled, floating like wisps in the breeze. Her wrinkles were scored like scars; her mouth sagged. Why should the petrified army have done this to her?
“What do you think, Aunt?”
Kade shook her head and gnawed her weathered lip. “I don’t know, dear. I suppose I’m just being a superstitious old woman, but . . . but I don’t like it! ”
“Go back, you mean?”
Stiffly Kade glanced over her shoulder, to where the steep western escarpment loomed above the treetops. She shivered. “Oh, no! Not back!”
“Well, we don’t exactly have many other choices. Big Man?” Azak studied Kade for a moment, narrowing his eyes as he peered over the bristling red yashmak of his beard. Then he flashed his teeth at Inos. “I see no sign of people. What do you think, my precious one?”
He expected courage in royalty. Inos took another look at that serene idyllic landscape.
“I say we have no choice!” She slammed her heels into her mule’s flanks, and the startled little beast seemed to leap forward with all four feet at once. Then it charged off down the slope, and the others came thumping after.
Battles long ago:
Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow,
For old, unhappy, far-off things,
And battles long ago.
— Wordsworth, The Reaper
FIVE
Man’s worth something
1
“Now I went down to Ilrane My lady-love to see. Most fair the maids of Ilrane, But none more fair than she.”
If you wanted a man to find poison ivy, hornets’ nests, or the wickedest thorn bushes, then Jalon was the obvious choice. If you needed a companion who would slip off a stepping-stone and lose his sandal in fast water, or let a campfire go out when he was supposed to be minding it, or fall asleep five minutes after his watch started . . . Jalon, without hesitation. He could also vanish inexplicably and be discovered an hour later, twenty paces away, lost in rapturous admiration of an orchid.
Jalon, in short, was a gigantic pain in the spinal column. But if you enjoyed unfailing good humor and cheerfulness, an unflagging willingness to apologize, laugh at himself, and promise to do better in future—well, he had those in abundance, although he never actually did manage to do better. And if you appreciated a comrade who could suddenly open his mouth and pour forth a strain of purest melody to banish fatigue, uplift the soul, and melt away the aches and worries of a long march . . . Even Gathmor could not stay mad at Jalon for long.
The three adventurers had seen their first dragons less than an hour after leaving the fisher village, a blaze of four or five, but very far off, mere specks weaving and circling above a distant hill. By then, too, the light had been bright enough to reveal the colors of the robes donated by the villagers—brown for Jalon, green for Gathmor, black for Rap. Even so, Jalon had not associated the casement’s prophecy with the steady march of events. He was far more interested in wildflowers than in dragons. In the next few days the only signs of the worms had been a few faint smudges of smoke on the horizon, and he still had not remembered the prophecy.