The long span of his arrogant bluster was scheduled to end. The Norns had scribbled-in Palmisano as the destination that ended his life-road.
The nearness of
savan dalage
stampeded a herd of war-horses. In the fractional second while they distracted him, Zindahjira died.
The stampeding mounts battered Ragnar. He scuttled beneath a haywagon. It nearly capsized in the equine tide.
The smell of
savan dalage
overrode that of horse fear and manure. Sweat soaked Ragnar’s clothing. He had no torch. “Hakes!” He heard Blittschau bellowing, but the Altean didn’t hear him. The clang of metal on metal rose against the drumming of hooves.
Shinsan’s men had reached the horses.
The last screaming, lathered stallion hurtled past…
Ragnar rose slowly, his palm cold and moist on his sword hilt. A tiger-masked Tervola and three dark soldiers advanced with scarlet swords.
The wagon frame ground into his back…
The western line bent, bowed, withdrew a hundred yards under Badalamen’s predawn general attack. But he committed auxiliaries and allies, spending their lives to tire and weaken his foes. They didn’t break through. The panic of the night hadn’t gotten out of hand.
Ragnarson, having shed his tears, rose from beside his dead. He shook off Reskird’s sympathetic hand. “I’m all right.” His voice was cold and calm. He glanced at the crown of the hill where, till last night, his headquarters had stood. The surviving attackers were heightening their earthworks.
They had completed their mission. Now they would await relief from their commander.
Visigodred departed the tent concealing the remains of his oldest and dearest antagonist. Mist held him momentarily, whispering. Radeachar had just found Marco.
Like scenes were occurring everywhere. A dozen national ensigns flew with hastily stitched black borders. Death had shown few favorites during her midnight rampage.
Bragi glimpsed a winged horse settling into the remains of the Imperial fortress. He growled, “We begin.”
Trumpet voices filed the air. Drums responded. The knights advanced. Their pennons waved bright and bold. Their spirits were high. King Wieslaw of Iwa Skolovda had made a speech to stir the souls of veterans as old as and cynical as Tantamagora and Alacran.
This would be their finest hour, the battle remembered a thousand years. The greatest charge in history.
An infantryman walked at each stirrup. Some were the knights’ men. Most were doughty fighters Ragnarson had assigned: Trolledygnjans, Kaveliners, Guildsmen, veteran swordsmen who had been withheld from the front. They were rested and ready.
Aisles opened through the pikes and bows. Arrows darkened the air. Mangonels and trebuchets released.
The Iwa Skolovdan battle pennon dipped, signaling the charge.
How bright their crests and pennons! How bold the gleam of their armor! How brilliant their countless shields! The earth groaned beneath their hooves. The sun itself seemed to quake as the army shouted with a hundred thousand throats.
The drums changed voice as Wieslaw spurred his charger. Lockstep, the men in black marched backward.
Not many pits appeared, but enough to blunt the charge.
“Damn!” Ragnarson growled, watching the gleaming tide break on the black wall, slow, and swirl like paints mixing.
The knights abandoned their lances, flailed with swords or maces. The men who had run at their stirrups guarded the horses.
The bowmen, unable to ply their weapons without killing friends, grabbed swords, axes, hammers, mauls, rushed into the melee.
Bragi had kept no reserve but the pickets round last night’s raiders, and the pikemen, who would screen any withdrawal.
From river to river the slaughter stretched, awesome in scale.
“Even the Fall of Tatarian wasn’t this bloody,” Valther murmured.
Derel Prataxis, without glancing up from his tablet, observed, “Half a million men. The biggest battle ever.”
He was wrong, of course, but could be pardoned ignorance of the Nawami Crusades.
“Need to fall back and charge again,” Ragnarson grumbled. But there was no way to order it. He could only hope his captains didn’t let their enthusiasm override their sense.
Not that time. Wieslaw, Harteobben, and Blittschau extricated themselves, returned to their original lines. The easterners pressed the pikemen hard till the Itaskians again hid the sun behind arrows. Then the knights and stirrup men charged again.
Ragnarson and his party talked little. Grimly, Bragi watched Harteobben and Blittschau, on the wings, begin to be devoured. Only Wieslaw’s echelon maintained momentum.
Ragnarson considered fleeing to Dunno Scuttari. He could take ship to Freyland and rally the survivors there… No. Inger wouldn’t be there. He had left too many dear ones behind already. His role in this war had been to leave a trail of his beloved. There had to be an end. He would share the fate of his army. He would fulfill the letter of Badalamen’s message.
He saw to his weapons. His companions watched nervously, then did likewise. Prataxis rode through camp collecting cooks, mule-skinners, grooms, and the walking wounded.
T
HIRTY-FIVE:
S
PRING, 1013 AFE
P
ALMISANO:
T
HE
G
UTTERING
F
LAME
It seemed he had been chopping at black armor for days. He had trained and trained, but his instructors hadn’t told him how arduous it would be. Here, unlike the practice field, he couldn’t rest.
“Almost through!” Wieslaw screamed, gesturing with his bloody sword. Only a thin line screened the open ground beyond Shinsan’s front.
The esquire glanced back. The hundreds who had followed Wieslaw now numbered but dozens.
The youth redoubled his attack.
The line broke. They were through. Wieslaw cavorted as though the battle itself had been won. His standard bearer galloped to his side. More knights surged through the gap, rallied round, congratulated one another weakly.
The respite lasted but moments. Then a band of steppe riders attacked. While the westerners turned that threat their bolt hole closed behind them.
“Badalamen,” said Wieslaw. “We have to plant a sword in the dragon’s brain.”
The esquire stared across the quarter-mile separating them from the born general. Badalamen’s bodyguards had sprung from the sorcerous wombs of the laboratories of Ehelebe. And crowds of Throyens masked them.
Wieslaw assembled his people to charge.
The Throyens put up little fight. In minutes the knights reached the tall, expressionless guards surrounding Badalamen.
Ragnarson cursed as his mount screamed and stumbled. Her hamstrings had been cut. He threw himself clear, smashed a black helmet with his war axe while leaping. He continued hacking with wild, two-handed swings, past pain, rage, and frustration, exploding in a berserk effort to destroy Shinsan single-handedly.
He knew no hope anymore. He just wanted to hurt and hurt until Badalamen couldn’t profit from winning.
His companions felt the change. Morning’s optimism was becoming afternoon’s despair. The invincible legions were, again, meeting their reputation. Soldiers began glancing backward, picking directions to run.
Varthlokkur, too, despaired. He had recognized his antagonist at last. Shinsan, Tervola, Pracchia, Ehelebe, all were smokescreens. Behind them lurked the Old Meddler, the Star Rider. He knew, now, because someone was negating his manipulation of the Tear. Only the other Pole’s master could manage that.
The devil had come into the open. He needed anonymity no more.
It seemed but a matter of time till the tide turned and the Power became Shinsan’s faithful servant once more. Not even Radeachar, frantically buzzing the old fortress, would help. The Tervola had learned to neutralize the Unborn.
How long? Two hours? Four? No more, certainly.
Varthlokkur watched Mist and longed for Nepanthe.
Four still lived. The esquire. Wieslaw. His standard-bearer. A baronet of Dvar. Bodies carpeted the slope.
Badalamen fought on, alone, surrounded.
The born soldier struck. The esquire fell, a deep wound burning his side. Hooves churned the earth about him. He staggered to his feet. The baronet fell. The standard-bearer cried out, followed. The esquire seized the toppling standard, murmuring, “It can’t fall before His Majesty.”
Badalamen seemed to strike in slow motion. The youth’s thrust with the banner spear seemed even slower.
Wieslaw collapsed. Badalamen, speartip between his ribs, followed. The esquire, Odessa Khomer, fell across both.
A mystery long pursued by sorcerers of both sides consisted of a youth with makeshift weapon. Thus the Fates play tricks when revealing slivers of tomorrow.
Megelin whipped his horse, surged out of the river. Fighting greeted him, but Beloul quickly routed the Argonese pickets. Megelin surveyed the battleground. Nothing barred him from reaching the main contest. Shinsan’s encampment appeared undefended. Only the few pickets weren’t in the battle line.
He gathered his captains, gave his orders. Wet horsemen, tired-eyed, formed their companies.
“Three hours, Beloul,” the young King remarked, glancing at the westering sun.
Beloul didn’t reply. But he followed. His mind had stretched enough to see the national interest in a defeat of Shinsan.
Their charge swept through the eastern camp and round the hill where the old fortress stood. Megelin and a handful of followers invaded the stronghold. They found nothing, though in a courtyard they so startled a winged horse that it took flight and vanished into the east. Puzzled, Megelin left, led his men against the enemy rear. He swept past the drama of Badalamen and Odessa Khomer only minutes after its completion, and never learned what had happened there.
A centurion informed the Tervola.
Only a dozen survived. Each had pledged himself to Ehelebe in times gone by. The Star Rider had saved each from the Unborn. But command was devolving on unready Aspirants and noncoms.
They repudiated their oaths, reelected Ko Feng commander.
“That’s all. We’re done here,” Feng said. “Though the cause isn’t necessarily lost, I propose we withdraw.”
The Tervola agreed. Shinsan’s destiny could no longer be pursued through the fantasy of Ehelebe. Nor could it without legions which, pushed to win today, might be pushed too far. The army’s skeleton had to be salvaged so Shinsan could rebuild against tomorrow.
The bloody mind-fog lifted. For a moment Ragnarson stood amidst the carnage, shield high, axe dragging, puzzled. The pressure had eased. His men had stopped backing up. An army tottering at the brink, already disintegrating, had stiffened unexpectedly…
Or had it?
He caught a hobbling, distraught horse, mounted for the instant needed to discover that Shinsan was disengaging. As always, in good order, evacuating the wounded first, still attacking along a narrow aisle to relieve the force waiting on the hilltop.
Desert-garbed men flew about behind them. The easterners ignored them, having already taught them the cost of getting too close.
The sun was nearing the horizon. In an hour it would be too dark to see…
Bragi swore, shouted, cajoled. His men leaned on their weapons, staring with eyes that had seen too much bloodshed. They didn’t care if the foe were vulnerable. He was going. That was enough.
Bragi caught another horse, raged around looking for men who would fight on.
He glimpsed movement near the fortress. Someone with white hair scuttled toward a band of legionnaires. Megelin’s riders chased him back inside.
A wild, evil glee captured Bragi’s soul. He walked his mount toward the battered stronghold.
He passed the remains of Badalamen and hardly noticed. A mad little laugh kept bubbling up from deep in his guts.
The bent man watched the barbaric rider cross that field of death as implacably as a glacier. He studied Feng, a mile eastward, directing assembly of the pontoons Badalamen had prepared. He searched the sky. Nowhere did he see his winged steed.
He spat. A potent tool, the Windmjirnerhorn, the Horn of the Star Rider, from which he could conjure almost anything, remained strapped to the beast’s back. He was naked to his enemies, defenseless—except for cunning and foresight.
And his Pole.
The rider loomed huge now, subjectively growing larger than life as their confrontation approached.
He scuttled into the fortress’s cluttered recesses, through the shambles of Magden Norath’s laboratories. What had happened to the Escalonian? The first rat to desert the ship, he thought. No guts. Lived his dreams and fantasies through his creations.
The Fadema, though, remained where he had left her, sitting with his ancient, mindless accomplice.
“Is it over?” she asked.
“Not yet, my lady. But nearly.” He smiled, stepped past her to a cluttered shelf, selected one of Norath’s scalpels.
“Good. I’m tired of it all.”
“You’ll rest well.” He yanked her head back, cut her throat.
The Old Man frowned.
“The Fates have intervened, old friend. Our holocaust becomes a country fair. Hold this.” The Old Man accepted the scalpel. The Star Rider began extinguishing lamps. When one remained he produced his golden token, placed it over his “third eye.”
“The Tervola have decided to cut their losses. I should have known. Their first loyalty will always be to Shinsan. A foul habit. Ah! I can hear
Them. They’re
laughing. My predicament amuses
Them.
”
He pocketed the medallion. “That’ll scare hell out of somebody.” He cocked his head, listening. The measured tread of boots echoed from a darkened passage.
“He comes.” He selected an unconsecrated kill-dagger from the shelf. “The final scene, old friend.”
Varthlokkur, Visigodred, and Mist, only survivors of the Inner Circle, sat, exhausted, watching the Winterstorm. Outside, dull-witted, disarmed, weary, the Unborn bobbed on the breeze, abiding Varthlokkur’s command.
Valther burst in. “We’ve done it!” He was blood-filthy. A battered sword trailed from his hand.
They didn’t respond.
He planted himself before them. “Didn’t you hear? We’ve won! They’re retreating…”
The Winterstorm exploded.
Valther shrieked once as flames consumed him.
Mist wept quietly, too drained to move.
Visigodred held her, softly observed, “If he hadn’t been there…”
“We’d have burned,” Varthlokkur said. “It was time. He had been redeemed. The Fates. They weave a mad tapestry… He was the last Storm King. They had no further use for him.” He didn’t seem surprised that his enemy, suddenly, was able to overpower his creation.
Ragnarson paused. There was a wrongness about the dimly lighted chamber. Yet the entire fortress had that taint. The evil of Ehelebe?
He entered, knelt by the corpse. “Fadema. Thus he rewarded you.” Blood still oozed from her ruined throat. She stared up with startled dead eyes.
Sensing something, Bragi whirled.
The blade slashed his already ruined shirt, turned on his mail. He drove hard with his sword. The old man groaned, clutched his belly, hurtled toward the remaining lamp as if yanked by puppet strings. It broke. In seconds the room was ablaze.
“Burn forever, you bastard.” One of those mad chuckles escaped him. “You’ve hurt me for the last time.”
A bone-weary Trebilcock met him beside his mount. “Valther’s dead,” Michael said. “We thought you should know.” He described the circumstances.
“So. He got in one last shot. Where’s your shadow?”
“Aral? Him and Kildragon went around the sides. In case you came ou
t over there. Why?”
“I think I might need somebody to carry me back.”
“Mike!” Dantice’s shout penetrated the remaining clamor of the battlefield. “Hurry up!”
They found Dantice kneeling beside a dying man.
“Reskird!” Bragi swore. “Not now. Not here.”
“Bragi?” Kildragon gasped.
“I’m here. What happened?”
“My boy. Look out for my boy.”
Reskird had a son who was a fledgling Guildsman. Bragi hadn’t seen him in years.
“I will, Reskird.” He held his friend’s hand. “Who was it? What happened?”
The silver dagger had missed Kildragon’s heart, but not by much. It had severed the aorta. Reskird gulped something unintelligible, shuddered, went limp in Bragi’s arms.
He wept. And, finally, rose to assume command of the fields that were now his. Later Varthlokkur would suggest that Madgen Norath, unaccounted for, owed them a life.
“He was the last,” Bragi mused. “None of us are left but me.” And, after a while, “Why am I still alive?”
T
HIRTY-SIX:
S
PRING, 1013 AFE
H
OME
Feng didn’t go peacefully or quietly, with his tail between his legs. He went in his own fashion, in his own time, underscoring the fact that he was leaving by choice, not compulsion. He wouldn’t be pushed. In Altea, when the Itaskian became too eager, he gave Lord Harteobben a drubbing that almost panicked the western army. In Kavelin, with Vorgreberg in sight, Feng whirled and dealt the overzealous pursuit ten thousand casualties they need not have suffered.
Ragnarson got the message that time. His captains, though, had trouble digesting it.
Feng was going home. But he could change his mind.
The Gap was open. Bragi put his commanders on short leash. Feng was no Badalamen, but he was Tervola, bitter, unpredictable, and proud. He could still summon that vast army at Gog-Ahlan.