The Lightstone: The Silver Sword: Part Two

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The Count himself led the charge up the hill. He was daring enough to show brave, but cunning enough to know that his knights wouldn’t let him ride right onto our swords unprotected and alone. As their horses wheezed and sweated and pounded up the steep slope, two of his knights spurred their mounts slightly ahead of him to act as living shields. And it was well for him that they did. For just then, behind me, a bowstring twanged and an arrow buried itself in the lead knight’s chest. I heard Atara call out, ‘Twenty-three!’ A few moments later, another arrow sizzled through the roiling air, only to glance off the Count’s shield. And then he and his men were upon us.

The first knight to crest the hill – a big, burly man with fear-maddened eyes – drove his horse straight toward me. But due to his uphill charge, he had little momentum and less balance in his saddle; with Altaru’s hooves planted squarely in the earth, the point of my lance took him in the throat and drove clean through him. The force of his fall ripped the lance from my grasp. I heard him screaming, but then realized that he was going to his death in near silence, a wheeze of bloody breath escaping from his ruined throat and nothing more. The scream was all inside me. It built louder and louder until it seemed that the earth itself was shrieking in agony as it split asunder beneath me and pulled me down toward a black and bottomless chasm.

‘Val!’ Kane called out from somewhere nearby. ‘Draw your sword!’

I heard his sword slice the air and cleave through the gorget surrounding a knight’s neck. I was vaguely aware of Maram fumbling with his red crystal and trying to catch a few rays of sun with which to burn the advancing knights. Master Juwain, to my astonishment, scooped up the shield of the man I had unhorsed; he held it protecting Liljana from another knight’s sword as she tried to urge her horse toward Count Ulanu. Behind me, to the right and left, Atara and Alphanderry worked furiously with their swords to beat back the attack of yet more knights who were trying to flank us along the rear of the hill and take us from behind.

With a trembling hand, I drew forth Alkaladur. The long blade gleamed in the light of the sun. The sight of the silver gelstei shining so brilliantly dismayed Count Ulanu and his men, even as it drove back the darkness engulfing me. My mind suddenly cleared and a fierce strength flowed up my hand into my arm, a strength that felt as bottomless as the sea. It was as if I were drawing Altaru’s surging blood into me, and more, the very fires of the earth itself.

The Bright Sword flared white then, so brilliant and dazzling that the nearest knights cried out and threw their arms over their eyes. But other knights and the three Blues pressed toward me. Kane was near me, too, cutting and killing and cursing. Horses collided with each other, snorted and screamed. Altaru, steadying me and freely lending me his great strength, turned his wrath on any who tried to harm me. An unhorsed knight tried to hammer my back with his mace; Altaru kicked out, catching him in the chest and knocking him over. And then, even as Urturuk, the Blue with the missing ear, came for me with his huge axe, Altaru backed up to trample the fallen knight with his sharp hooves. He struck down with tremendous force, again and again until the knight’s head was little more than white bones and broken brains beneath his crumpled helm.

‘Val – on your right!’

I narrowly pulled back from Urturuk’s ferocious axe blow that would have chopped through Altaru’s neck. Altaru, now sensing the enemy’s strategy of trying to kill him to get at me, furiously bit out at Urturuk, taking a good chunk of flesh from his shoulder. Urturuk seemed not to notice this ugly wound. He drove straight toward Altaru again, his mouth fairly frothing with wrath, this time trying to split open his skull.

At last I swung Alkaladur. It arced downward in a silvery flash, cutting through the axe’s iron-hard haft and into Urturuk’s bare chest, cleaving him nearly in two. The spray of blood from his opened chest nearly blinded me. I almost didn’t see one of the Count’s knights coming at me from the other side. But a sudden whinny and tensing of Altaru’s body told me of his attack. I whirled about, swinging Alkaladur again. Its terrible, star-tempered edge cut through both shield and the mailed forearm behind it, and then bit into the steel rings covering the knight’s belly. He cried out to see his arm fall away like a pruned tree limb, and plunged to the ground screaming out his death agony.

‘Take him!’ Count Ulanu screamed to his knights scarcely a dozen yards from me. ‘Can’t you take one damned Valari!’

Perhaps his men could have taken us but for Kane’s fury and the suddenly unleashed terror of my sword. Then, too, they were disadvantaged by trying to cripple and capture us rather than kill. With knights now pressing us on all sides, I urged Altaru toward Count Ulanu. But Liljana, with Master Juwain still holding out the shield to protect her right side while Kane bulled his way forward on her left, had already reached him. She struck her sword straight out toward his sneering face. The point of it managed to slice off the tip of his nose even as one of his knights’ horses knocked into hers. Blood streamed from this rather minor gash. But it was enough to unnerve Count Ulanu – and his men.

‘The Count is wounded!’ one of his captains cried out. ‘Retreat! Protect the Count! Take him to safety!’

Although it hadn’t been Count Ulanu who ordered this ignoble retreat, he made no move to gainsay his knight’s command. He himself led the flight back down the hill. Two of his knights guarded his back as he turned his horse’s tail to us – and paid with their lives. Kane’s sword took one of them clean through the forehead while I pushed the point of mine straight through the other’s armor into his heart. And suddenly the battle was over.

‘Do we pursue?’ Maram called out, reining in his horse at the top of the hill. He was either battle-drunk, I thought, or mad. ‘I’ll give them a taste of fire, I will!’

So saying, he drew out his gelstei and tried to loose a bolt of flame upon Count Ulanu and his retreating knights. But although the crystal warmed to a bright scarlet, it never came fully alive.

‘Hold!’ I called out. ‘Hold now!’

Atara, who had her bow raised, fired off an arrow which split the mail of one of the retreating knights. He galloped away from us with a feathered shaft sticking out of his shoulder.

‘Hold, please!’

With the three men I had killed lying rent and bleeding on the grass, I could barely keep from falling, too. Kane had dispatched two knights and the other two Blues. Atara had added two more men to her tally, while Maram, Alphanderry, Liljana and Master Juwain had done extraordinarily well in beating off the assault of armored knights without taking any wounds themselves. But now the agony of the slain took hold of my heart. A doorway showing only blackness opened to my left. The nothingness there beckoned me deeper toward death than I had ever been. To keep from being pulled inside, I held onto Alkaladur as tightly as I could. Its numinous fire opened another door through which streamed the light of the sun and stars. It warmed my icy limbs and brought me back to life.

‘Val, are you wounded?’ Master Juwain asked as he came up to me. Then he turned to take stock of the corpse-strewn hummock and called out to the rest of our company, ‘Is anyone wounded?’

None of us were. I sat on top of the trembling Altaru, gaining strength each moment as I watched the last of Count Ulanu’s men disappear over the same ridge from which they had come.

‘What now, Val?’ Liljana said to me as she wiped the Count’s blood from the tip of her sword. ‘Do we pursue?’

‘No, we’ve had enough of battle for one day,’ I said. ‘And we don’t know how close the rest of the Count’s army is.’

I looked up at the blazing sun and then out across Yarkona’s rocky hills, calculating time and distances. To Liljana, to my other battle-sickened friends, I said, ‘Now we flee.’

They needed no further encouragement to put this hill of carnage behind us. We eased the horses down its slopes into the grassy trough through which we had been riding when the Count had surprised us. And then, wishing to cover ground quickly, we urged them to a fast canter toward the east. The pass into Khaisham called the Kul Joram, I guessed, lay a good twenty-five or thirty miles ahead of us. And beyond that, we would still need to ride another twenty miles to reach the Librarians’ city.

We kept up a good pace for most of five miles, but then one of the pack horses threw a shoe, and we had to go more slowly as the sun-scorched turf gave way to ground planted with many more rocks. Here, too, there was a little ring-grass and sage pushing through the dirt, which the horses’ hooves powdered and kicked up into the air. It was dry and hot, and the glazy blue sky held not the faintest breath of wind. The horses sweated even more profusely than did we. They kept driving onward through the murderous heat, snorting at the dust, making choking sounds in their throats and gasping until their nostrils and lips were white with froth. When we came across a little stream running down from the mountains, we had to stop to water them lest our dash across the burning plain kill them.

‘I’m sorry,’ I whispered to Altaru as he bent his shiny black neck down to the stream. ‘Only a few more miles, old friend, only a few more.’

Alphanderry, gazing back in the direction from which we had come, spoke to all of us, saying, ‘I’m sorry, but this is all my fault. If I hadn’t opened my mouth to sing, we’d never have been discovered.’

I walked up to him and laid my hand on the damp, dark curls of his head. I told him, ‘They might have found us in any case. And without your songs, we’d never have had the courage to come this far.’

‘How far have we come?’ Master Juwain said, looking eastward. ‘How far to this Kul Joram?’

Liljana brushed back the hair sticking to her face as she caught my eye. ‘There’s something I must tell you, something else I saw in the Count’s filthy mind. After Tarmanam, he sent a force to the Kul Joram to hold it for his army’s advance into Khaisham.’

Maram, bending low by the stream to examine the hooves of his tiring sorrel, suddenly straightened up and said, ‘Oh, no – this is terrible news! How are we to cross into Khaisham, then?’

‘Don’t you give up hope so easily,’ Liljana chided him. ‘There is another pass.’

‘The Kul Moroth,’ Kane spat out as he gazed into the wavering distances. ‘It lies twenty miles north of the Kul Joram. It’s an evil place, and much narrower, but it will have to do.’

Maram pulled at his beard as he fixed Liljana with a suspicious look. ‘I thought you promised that you’d never look into another’s mind without his permission? This was a sacred principle, you said.’

‘Do you think I’d have let that treacherous Count nail you to a cross because of a principle?’ Liljana said. ‘Besides, I promised you, not him.’

Master Juwain came up to look into my eyes and said, ‘It seems that you’re growing ever more able to put up shields against others’ agonies.’

‘No, it’s just the opposite,’ I said, thinking of the three men I had slain. ‘Each time a man goes over now, it carries me deeper into the death realm. But the valarda, even as it opens me to this void, also opens me to the world. To all its pain, yes, but to its life as well. The sword that Lady Nimaiu gave me only aids in this opening. When I wield it truly, it’s as if the soul of the world pours into me.’

So saying, I drew Alkaladur and held it gleaming faintly toward the east.

‘Then the sword lends you a certain protection against the vulnerabilities of your gift.’

‘No, it is not so, sir. Someday when I kill, the death realm will grab hold of me so tightly that I’ll never return.’

Because there was nothing for him to say to this, he stood looking at me quietly even as the others fell silent, too.

Then Atara, scanning the horizon behind us, drew in a quick breath as she pointed toward the west. ‘They’re coming,’ she said. ‘Don’t you see?’

At first none of us did. But as we stared at the far-off hills until our eyes burned, we finally saw a plume of dust rising into the sky.

‘How many are there?’ Maram asked Atara.

‘That’s hard to say,’ she told him.

But even as we stood there beneath the quick beatings of our hearts, the dust plume grew bigger.

‘Too many, I think,’ Kane said. ‘Let’s ride now. We’ll have to leave the pack horses behind. They’re practically lame and slowing us down.’

This imperious announcement sparked fierce protest from Maram and Liljana. Maram couldn’t abide the thought of separating ourselves from most of our food and drink, while Liljana bitterly regretted having to forsake her beloved pots and pans.

‘You have your shield,’ she said to Kane, ‘so why shouldn’t I be allowed at least one pot for cooking a hot meal when we might most need one?’

‘And what about the brandy?’ Maram put in. ‘There’s little enough left, but we’ll need it for our return from Khaisham.’

‘Return?’ Kane growled. ‘We won’t even reach Khaisham if we don’t ride now. Now fetch your pot and your brandy, and let’s be off.’

We made a quick redistribution of those vital stores that the pack horses carried, filling our mounts’ saddlebags as full as we dared. Then we said goodbye to these faithful beasts that had carried our belongings so far. I prayed that they would wander over Yarkona’s mounded plains until some kind farmer found them and put them to work.

With pursuit now certain, though still far away, we set out for the Kul Moroth. We rode hard, pressing the horses to a full gallop until it became clear that they couldn’t hold such a pace. Altaru and Iolo were strong enough, and Fire, too, but Kane’s big bay and Liljana’s gelding had little wind left for such heroics. Master Juwain’s sorrel seemed to have aged greatly since setting out from Mesh, while Maram’s poor horse was in the worst shape of any of our mounts. His sore hoof, now bruised by hot stones, was getting worse with every furlong we covered. I worried that soon he would pull up ruined and lame. And Maram worried about this as well.

‘Ah, perhaps you should just leave me behind,’ he gasped as he urged his limping sorrel to keep up with us. For a moment, we slowed to a trot. ‘I’ll ride off in a different direction. Perhaps the Count’s men will follow me, instead of you.’

It was a courageous offer, if a little insincere. I thought that he might hope that our pursuers would follow us instead of him.

‘On the Wendrush,’ Atara said from atop her great roan mare, ‘that is how it must be. Where speed is life, a war party is only as fast as its slowest horse.’

Her words greatly alarmed Maram, who had no real intention of simply riding away from us. She saw his disquiet and said, ‘But this is not the Wendrush and we are no war party.’

‘Just so,’ I said. ‘Our company will reach Khaisham together or not at all. We have a lead; now let’s keep it.’

But this proved impossible to do. As the ground grew even drier and rougher, Maram’s sorrel slowed his pace even more. And the plume of dust behind us grew closer and thickened into a cloud.

‘What are we to do?’ Maram muttered. ‘What are we to do?’

And Kane, bringing up the rear, answered him with one word, ‘Ride.’

And ride we did. The rhythm of our horses’ hooves beat against the ground like the pounding of a drum. It grew very hot. I squinted against the sun pouring down upon the rocks to the east of us. Its rays, I thought, were like fiery nails fixing us to the earth. Dust stung my eyes and found its way into my mouth. Here the soil tasted of salt and men’s tears, if not those of the angels. Here, in this burning waste, it would be easy for horse and man to perish, sweated dry of all their water.

After some miles, my thoughts turned away from the men behind us and toward visions of water. I remembered the deep blue stillness of Lake Waskaw and the rivers of Mesh; I thought of the soft white clouds over Mount Vayu and its glittering snowfields melting into rills and brooks. I began to pray for rain.

But the sky remained clear, a hot and hellish blue-white that glared like fired iron. It consoled me not at all that Count Ulanu and his men must suffer this dreadful heat even as we did. I took courage, however, from the thought that if we endured it more bravely, we still might outdistance them.

But it was they who closed the distance between us. The cloud of dust following us grew ever larger and nearer.

‘The Count,’ Kane observed bitterly, looking back, ‘can afford to leave his laggards behind.’

As the hours passed, we entered terrain in which a series of low ridges ran from north to south like dull knife-blades pushing up the earth. They roughly paralleled the much greater mountain spur still ahead of us where, if Kane’s memory proved true, we would find the Kul Moroth. In most places, we had no choice but to ride up and over these sun-baked folds. This hot, heaving work tortured the horses. From the top of one of them, where we paused to rest our faithful and sweating friends, we had a better view of the men pursuing us.

‘Oh, my Lord!’ Maram groaned. ‘There are so many!’

For now, beneath the roiling column of dust drawing closer to the west, we saw perhaps five hundred men on horses following the dragon standard. I thought I caught a glimpse of another red dragon set against a yellow surcoat: surely that of Count Ulanu leading the pursuit. There were many knights behind him, both heavy cavalry and light, and even a few horse archers accoutered much as Atara. A whole company of Blues on their swift, nimble ponies galloped after us as well. It seemed that Count Ulanu had summoned the entire vanguard of his army to help him wreak his vengeance upon us.

During the next hour of our flight, clouds began moving in from the north and darkening the sky. They built to great heights with amazing quickness. Their black, billowing shapes blocked out much of the sun. It grew much cooler, a gift from the heavens for which we were all grateful.

Count Ulanu’s men, though, drew as much relief from the approaching storm as did we. He sent some of his horse archers galloping forward in a wild dash finally to close with us. They fired off a few rounds of arrows, which fell to earth out of range.

‘Hmmph, archers shouldn’t waste arrows so,’ Atara said. ‘If they come any closer, I’ll spare them a few of mine.’

They did come closer. As we began ascending yet another ridge, a feathered shaft struck the earth only a dozen yards behind Kane’s heaving bay. Atara’s great, recurved bow was strung and ready; I thought that she would wait until gaining the crest of the ridge before turning to shoot back at them.

The rapidly cooling air about us seemed charged with anticipation and death. The sky rumbled with great rolling waves of thunder. I felt an itch at the back of my neck as if something were pulling at my hair. And then a bolt of lightning flashed down from the clouds and burned the air. It struck the ridge above us, and sent a blue fire running along the rocks. Balls of hail fell down, too, pelting us and pinging off my helmet. Master Juwain and the others made a sort of canopy of their cloaks, holding them up to protect their heads. And still the lightning streaked down and set the very earth to humming.

It seemed pure folly to climb toward the ridgeline where the lightning was the fiercest. But behind us rode six archers firing off certain death from their bows. These steel-tipped bolts struck even closer than did the lightning. One of them glanced off my helmet like a piece of hail – only from a different direction and with much greater force. The sound of it dinging against the steel caused Atara to turn in her saddle and finally fire off a shot of her own. The arrow sank into the belly of the lead archer, who fell off his horse onto the hail-shrouded earth. But the others only charged after us with renewed determination.

I was the first to the ridge, followed in quick succession by Alphanderry, Liljana, Master Juwain, Maram and Kane. Atara rode more slowly, the better to make her shots and fight her arrow duel. Another two found their marks, and she called out, ‘Twenty-seven, twenty-eight!’ Just as she reached the ridge-top, however, with the sky’s bright fire sizzling the very rocks, the hail began to fall much harder. It streaked down from the sky at a slant like millions of silver bolts. Her arrows crashed into these hurtling balls of ice with sharp clacking sounds, sometimes shattering them into a spray of frozen chips and snow. The hail deflected the advancing archers’ arrows, too. They fired off many rounds to no effect. But one of their arrows ripped through Atara’s billowing cloak just before two more of hers raised her count to thirty. Then the remaining archer, sighting his last arrow with great care despite the rain and hail, fired off a desperate shot. Lightning flashed and thunder rent the sky, and somewhere beneath these terrifying events came the even more terrible twang of his bowstring. And then I gasped to see a couple feet of wood and feathers sticking out of Atara’s chest.

‘Ride!’ she choked out as she kicked her horse forward. ‘Keep riding!’

It wasn’t fear that drove her on through the pain of such a grievous wound nor even will but regard for us and what must happen if her strength failed. I felt this in the way that she waved on Master Juwain every time he turned his worried gaze toward her; it was obvious in her brave smiles toward Kane and especially in the bittersweet protectiveness that filled her eyes whenever she looked at me. Of all the courageous acts I had witnessed on fields of battle, I thought that her jolting ride across the final miles of Virad was the most valorous.

Liljana, galloping by her side, suggested that we must stop to offer her a little water. But Atara waved her on, too, gasping out, ‘Ride, ride now – they’re too close.’ There was blood on her lips as she said this.

Soon the thunder and rain stopped, and the dark clouds boiled above us as if threatening to break apart. The mountainous spur marking Khaisham’s border came into view. It was a barren escarpment of reddish rock perhaps a thousand feet high. It stood like a wall before us. In many places along its length, it was cut with fissures starkly defining great rock forms that looked like pyramids and towers. From the miles of plain that still lay between us and it, it was hard to make out much detail. But I prayed that one of these dark openings into the upfolded earth would prove to be the pass named the Kul Moroth.