WoP - 01 - War of Powers

by Robert E. Vardeman

  Ziore's face was desolate. 'How can such things be?' she whispered. 'How can the Wise Ones permit such horror?' Moriana felt deathly tired.

  'Perhaps they have no choice.' She threw her bow away. 'Or perhaps it's a game to them and we're merely pawns to be moved at random.'

  'You are wrong, child. Oh, Great Ultimate, you must be!' 'I fear,' said Moriana slowly, 'that all too soon we shall find out whether or not I'm right.'

  The battle reversed itself with stunning swiftness. Darl's amy melted like snow beneath a warm rain as the arrows streaked down from above. Within five minutes, the army that had been within sword's reach of victory was a fleeing, fear-drunken mob.

  The man who had done as much as any to bring this turnabout victory was not content to let the bird riders win it themselves. Count Ultur V'Duuyek led a charge head-on into Darl's knights. This time it was the wiry count who cut through foes like a scythe through weeds.

  Finally he and Darl faced each other above raised swords. Darl's shield was gone, smashed to ruin by a hundred blows. It was blade against blade, man against man.

  Sparks flew in all directions as the blades caressed each other. Snake swift, V'Duuyek laid open the armor coating Darl's thigh and drew a bright line of blood along the leg. Darl winced, grinned, and made a quick cut at his opponent's head.

  The count's blade flashed up. Darl pivoted and thrust. With a crunching sound like shellfish dropped on a rock by a hungry seagull,

  Darl's point broke. Through armor. Through ribs. Through heart.

  Count Ultur V'Duuyek sat bolt upright in the saddle. His foe's blade slid free with a grating sound. Feeling nothing, the count swung around and came to rest with his head in a clump of grass.

  'The Count is fallen!' A woman's voice rose to heights of despair. 'Avenge him!' And crying vengeance, his men burst forward and swept the surviving knights away in a torrent of madness.

  Count V'Duuyek's last sight was that of his regiment charging to its last and greatest victory.

  He died content.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  When V'Duuyek fell, Darl wanted to stand his ground and die beside the body of his foe. His surviving men wouldn't allow it. They gathered around him, fending off the howling dog riders. A young knight caught the reins of the commander's mount. Darl was led off the field weeping like a small child.

  If Moriana had not been allowed to participate in winning victory, there was none to stop her from saving what she could from defeat. She had no hope of ever gathering another army such as this. It was not hope of using survivors of this field to form the core of yet another attempt on the Sky City that motivated her. But these men had left their homes and their loved ones hundreds of miles away to fight for her, though her cause was not theirs. She felt it her duty to save as many as possible.

  It was difficult to recognize the refined and beautiful princess in whose cause the battle had been fought. She had become a green-eyed fury, straightsword in hand, elegant dress hacked off above the knee to keep it from tangling her legs. Yet the battered remnants of defeat who drifted her way did as they were bid. She ordered them away through the woods where the eagles could not get them and in parties large enough to make it hard for the enemy to pick them off piecemeal. With her training in command and assistance from Ziore, Moriana put together a successful defense when a band of dog riders swooped down on her little group.

  Ziore was still appalled at what had occurred and wanted no further part of fighting. Moriana had pointed out that this was a fight to save lives - the enraged Grasslanders were killing all Northerners they could find. Ziore acquiesced with the sad observation that it was such compromise that led decent people to butcher each other in the first place.

  Chanobit Creek ran behind the hilltop holding the Northern command post. And when time permitted, Moriana felt a certain bitterness that the battle had, in fact, been waged by a Northern army and not her army. In the trees on its north bank, Moriana worked at organizing the survivors and sending them on their way. She was careful not to let too many group at one time for fear of attracting attention that would be fatal. Fortunately, the death of the two supreme commanders had left the enemy disorganized.

  Shortly before night lowered the curtain on this bloody day, a party of knights rode up, leading Darl. The Count-Duke of Harmis seemed stunned, unable to conceive of the disaster that had come to pass. Moriana came out of the thicket to meet them. Her face was grave with more than the concerns of the moment.

  'Your Highness, Your Highness,' one said, tears streaming down cheeks barely touched with downy beard. 'We've brought you failure and disgrace. How can we restore to you what our worthless-ness has lost?'

  She shook her head sadly. 'You cannot.' The boy looked stricken. She wondered how old he was. 'The way you can best serve me now is to live.' He brightened.

  'Will you permit us to fight for you again?' 'If you wish, perhaps you shall. Some day.' She held back tears of her own. 'But that's not what I mean. I mean survive. Live out this day and many more so that I'll not have your death on my conscience, too.'

  He blinked in bewilderment. Moriana turned to Darl. He looked at her through strange, old eyes. I'm . . . sorry,' he whispered.

  Something blocked her throat. She reached up to take his hand. She pressed it against her cheek. 'You tried.'

  'What will you do now?' Darl voiced the question listlessly, as though he was reading lines in a boring play.

  'I can do two things,' she said. 'I can quit—which I shall never do as long as I draw breath. Or I can go elsewhere for assistance.'

  He shook his head, a distant expression on his face. 'Where will you go? I have used up my stock with the folk of the North. Where will you find the men?'

  'I will not use men,' she said. 'Or at least, not humans.' 'I don't understand.' 'The builders of the City, the Hissers - Zr'gsz, as they call themselves. They live at Thendrun in the Mystic Mountains.'

  A gasp burst from the listeners. They milled about, shuffling their feet and not looking her in the eye.

  'It is a matter of personal interest to the rulers of the City in the Sky to know how things are with them.'

  'What can you offer them?' Darl asked. 'You can't offer them the City.'

  'By the Five Holy Ones, no! But there are things, artifacts, sacred relics, which they would be overjoyed to recover. Without human aid, they have no chance of regaining them. And I think those trinkets are a small price to pay for my City.'

  'But what of your soul?' asked another youthful knight. 'They are evil - they are the soul of evil. How can you bargain with them?'

  'They are not the soul of evil, friend. You know little of the Dark Ones if you think any earthly evil can surpass theirs.' The intensity of her feeling sent a shudder through her. 'I hate the Dark Ones and fear them more than you know. More than you can know. But I would sell myself to them . . .' Her listeners gasped and drew back. 'Yes, I would do that if it would free my City from Synalon. She seeks to return the City to the Dark Ones, then give them the entire world. Do you think my soul's too great a price to save your wives and friends and children from that?'

  The young knight looked away. She swayed, suddenly weary to the point of collapse. She put one hand to the blood-flecked flank of Darl's dog. The other went, almost by instinct, to clutch the amulet within her bodice.

  She felt a sudden impulse to tear it off and throw it into the clear, cold waters of the creek. It had brought nothing but doom and death. Then she recalled the high price she'd paid for the talisman and took her hand away.

  'We must go,' she said. A knight gave her a spare dog he'd caught fleeing the field. She mounted, casting a look at the sky. Its hue deepened inexorably to azure night.

  They skirted the fringe of the wood when the bird rider squad swept over them like a glowing cloud from the guts of Omizantrim. The young knight who had led Darl to safety fell with an arrow through his back. Only Darl and Moriana made the shelter of the trees alive.

  M
oriana looked back. The Sky City troopers hadn't recognized them in the gloom. They passed once more over the bodies of their victims looking for signs of life. One figure stirred, trying to raise himself from the mud of the streambank. A sheaf of arrows drove him down face first.

  Moriana clutched a fist and ground it against her forehead. Darl looked on, shaking his head numbly.

  Turning their backs on the slaughter, they rode into the north. North to the Mystic Mountains and the last stronghold of the ancient enemies of humankind.

  The Sleeper dreamed of battle. Armored figures on dogs fought across a valley bisected by a stream, shooting arrows, jabbing with lances, falling bloody and torn and dead. The battle surged, then great winged shapes appeared in the sky. One army broke and fled.

  Istu felt pleased. It made his sleeping mind happy to think of the pale ones butchering each other. And in some dim corner of his subconscious he sensed that what he saw had meaning for him. It boded well.

  The image changed. The blue and green banners fluttering from lances faded and were gone. In their place the demon dreamed of a gem, a huge, brilliant diamond. And black. Though it hung suspended in darkness as complete as that which enveloped him, it glowed with blackness more intense. The Sleeper sensed that this gem, too, was imprisoned not within walls of cold, solid stone but in a stone that flowed like liquid from heat.

  He sensed the stone's pulsations. Even under intense heat and pressure it remained solid, its facets sharp and smooth. But he felt the rhythmic emanations of power and was soothed. The emanations pulsed in tempo with his own heart.

  And a voice came to the demon in a dream, a voice unheard for a hundred centuries, a voice that wakened in the sleeping mind whatever a demon can feel of. . . love.

  Soon, child it crooned. Soon, beloved, soon.Content, the demon slept. 'We're too late,' said Fost, slumping in Grutz's saddle. The bear grunted in sympathy with his master's despair. 'The battle is already lost.'

  Jennas made a bitter sound. 'No, 'tis won,' she said pointing. 'For them.' Her outstretched finger indicated the carrion crows gathered like mourners around the bodies. Fost smiled in grim appreciation. One side, the other side, human, dog, eagle - it was all the same to the vultures. Whatever misfortune befell others, they fed.

  They rested their tired bears in a copse of trees beyond what had been the right flank of the Sky City army. The field lay deserted now, save for the dead - and the vultures.

  They finally rode through the eerie stillness of dusk. Fost couldn't rid himself of the sensation that the limp bodies strewn so recklessly about would rise up at any instant with a friendly greeting or outstretched hand of friendship. He was no stranger to death; he'd dealt it himself on occasion. But he had little experience with - and no stomach for - such wholesale slaughter.

  He had been horrified atthe carnage at the battles of the cliffs when he'd helped the Ust-alayakits defeat the Badger Clan and slay their evil shaman. That had been nothing compared to this. Together in a heap lay more men and women than lived in either Bear or Badger tribe. Fost shuddered. He wanted to throw up.

  Though they kept careful watch, they saw no eagles. The bird riders were off chivvying the defeated, butchering the stragglers and the wounded. The wind babbled to itself of the sights it had witnessed that day, stirring fallen banners and mocking the dead.

  Fost hoisted Erimenes' satchel high. 'See, old smoke,' he said. 'This is what your passion for bloodshed leads to. Shed blood, what else? Don't your nonexistent nerves pulse with excitement at the sight?'

  Erimenes sniffed. 'What could I possibly find to excite me here? This is rubbish.' Furious at the spirit's callousness, Fost swung the satchel up to dash the jug to pieces on the ground. 'No,' said Jennas. 'Let him be.'

  Humbly, a little ashamed, Fost put the strap back over his shoulder and let the satchel fall back into its riding place.

  Following the path the routed army and its pursuers had taken, they passed the hill with its crumpled pavilion and heard the sound of , running water.

  'I'm thirsty,' said Fost, 'and there were too many corpses in that stream back there for even the bears to touch the water. Let's see if this one is less clogged with dead.'

  Jennas agreed. They rode toward the sound, at the same time angling toward a stand of trees well beyond the hill. Though none of the bird riders had shown themselves so far, neither felt like taking chances.

  They were almost to the water when they heard the moan. Without thinking, Fost booted Grutz's sides. The big bear rolled over the bank and into the water without breaking stride. The icy water numbed Fost's legs. He barely noticed it in his urgency.

  Another sad knot of bodies lay in front of the trees. Dogs and men in the distinctive armor of the City States had been struck down by the equally distinctive arrows of the Sky City. The missiles protruded at angles that told they had come from above.

  Fost pulled Grutz to a stop beside a young man who stirred feebly. His fingers raked furrows in the dirt. An arrow had penetrated his backplate and jutted with a horrible jauntiness from the center of his back, as if that was where in all the broad earth it belonged.

  The knight had been trying to reach the stream. His first words to Fost confirmed this.

  'Water. Need . . . need water.' Fost sat on his haunches, considering. A stream of bloody spittle ran from the corner of the young man's mouth. Of the boy's mouth. He doubted if the youth was twenty.

  'You're in a bad way,' said Fost, trying to remember his healing lore. 'I don't know if you should have water.'

  'You don't honestly think it matters, do you, you dolt?' Erimenes said acerbicly from his jug.

  Fost shrugged. The shade was right, though it surprised Fost that Erimenes had spoken. Compassion was not a trait he normally associated with the philosopher.

  The young man drank greedily from Fost's water bottle. The courier held the man's head cradled in his lap as hedrank. Jennas had arrived by this time and stood over them.

  The young man coughed. The fit came on so violently that he jerked himself free of Fost's arms. Then to Fost's horror he fell backward onto the arrow still in him. His weight drove it deep and snapped off. He stiffened, coughed up bloody spittle, then sank back with a sigh, as though sliding into a warm and soothing bath.

  Fost bit his lip. The young man's chest rose and fell raggedly.

  'The princess,' he asked, hating himself for troubling the dying man. 'Do you know who I mean? The Princess Moriana.'

  'Princess,' the boy nodded. He frowned then. 'Failed her. Failed her...'

  Fost felt a cold black hand clamp shut his throat. 'She didn't. . . she's alive, isn't she?' he demanded. To his relief, the boy nodded. Then the youth grimaced as if the movement caused him pain. 'Where did she go?' The boy did not respond. By dint of effort, Fost kept himself from shaking the boy. 'Where did she go?' he asked again.

  'The . .. three of them,' he said.Fost frowned up at Jennas. 'Three?' 'Ah - aye. Princess, Lord Darl and . . . Great Ultimate, is it getting dark so soon? And the spirit... the woman in the jug . ..'

  'Woman in a jug?' asked Jennas, as confused as Fost. 'It must be the spirit Guardian told us about,' said Fost, trying to remember more of what the glacier had said. Seeing Jennas' baffled look, he added, 'The glacier's name is Guardian. When we left Athalau, the glacier told us Moriana had a spirit jar with her. He said something about the spirit inside, but other matters pressed me then. Guardian had mistaken the other spirit for Erimenes. It put him into a fine rage.' Fost glanced at the blue form wavering by his elbow. Erimenes' face acquired a faraway look.

  'A woman,' the spirit said musingly. 'As I live and breathe, a woman! This has interesting aspects I had not considered. Imagine, another such as I!'

  'By Ust's snout,' muttered Jennas, 'one of you is more than enough. And you do not live and breathe.'

  'A woman!' cried the philosopher. 'I can at last vindicate my teachings! What the two of us can do together. . .' The shade's substance glittered with dancing
motes similar to those Fost had observed in Athalau. But the substance of his body didn't thicken. He took it for extreme agitation on Erimenes' part.