A Man Rides Through

  King Joyse, however, seemed to notice that as he noticed everything else. With a glance upward, he said to himself, “Six left. Progress is made, friend Festten. Be warned.”

  Unfortunately, the siege engines had already cost him hundreds of men, dead or hurt.

  Elega held her breath, watching Prince Kragen hurl himself against High King Festten’s horsemen. Hadn’t Geraden said that the Termigan refused to come? She gnawed the inside of her cheek. Yes, that was what Geraden had said. Yet he was here. She felt a chill, despite the air’s relative warmth. What new disaster had he come to report?

  Who were those people in the center of his formation, those cloaked figures that didn’t fight, that didn’t do anything except ride where the Termigan’s men took them? One of them seemed ordinary enough. The other was huge—

  Echoes brought the sounds of battle to her, the strife of swords and shields. Piled rock hid most of the fighting: Prince Kragen had ventured through the gap and was out of sight behind the debris of the avalanche. He didn’t have enough men to oppose that many Cadwals, not nearly enough. Only the speed of his charge could save him, its unexpectedness. But a mixed group of guards and soldiers was almost in position to help him, two hundred horse in the lead, half a thousand foot pelting furiously behind. And when the Termigan had brought all his people into the valley, he wheeled his mount, called most of his strength after him, and returned to aid the Prince.

  Together, nearly side-by-side, Prince Kragen and the man who had declared flatly, I trust no Alend, fought their way back toward the bulk of King Joyse’s army.

  The rough mounds close on either side saved them: all that broken stone constricted the Cadwal countercharge; an abundance of scattered rubble where the chasm used to be prevented riders from moving in tight ranks. And when the High King’s forces tried to enter the valley again, archers began loosing their shafts from high up among the rocks.

  Prince Kragen and the Termigan brought each other to safety as if they had never been anything except comrades.

  “Who’re those people with him,” asked Terisa, “the ones in the cloaks – the ones who didn’t fight?”

  Elega’s heart began to soar. Who dared to speak of failure, where King Joyse and his daughters were at work?

  The men bearing the Tor’s body, and Ribuld’s, arrived at King Joyse’s pennon before the Termigan did; and King Joyse met them as if he weren’t in the midst of a war, with catapults and unexplained arrivals to worry about; met them as if for that moment at least nothing was more important to him than the burden they carried, his old friend’s corpse.

  “He saved us,” said Master Barsonage. The Imager seemed too weary to dismount; he looked too haggard to say, my lord King. “He and Ribuld—” The mediator’s voice lapsed into grief.

  “That’s true, my lord King,” Castellan Norge reported without his usual ease. “They were just two, but they hit at the right time. They did just enough damage, caused just enough confusion—” Like Barsonage, Norge seemed to be losing his voice. “Without them, we wouldn’t have saved the mediator. Or Master Harpool, either.”

  Dully, as if he had said the same thing a dozen times, Master Harpool murmured, “My wife promised to curse me if I don’t return. She was that angry—” His nose was running; but he didn’t have anything to wipe it with, so he snuffled loudly.

  King Joyse looked at the Tor’s body; he started to speak. Nevertheless he couldn’t: he was breathing too hard. As if the sight of his friend’s crushed head hit him harder than he was expecting, dealt him a blow for which he had thought he was braced and now found he wasn’t, not braced at all despite the fact that he must have seen this moment coming, his chest began to heave, and he fought for air urgently, in great gasps. To stifle the sound, he clamped his hands over his mouth, against the sides of his nose; but he couldn’t restrain his harsh respiration, his labor against grief.

  After all, he wasn’t young anymore. He had been alone for a long time; comforted – or at least understood – by only mad Havelock and lost Quillon. And the cost of his efforts to save Mordant kept growing. Without the Tor, there would have been no Mordant, no kingdom to defend; no King to be so profligate with the blood of those who loved him.

  Fiercely, he pulled his hands down from his face, gripped the side of the Tor’s litter. He seemed to want to lift his old friend in his arms, pick the Tor’s body up out of death. But of course the corpse was too heavy. Four men were needed simply to support its slack weight.

  Involuntarily, King Joyse sank to his knees in the trampled slush.

  Terisa and Geraden started toward him without thinking; their desire to console him somehow was obvious in their faces. The lady Elega stopped them, however. She put a finger to her lips. Then, smiling despite the Tor’s end and her father’s sorrow, she pointed toward the riders approaching the pennon.

  Prince Kragen. The Termigan. And the two cloaked figures, with everything about them except their size wrapped and hidden, kept secret.

  Prince Kragen had a few battlemarks on him: some blood, plainly not his own; lines like galls across his mail. He looked worthy to Elega, worthy beyond question, like a man who had met the consequences of his most hazardous decisions and deserved his victory. The Termigan was in worse condition, gaunt from hard travel, strained and bitter around his eyes. Yet he, too, had an air of worth, almost of triumph, as if he knew now that he had done the right thing. His hard, flinty face held no reproach.

  “My lord King,” he said, “I’ve come to help you. I’ve only got two hundred men – all I could spare. But they’re enough.”

  “Enough and more,” put in Prince Kragen, kinder toward the. King’s grief. “Is it not true that Mordant itself began with only two hundred men?”

  “Father.” Myste pushed her hood back from her face, raised her strong gaze and her scarred cheek into the sunlight reaching past the valley rim.

  “Myste.”

  Terisa was at once so surprised and so thrilled that she nearly shouted; her whole body seemed tight with pleasure.

  “You’re all right.”

  Geraden nearly burst out laughing in delight. Men all around the King’s pennon whispered Myste’s name as if it were powerful and dangerous.

  “With the Termigan’s aid,” she said, “I have brought your champion.”

  While the reaction to her appearance spread, the huge figure beside her dropped his cloak, revealing bright, blank armor scorched black in several places, burned open twice, with a flat, impenetrable plate over his face. Strange guns hung on his hips; the rifle with which he had blasted his way out of Orison was strapped to his back.

  The circle of guards and soldiers stared. A number of them grabbed at their swords; a few unslung bows.

  But the champion didn’t make any threatening moves. Slowly, he reached one hand to his head, touched a stud in the side of his helmet. Without a sound, his visor slid up and away, exposing his face.

  It was a man’s face, ordinary in its details: pale eyes; a large nose, crooked as if it had been broken more than once; tight lips above an assertive jaw. Only the strange way he moved his mouth when he spoke betrayed his origins.

  “My lord King,” he said in an alien voice, a tone with an incongruous resemblance to birdsong, “I’m lost on this God-rotting planet. Myste says it’s not your fault I’m here. Says the only people who might be able to help me are your Imagers. But you can’t help me while you’re stuck in this mess.

  “I’m willing to do what I can. For her. On the off-chance your Imagers can help me.”

  “So that’s what it meant,” Terisa breathed, her tone hushed with relief and wonder. But at the moment even Geraden didn’t have any attention to spare for her.

  Kneeling beside the Tor, King Joyse had jerked his head up at the sound of Myste’s voice, had stared at her and the champion with joy dawning in his blue eyes. Now he rose to his feet as if all his courage had come back. At first, however, he didn’t speak to her, or to Prince Kragen and th
e Termigan, or even to the champion. Instead, he addressed Norge briskly.

  “Several things, Castellan. Provide for my lord Termigan’s men. Get those that need care to the physicians. Those that do not, assign among our horsemen. If I judge rightly” – he glanced toward the foot of the valley – “High King Festten is regrouping. He will attack again shortly. We need riders desperately.

  “My dear friend the Tor,” he continued without pausing, “must be given an honorable grave outside Esmerel. Command as many men as necessary, bury him well. And the Perdon beside him – two faithful and valorous lords who spent their lives so that we will have a chance to save our world. If we succeed, their names will be praised before any other.”

  Then, in a rush, he left the Tor’s litter, pulled Myste off her mount, and hugged her to his heart.

  At once, the champion, Darsint, dismounted; he seemed to think Myste might need his protection. When he had pushed the horses out of his way, however, he stopped, apparently content to leave Myste and the King alone.

  Watching her sister and her father, Elega’s only regret was that she had never been able to smile the way they did, with that clarity, as if they were able to go through life with their innocence intact.

  “Dear child,” King Joyse murmured thickly, “my Myste, I’m so glad—Havelock told me to trust you, but I couldn’t help being afraid. My little girl, in such danger—I wanted you to be safe. And yet I needed you to do what you did.” He tightened his embrace momentarily, then released it and stepped back. “Your mother would break my pate if she knew how I risked you.”

  “Father,” Myste replied like the sun, “all children must be risked. Mother knows that. How else are we to discover ourselves?”

  If anything, her smile became warmer, cleaner, as she turned toward Elega.

  Elega wanted to say, You have saved us – meant to say, Oh, Myste, you have saved us – but her throat closed suddenly, and her vision ran with tears. Myste’s smile still had the power to make everything worthwhile.

  Myste came to stand close to her. They didn’t embrace: the way they felt was too private for the occasion. Nevertheless Myste said softly, “You did it. Everything I wanted – everything I couldn’t say. I’m so proud of you.”

  Elega looked up at Prince Kragen, still on his horse, and held his gaze happily while Myste went to hug both Terisa and Geraden, then moved back to King Joyse.

  “Now that the truth is revealed, my lord King,” the Prince said, speaking dryly to cover his pleasure, “I suppose I must admit that the Alend Monarch’s motives – and my own – have not been entirely disinterested recently. We withheld the siege of Orison to give you time in which to mature your plans. We kept open the possibility of an alliance, even when we had refused it, so that we might be able to aid you at need. But we also did those things” – he grinned under his moustache – “because the lady Myste threatened to bring the champion’s fire down on us otherwise.”

  There: it was acknowledged in front of everyone that he and Elega had known Myste was alive, known she was with Darsint. The information brought a speculative frown to Geraden’s face as he drew inferences; it turned Terisa’s cheeks alternately pale and hot – relief at Myste’s safety, anger that Myste’s safety had been kept secret.

  King Joyse wasn’t offended, however. “In other words, my lord Prince,” he retorted, suppressing a desire to laugh, “you decided to respect my position because you were given reason to believe it might be stronger than it appeared.” Away from Myste, he had resumed his more formal style of speech. “That was wise – as well as courageous. While honest admissions are being made, I will admit in my turn that I have often suspected your father of wisdom.” His eyes glinted with momentary mischief. “His courage, however, came as a pleasant surprise.

  “Unfortunately,” he went on promptly, speaking now to the group around his standard, “we will be in battle again at any moment, and before that moment comes I must say that my position is also weaker than it appears.”

  Facing the champion, he asked, “How should I address you?”

  The champion frowned. “You mean name or rank? I’m Darsint, First Battle-Officer, Unified Expeditionary Force cruiser Scourge.”

  “Darsint,” King Joyse pronounced. “Your offer of aid is very welcome. I need it badly. I doubt, however, that I will ever be able to help you.”

  Darsint’s frown deepened.

  Instinctively, Elega caught her breath. What was her father doing now? Yet a glance at Myste reassured her: Myste appeared grave, but undistressed. Geraden was nodding slowly, as if to confirm what King Joyse said. Terisa seemed to be watching the foot of the valley distractedly, expecting harm.

  “I am sure,” King Joyse explained, “my daughter has told you that you were brought here by translation – by mirror. But the glass responsible for your presence was broken.” Perhaps tactfully, he didn’t mention that Darsint himself had broken it. “In addition, the only mirror we had which resembled that glass has also been shattered, by the enemies we now confront. As a result, I have no immediate aid to offer.

  “I doubt that Master Gilbur can be persuaded to reveal how your mirror was made. Geraden is therefore our only hope.” King Joyse didn’t look at Geraden. “And I do not doubt that he will be able to reshape his mirror exactly, if we are victorious – if he is given time and peace.”

  Geraden continued nodding.

  “But that only raises another difficulty,” went on the King, “which is time itself. Our mirrors show Images of place, not of person. And the Images can be adjusted only over relatively small distances. Once Geraden has reshaped his glass, we will have the power to return you, not to your people or your home, but only to the place where you were found.

  “How many days have passed since you were forced among us? And how many more will pass before Geraden is given time and peace? Will your ‘cruiser’ – will this Scourge – remain where it was, waiting for you?”

  “Pythas,” Darsint muttered darkly. “God-rotting piece of real estate. Should have left it alone while we had the chance. UEF needs a staging-area in that sector – but nobody needs a staging-area that bad.”

  King Joyse pursued his point. “Is it not more likely that your Scourge will be gone? that we will consign you to death among your enemies if we return you after so many days?”

  “Shit, yes.” The champion appeared to be chewing his lip below the rim of his visor’s opening. “Pythians had us on the run when I got snatched. Plasma beams like I’ve never seen.” He indicated his damaged armor. “Scourge’ll be long gone.”

  “So I can promise you nothing,” King Joyse concluded, “except that I will use you as hard as I can – and serve you as faithfully as I am able.

  “Will you help us?”

  Elega’s chest hurt for air, but she kept holding each breath as long as she could, hoping that her father’s candor wouldn’t drive Darsint away.

  The champion didn’t take long to make up his mind. “Oh, well,” he sighed like a disappointed nightingale. “Myste warned me. She’s still the only friend I’ve got. And you’re her father. She thinks you’re worth saving.

  “Too bad I can’t do it.” The twisting of his face resembled a grin; he may have been indulging in a piece of UEF humor. Elega wasn’t sure: his features were as hard to read as stone. “Weaker than I look. Like you. Handguns don’t have the range you need – or the capacity. There’s a limit to the number of people I can strangle personally. Can’t stop what you’ve got coming.” Inside his helmet, he nodded toward High King Festten’s army. “And my rifle’s about discharged—”

  The blaring of the sackbut interrupted him.

  At once, six catapults started winding back their arms.

  Simultaneously, the war drums began to beat their rhythm into the valley.

  With a sharp look in that direction, Elega saw the Cadwal front advancing, preparing itself to pour through the breaks in the ridge. Too soon: the King and his champion weren’t ready.
And she hadn’t had a chance to learn how Myste and Darsint and the Termigan came to be here – how they came to be together.

  “But I’m not helpless.” By degrees, it became more obvious that Darsint’s expression was intended as a smile. “Might have enough charge left to take care of those toys for you.” He gestured up at the siege engines. “Might even put a little God-rotting fear into your God-rotting enemies.”

  He stopped as if he were waiting for someone to catch the joke and laugh.

  After a moment, King Joyse did laugh – a short, hard chuckle, not of humor, but of recognition. “ ‘A little God-rotting fear.’ I like the sound of that. Someday you must explain ‘God-rotting’ to me. I suspect it is a phrase Castellan Lebbick would have enjoyed, if he had known it.

  “Please do ‘take care of’ the catapults.” King Joyse considered the Cadwal position, the readiness of the engines. “As soon as possible.”

  Still grinning that twisted, beaky grin, Darsint pulled his rifle off his back.

  Involuntarily, a number of the guards and soldiers retreated a step.

  Elega wished that Prince Kragen had dismounted, that he stood beside her. Like the Termigan, however, he stayed on his horse so that he could ride into battle at an instant’s notice.

  The champion checked a blinking red light on his strange weapon, thumbed a button. “Range isn’t a problem.” When he spoke softly, his voice sounded more than ever like birdsong. “Not against wood. But I’d have to get closer – if I weren’t such a good shot.”

  Elega distinctly saw him wink at Myste.

  For some reason, his wink reminded her that he was responsible for the burn-scar on Myste’s cheek, the mark which seemed to transform Myste’s expression from dreamy romance to decisiveness.

  The war drums picked up their pace.

  Abruptly, Darsint raised the rifle to his shoulder, sighted along it.

  During the space between one heartbeat and the next, his weapon let out a straight burst of fire.