And that was the last mistake the venerable Lord Abriel was
ever to make. The mounted knights fanned out with crisp preCiSion
to form up on a broad front stretching across the entire
valley. Rank after rank of Cyrinics, Pandions, Genidians,
and Alciones, all clad in steel and mounted on belligerent
horses, lined up in what was probably one of the more
intimidating displays of organized unfriendliness in the known
world. The preceptors waited in the very center of the front rank as
their subalterns formed up the rear ranks and the messengers
galloped forward to declare that all was in readiness.
‘That should be enough,’ Komier said impatiently. ‘I don’t
think the supply wagons will have to charge too.’ he looked
around at his friends. ‘Shall we get started, gentlemen? Let’s
show that rabble out there how real soldiers mount an attack.’
He made a curt signal to a hulking Genidian Knight, and the
huge blond man blew a shattering blast on his Ogre-horn
trumpet. The front rank of the knights clapped down their visors and
spurred their horses forward. The perfectly disciplined knights
and horses galloped forward in an absolutely straight line like
a moving wall of steel.
Midway through the charge the forest of upraised lances came
down like a breaking wave, and the defections in the opposing
army began. The ill-trained serfs and peasants broke and ran,
throwing away their weapons and squealing in terror. Here and
there were some better-trained units that held their ground,
but the flight of their allies from either side left their flanks
dangerously exposed.
The knights struck those few units with a great, resounding
crash. Once more Abriel felt the old exulting satisfaction of
battle. His lance shattered against a hastily raised shield, and
he discarded the broken weapon and drew his sword. He looked
around and saw that there were other forces massed behind the
wall of peasants that had concealed them from view, and that
army was like none Abriel had ever seen before. The soldiers
were huge, larger than even the Thalesians. They wore breastplates
and mail, but their cuirasses were more closely moulded
to their bodies than was normal. Every muscle seemed starkly
outlined under the gleaming steel. Their helmets were exotic
steel re-creations of the heads of improbable beasts, and they
did not have visors as such but steel masks instead, masks which
had been sculpted to bear individualized features, the features,
Abriel thought, of the warriors who wore them. The Cyrinic
Preceptor was suddenly chilled. The features the masks revealed
were not human.
There was a strange domed leather tent in the center of
that inhuman army, a ribbed., glossy black tent of gigantic
dimensions.
But then it moved, opening, spreading wide – two great
wings, curved and batlike. And then rising up from under the
shelter of those wings, was a being huge beyond imagining, a
creature of total darkness with a head shaped like an inverted
wedge and with flaring, pointed ears. Two slitted eyes blazed
in that awful absence of a face, and two enormous arms
stretched forth hungrily. Lightning seethed beneath the glossy
black skin, and the earth upon which the creature stood smoked
and burned.
Abriel was strangely calm. He lifted his visor to look full into
the face of Hell. ‘At last,’ he murmured, ‘a fitting opponent.’
And then he clapped his visor down again, drew his warlike
shield before his body, and raised the sword he had carried with
honor for over half a century. His unpalsied hand brandished
the sword at the enormity still rising before him. ‘For God and
Arcium.’ he roared his defiance, set himself, and charged
directly into obliteration.
CHAPTER 8
To say that Edaemus was offended would be the grossest of
understatements. The blur of white light that was the God of
the Delphae was tinged around the edges with flickers of reddish
orange, and the dusting of snow that covered the ground in the
little swale above the valley of the Delphae fumed tendrils of
steam as it melted in the heat of his displeasure. ‘No!’ he said
adamantly. ‘Absolutely not!’
‘Oh, be reasonable, Cousin,’ Aphrael coaxed. ‘The situation
has changed. You’re holding on to something that no longer
has any meaning. There might have been some justification for
“eternal enmity” before. I’ll grant you that my family didn’t
behave very well during the war with the Cyrgai, but that was
a long time ago. Clingng to your injured sensibilities now is
pure childishness.’
‘How couldst thou, Xanetia?’ Edaemus demanded accusingly.
‘How couldst thou do this thing?’
‘It was in furtherance of our design, Beloved,’ she replied.
Sephrenia was more than a little startled by the intensely personal
relationship Xanetia had with her God. ‘Thou didst command
me to render assistance unto Anakha, and by reason of
his love for Sephrenia, I was obliged to reach accommodation
with her. Once she and I did breach the wall of enmity which
did stand between us and did learn to trust each other, respect
and common purpose did soften our customary despite, and all
unbidden, love did gently creep in to replace it. In my heart is
she now my dear sister. ‘
‘That is an abomination! Thou shalt not speak so of this Styric
in my presence again.’
‘As it please thee, Beloved,’ she agreed, submissively bowing
her head. But then her chin came up, and her inner light glowed
more intensely. ‘But will ye, nil ye, I will continue to think so
of her in the hidden silence of my heart.’
‘Are you ready to listen, Edaemus?’ Aphrael asked, ‘or would
you like to take a century or two to throw a temper-tantrum first?’
‘Thou art pert, Aphrael,’ he accused.
‘Yes, I know. It’s one of the things that makes me so delightful.
You do know that Cyrgon’s trying to get his hands on Bhelliom,
don’t you? Or have you been so busy playing leap-frog with the
stars that you’ve lost track of what’s happening here?’
‘Mind your manners,’ Sephrenia told her crisply.
‘He makes me tired. He’s been cuddling his hatred to his
breast like a sick puppy for ten thousand years.’ The Child Goddess
looked critically at the incandescent presence of the God
of the Delphae. ‘The light-show doesn’t impress me, Edaemus
I could do it too, if I wanted to take the trouble.’
Edaemus flared even brighter, and the reddish-orange nimbus
around him became sooty.
‘How tiresome,’ Aphrael sighed. ‘i’m sorry, Xanetia, but we’re
wasting our time here. Bhelliom and I are going to have to deal
with klael on our own. Your tedious God wouldn’t be any help
anyway.’
‘klael!’ Edaemus gasPed.
‘Got your attention, didn’t I?’ She smirked. ‘Are you ready to
listen now?’
‘Who hath done this? Who hath unloosed Klael again upon
the earth?’
‘Well, it certainly wasn’t me. Cyrgon had everything going his
way, and then Anakha turned things around on him. You know
how much Cyrgon hates to lose, so he started breaking the rules.
Do you want to help us with this – or would you rather sit
around and pout for another hundred eons or so? Quickly,
quickly, Edaemus,’ she said, snapping her fingers at him. ‘Make
up your mind. I don’t have all day, you know.’
‘What makes you think I need any more men?’ Narstil
demanded. Narstil was a lean, almost cadaverous Arjuni with
StRingy arms and hollow cheeks. He sat at a table set under a
spreading tree in the center of his encampment deep in the
jungles of Arjuna.
‘You’re in a risky kind of business,’ Caalador shrugged, looking
around at the cluttered camp. ‘You steal furniture and carpets
and tapestries. That means that you’ve been raiding villages
and mounting attacks on isolated estates. People fight back
when you try that, and that means casualties. About half of your
men are wearing bandages right now, and you probably leave
a few dead behind you every time you try to steal things. A
leader in your line always needs more men.’
‘I don’t have any vacancies just now.’
‘I can arrange some,’ Bevier told him in a menacing voice,
melodramatically drawing his thumb across the edge of his
lochaber.
‘Look, Narstil,’ Caalador said in a somewhat less abrasive
tone, ‘we’ve seen your men. Be honest now. You’ve gathered
up a bunch of local bad-boys who got into trouble for stealing
chickens or running off somebody else’s goats. You’re very light
on professionals, and that’s what we’re offering you – professionalism.
Your bad-boys bluster and try to impress each
other by looking mean and nasty, but real killing isn’t in their
nature, and that’s why they get hurt when the fighting starts.
Killing doesn’t bother us. We’re used to it. Your young bravos
have to prove things to each other, but we don’t. Order knows
who we are. He wouldn’t have sent you that letter otherwise.’
His eyes narrowed slightly. ‘Believe me, Narstil, life will be
much easier for all of us if we’re working with you rather than