The Grail War

by Richard Monaco

  “ … to bring flame and steel and strength so the giants from the ancient past may return … This is an awakening! The secret fortress will fall, the Grail will fall, and all else will follow … Great powers from beyond this earth …” — some of the listeners, Lohengrin noted with contempt, were obviously frightened — “ … great powers will return and God help …” — both clenched fists were raised to shoulder level — “ … God help the weak, quivering sheep who’ll not stand up and be a giant!”

  His commanders roared agreement. And in the subsequent shock of silence, Lohengrin (standing at the opposite table end from Clinschor) spoke: “Lord Master,” he hesitated.

  Everyone looked at him. Clinschor said nothing, simply inclining his head, giving tacit permission to go on, but offering no warmth or support.

  Rather than let the silence continue, Lohengrin plunged: “You spoke movingly of the new world we’re creating.” Clinschor gave another single nod, waited. “I believe in this. I am completely committed.”

  One of Clinschor’s large, pasty hands began tapping its long, soft, thick fingers on the tabletop, rattling the map. The weak light brought out the angular bone structure under the soft face flesh and the deep hollows under the eyes. Lohengrin felt sweat on the back of his palms. He couldn’t explain it. He kept telling himself to hold firm; this was a great man, yes, but still a man … Even wizards (if there really were such) were men …

  “Yes, Lord Commander?” Clinschor said, harsh, but even in tone.

  “Who has permitted the burning and the total devastation I saw?” Lohengrin asked. “I believe you should hear what is being done in your name, Master.”

  The warlord nodded violently, jerking his neck.

  “Yes,” he rumbled, “the fire should not have been allowed to spread to the woods so soon. This was an idiotic blunder and threatens our flank!” Lord Gobble looked uncomfortable. “Still, Commander Lohengrin, my revised plans take this into account. We’ll be through the dense country and into the open lands beyond before the flames are a serious problem. Now …”

  “But, my lord,” Lohengrin insisted, “the country is being utterly ravaged … destroyed. I — ”

  “On what do you base your objections?” the master coldly asked.

  “Why waste the whole country?” Lohengrin felt the sweat trickle around the neck of his undergarment. “What will be left to rule, to — ”

  Clinschor’s expression brought him to silence. His hands had just jerked into fists.

  “Are you all fools?” he said looking at the low, soot-stained ceiling in exasperation.

  “God!” He shook his head theatrically. “Must I have only fools around me, Duke?” he snapped at Lohengrin.

  “I … do not — ”

  “Naturally.” The comment was a palpable force. Lohengrin was positive he had just flushed, cheeks and ears. Clinschor leaned forward, his fists supporting his weight on the table. A massive candle with a tiny flame was nearly under this jutting chin. “This country must be sacrificed,” he said, suddenly conversational, tutorial. “It is absolutely necessary and is my unalterable decision. This will be a lesson the rest of the world will never forget. With it in my hands, we will take care of the rest of the world …” He smiled absently. “We must have very few people in this world,” he murmured, “only the strongest.” His eyes blazed again and Lohengrin swayed slightly on his feet in the quiet, concentrated blasts. “The world is filled with cowards, fools.” He waved his hand, as if to brush them all aside with the gesture, which rocked the little flame and made the shadows in his face seem to live, swell … “This has never been done. The Romans tried … the Spartans. But you know nothing of this, Briton.” He banged his fist on the stone. “A nation, a race, of giants! You see? You understand?” He smiled thinly, palely, straightening up, adjusting his dull gray cloak. “This will be the greatest thing ever done! The old vital powers will return. This is the mystery you cannot grasp.” His hand flew before his face and began to sculpt the shadowy air, as if he held a living form there, caressing, shaping, cutting, pressing … “We create! We mold! We build!”

  Lohengrin found himself nodding, eyes misted over with unfathomable emotion. He felt suddenly flooded. This man had shown him the gates between two worlds. This man stood there open to both, and he could feel the vast forces gathering behind him, this man who had erected the vastest army in the world and would soon win it all and had a plan beyond that, and another beyond the next …

  “Yes,” Lohengrin heard his own voice saying, “yes, Lord Master.” He thought he saw the coming world, the sweep of it, the joy of it, felt himself riding a shining crest, victorious, saw his father in a crowd, watching him pass at the head of his triumphant forces …

  BOOK IV

  THEY WERE CUTTING straight across the wind’s direction, Alienor gripping Tikla’s little hand, Lampic, the lanky peasant, helping support Torky’s desperate steps.

  They could hear the oncoming roar of the fire storm. The violent, twisting wind whipped not just smoke, but stinging, choking clouds of ashes into them. Eyes shut, they groped, staggered, fell, suffocating under the linen they’d wrapped over their faces. They were all effectively blind.

  They’d entered a little valley in an effort to reach the clearer country visible from the previous hilltop. A sucking draft caught them. The flames did not progress evenly, although it seemed so from a distance; while the fire lapped over slopes, it raced through narrow channels like this … and they were caught.

  The hot, clinging soot raged over them. Everything was blackness. She could hear the fire: a mounting roar of exploding trees … Waves of furious heat beat at them and she knew it was hopeless even as she swept Tikla up into her arms with a mad idea that she could lie on the child and protect her. Her fear of dying had somehow gone to the little girl, so that if Tikla lived, then she lived … This was the only thing real in the nightmare of unbearable furnace heat … Oh, the fools, she thought, the fools … the fools … fools … The fires leaped all around (she was screaming as she choked now). Their clothes flamed …

  “Help them!” she howled. “Help them!”

  And she dove forward, pressing Tikla under herself in a last, futile act of prayer …

  The cat flopped on its side, purring, reveling on the deep, soft black and ruby fur rug. It squeezed its reddish eyes shut with pleasure as its master, on all fours in the dimly candlelit room, reached out a fresh braised bit of meat to its nose. The eyes opened and the rounded, speckled gray began to delicately lick the fats, red tongue lashing roughly over the flesh before the spotless-white teeth began to nibble with little head tosses …

  “Is it good, Itie? Hmm?” Clinschor cooed. “You like these little treats, hmm, Itie?” He beamed and gently stroked the long back and trim belly. The cat stretched and purred steadily. “You wicked cat … yes … yes … you know you’re wicked … yes …”

  After a while he stood up alone in the dim room. He stood by the massive fireplace. A roast was cooking over a low flame. A little smoke moved back into the chamber and he wrinkled his nose. He locked his arms behind his back and rocked on his heels. His gray, unadorned robes gave a vaguely monkish quality.

  The watching cat squeezed its eyes in a blink, then stared away, ears cocking after some shadow of a sound.

  He was frowning as he walked, shoulders hunched.

  “Tomorrow, Itie,” he said suddenly, looking at the cat, which had just closed both eyes, settling onto its forepaws to doze, “tomorrow is the day … I have suffered, Itie, suffered and waited for years for this …” He grimly nodded again. “But my faith never wavered, not one time … well, not in any serious sense …” He nodded again. “What a strain it is, Itie, what a strain to hold all these fools together.” He sighed and shook his head. “I have to stir them and convince them over and over … and over … He stood perfectly still now, face slightly relaxed, as if he’d lost consciousness briefly of the invisible audience that watched him even in his mo
st intimate moments. He always felt watched. “Itie, there are times when, like Jonah, I want to flee my destiny, hide myself, live in the countryside in quiet peace.” He smiled vaguely. “Would you like that, my precious, wicked Itie?” He stooped beside the cat, which, unmoving, received this tender message. He looked fondly at the poised and indifferent creature. “You and I, eh, Itie? No more of this life for which I gain only resentment, disloyalty, stupidity, cowardice …” He was now staring into the trembling flame that flared as the meat dripped. “Treachery …” He sighed. “But I am called … I must answer …” He lightly stroked the cat’s head. “Poor Itie … Poor Clinschor …” His eyes were moist. “What do they care for all my sacrifices, what I have given them?” A single tear broke free and traced an erratic, glistening course down his cheek. “I have given everything … everything … I must remain hard and alone …” The overlarge pale fingers rested on Itie’s neck now, which it twisted irritably free. “Ah,” he said in mock pain, “so even you spurn poor Clinschor.” But the creature bore his next touch. “Ah, my sweet Itie …” He stared into the flames, stared as if he expected to see something take form, something answer the deepest question that he never asked. “My sweet, precious, Itie …”

  Gawain stood beside Parsival, facing the rolling smoke that poured endlessly across the field. He thought it was probably morning, as there was a vague suggestion of light.

  For a few yards on either side, mounted and foot armies were visible ranging in a thin line with the dense mass of the Grail woods at their back.

  Parsival had been standing motionless, eyes shut, as if listening for some time now. Gawain quipped to himself that shut eyes see as well as open ones here. Then Parsival stirred.

  “I fear,” he said, “the fire’s closing us in.”

  “But then it needs must have overcome the enemy,” his friend pointed out.

  “No, Gawain,” Parsival said, watching the scattered unarmored skirmishers on foot with crossbows. They were to act as spotters and fall back quickly to the main line. “If we fail here, we leave it.” He was grim. “We cannot afford to die yet.”

  Gawain considered this.

  “You cannot,” he said.

  “So you mean to give up? Listen, who’s to say I’ll be the one to find that place again?”

  Gawain stared across the billowing field. It wasn’t a question of giving up. He felt at ease for the first time in years. Whatever happened he was going to accept himself. He was going to do the best he could with all he had. There was no more necessary or possible …

  “I doubt well,” he said, “it was ever meant to be me.”

  Whatever it is I thought I knew once, Parsival was thinking, and thought I didn't know, too … I've been given this strength for something … what? Do I care? All I've become is an endless questioning, spinning like a leaf …

  Unlea seemed far, far away, as if a fog of years blurred between them … He found her face hard to picture …

  The Grail, the Grail, he thought, they won't let me ride away from it! No … it won't let me … it …

  “Here we are,” Gawain said tensely, snapping his helmet shut with a clang. He hefted his lance, then dropped it aside. “No sense in charging and having to fight going both ways.”

  Parsival watched the army emerge. The advance men were too close and the enemy was coming too fast out of the blurring, stinging clouds. Only a few were able to get off a shot before javelins, clubs, and thrown axes cut them down. Only a handful made it back to the main body ahead of the compact mass of blackened men who at first seemed condensations of the vaporous soot.

  Parsival glanced down the line and saw everyone on both sides was as black as cooking kettles. He recalled his first battle, where he couldn’t tell friend from foe and had ridden away in disgust. He shook his head, drawing his sword. It became all too easy after a while …

  The shock columns were closing fast, their screaming cheers rolling ahead, and he knew the cavalry was likely massing on their flanks. The problem was the flanks were invisible.

  His body tensed and skin prickled as the clashing, roaring lines collided. He caught a glimpse of Prang meeting the first shock with lowered lance, transfixing a foot-soldier and surrounded a moment later by a welter of stabbing, hacking, heaving troops …

  This was the easy part, Parsival thought, after all, working his mount into a side chopping war dance, sword motionless before him after each incredible slash, not having to even casually raise his shield as he almost effortlessly cleared a space on three sides of himself, men toppling, dropping, desperately ducking away. Likewise with Gawain, who, with slightly more strain and twisting, accomplished the same end.

  Parsival tried to see Prang again (a little concerned) and watched the line sag away on both sides of himself and Gawain … then a swift charge by a cluster of Grail knights, dove banners flying, momentarily sealed the breach … withdrew a little, lashed out again, again, in the continuous din and writhing, choking, streaming confusion … Coherence wasn’t gone because, Parsival commented to himself, under these conditions it could never have existed. He already knew he’d have to fall back: through the smoking fury to his right he saw a wall of knights hacking through the flimsy line and carrying their charge into the outskirts of the rocky, steeply rising, nearly impenetrable ground at their backs.

  It's over already, Parsival thought, and shouted to his partner and then, as the foot troops surrounded him once more, and he plied his terrible sword, he felt a numbing blow strike his chest and stomach, though no weapon had touched him … He missed a stroke, reeling in the saddle, breaking into a chilling sweat, fighting back, felt what seemed invisible claws tearing at his heart, ripping into his chest, stifling his breath, jamming his blood, fading, fainting he fought, a spear thrust glancing off his side, a sword chopping his mailed thigh … He started to whirl inwardly, dizzyingly … blacking out, almost … almost, struggled, concentrated, gathered his will (as he’d learned), began a kind of mental war chant, faster, faster, building a head of resistant energy that suddenly exploded out and blew the unseen claws away (though at the edge of the black gaps torn in his sight he almost saw red-tipped, glittering, blurring talons slashing and tearing, reaching from the billowing smoke) with a violent cry, a boom that seemed to blast through, not from, his lungs and throat. It startled Gawain, who saw the six or seven men closing in suddenly stagger as one, some flopping flat on their backs, as if the sheer sound had pounded like a giant’s mace … and then the pair of them were riding back, breaking contact, turning into the dense woods as the endless lines and columns of soldiers flooded out of the boiling, clashing clouds …

  Just in the tree line now, survivors already struggling through the tangles, Gawain beside him, Parsival hoped to cross one of the twisting paths that would at least let them gain some space and time for a few breaths … and to hunt for a break in what he remembered were tiers and levels of tangled lanes and impassable natural barriers.

  Except the flanking knights who’d shattered their right side had already blocked them off.

  “We have to cut through!” he shouted to Gawain, who nodded.

  The impossible terrain worked against the enemy. They could not concentrate an attack, so they all came together, moving slowly, fighting more to advance than score with blows, chopping, hacking, splintering branches, tangling lance and mace: a tall knight whirled an ax stroke at Parsival, who leaned slightly away, and the blow chugged into a tree and stuck. He didn’t bother to return the compliment, just blocking and ducking, keeping his nervous horse moving through the frustrated, struggling mass of fighters … Another charged him and then the horse jammed between two trees … Another backed away from a thrust by Gawain and was unseated by a heavy limb … Smoke cut the battle into ghostly fragments … a man riding headless … a horse dancing on another … a bodiless arm swinging, clutching a branch … two knights wrestling in the blood-dewed brambles … men climbing over one another, the ones underneath creating a brid
geway over the prickly tangles, screaming … men climbing trees to escape the press, others stabbing at them, as if cutting down fruit …

  Parsival kept a wall of resistance up to fend off another invisible attack. He assumed he’d been singled out, apparently by whomever or whatever had stayed after him all this time. Merlinus had told him, and he remembered it now: once open to the wizard’s world, you were never safe again.

  They were just breaking free, moving steadily to higher ground, riding and chopping down saplings and dead wood, when glancing back through a sudden parting of the smoke he saw a long view of the field to the forest beyond, where the great army was still pouring out. The wall of flames was now towering over them, seeming to claw at them with hands of wind …

  They aren't attacking, they're fleeing, he thought.

  Then he flipped his shield up without knowing why and caught, without seeing it, a blow from the side that numbed his arm and rocked him in the saddle.