The Jackal of Nar

by John Marco

  "He still expects us for the meal," she said. "He wants us to hurry."

  Richius didn't answer. Dyana gently touched his arm.

  "Richius," she asked carefully. "Did you kill Voris' son?"

  Richius shrugged. "I honestly don't know."

  "Is that what this was all about?"

  "He wants me to stay away from his children, and I don't blame him. Go to dinner without me, will you? I'm really not very hungry anymore. I will see you in the morning. Maybe we can start my studies then."

  Dyana's voice was soft in the half-light. "I will have a servant bring some food to your chamber. Sleep well. We will be busy tomorrow."

  "Good night, Dyana," he said, and left the chamber. Nearby, Voris' voice echoed down the cavernous halls, and Richius quickly decided to go in the opposite direction, toward the main gate. He stepped out into the cool spring evening, savoring the earthy fragrance of the air. To the west the sky was a peculiar purple, to the east a violent vermilion. The infant night was ripe with stars. Moonlight rested on the broken statues in the abandoned garden. In the trees, nocturnal hunters readied to take wing, rustling and preening for the night's work. An illusory peace had settled on the valley like a blanket.

  Richius spied the watchtower, gazing up to its twisted peak so far above him. That was where the real peace was, he decided. The structure was connected to the rest of the castle, but it had its own entrance, a narrow slit cut into stone. There was a guard stationed there, a young man in the typical garb of a Dring warrior. He bowed to Richius as he approached.

  "I'm going up," said Richius. He pointed his index finger toward heaven. "Up. All right?"

  The guard nodded. "Doa trenum."

  "Fine," said Richius, squeezing past him. "Whatever."

  Inside, the watchtower seemed much smaller. Darkness soaked every corner, held at bay only by a single torch hanging defiantly against a wall. Except for the torch and the formidable staircase spiraling ever upward, the tower was empty. Richius grabbed the torch from the wall and began ascending. The stone risers were gritty beneath his feet, and his boots crunched on untold layers of filth as he mounted the steps, keeping his arm outstretched before him. The world had dropped away, and all he could hear was the scrape of his feet and his own labored breathing. Stale air filled his lungs, making him cough. Ahead of him, the stairs unfolded endlessly out of the blackness. He thought to turn around, go back down and forget the peace he might find at the pinnacle, but he was sure he was closer to the top now than he was to the bottom so he continued his climb, hoping each step would be the last. Finally he saw the end of the staircase, bathed in the unmistakable glow of moonlight.

  "Thank God," he said, and the sound of his voice startled him.

  He heard other voices in the dark, then stepped up into the pinnacle of the tower, into a chamber surrounded by glass and awash in the pale light of heaven. Two more red-robed warriors were inside, staring out through the glass in boredom and talking between themselves. They started when they noticed Richius.

  "I'm sorry," Richius offered, embarrassed. "I didn't know you'd be up here. I'll go."

  He made to turn around but the warriors called his name.

  "Kalak?"

  "Yes," said Richius. "All right, yes, I'm Kalak."

  The two warriors sized him up, nodding and cocking their eyebrows. They spoke and chuckled to each other. Then one came forward and directed Richius toward the windows.

  "Dring," said the man. He smiled. "Dring."

  Curious, Richius went to the window. All around him was the Dring Valley, rolling and verdant and dark. This wasn't the Dring of so many nightmares. This was a primeval Aramoor, wild and lush, a force of nature. He put his nose to the glass, trying to forget the graves he had dug here.

  "Yes," he said. "Dring."

  And then a strange light came alive in the distance. Richius watched it glow, unsure of the cause. The warriors watched it, too. It flared like an orange star, burning in a single bright puff before dimming, then glowing a steady crimson. Another sparked to life, then another, and soon the horizon was ringed with them, tiny pinpoints of flame set against the western sky.

  Richius clenched his teeth. A memory came to him like a hammer blow, a recollection of fire and kerosene and igniters glowing red against the night. He moved back from the window.

  "So it begins," he whispered. "God save us."

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  High in the watchtower of Castle Dring, in a dark, hidden belfry of its vaulted pinnacle, was a giant, antiquated bell. In the better days of the castle's youth, the bell was rung by the lord of the keep on occasions of celebration and, sometimes, of peril. It sang for the people of Dring for nearly two centuries, alerting them of prayer time and warning them of the occasional, episodic crusades of invaders. Its voice was clear and perfect, woven as tightly into the fabric of the valley as the howling of wolves.

  But like so much of Castle Dring, the bell was more fragile than it looked. On the day that Voris the Wolf wrested the valley from its previous warlord and personally rang the bell to proclaim his victory, the bell cracked, killing forever its angelic voice and bringing forth only a jangling, ear-crunching din. The bell was never rung again.

  For twenty-three years the bell hung silent in its belfry, collecting rust and spiders, and being neglected by the new lord of the valley, who raised children that never heard the bell's song and who warred occasionally with another warlord from the north. Nevertheless, it was a time of good things in Dring. Even without the bell, the devout of the valley knew when to kneel for prayer, and the holidays still came without the bell to ring them in. People still farmed and grew up happy, the birds still migrated with the seasons, and flowers always bloomed in the spring, just as the gods of the earth had sworn.

  Yet the bell was never wholly forgotten. There were many who remembered the great bell of Castle Dring, including Voris himself, who had once proclaimed to Jarra the Dumaka that he would ring the bell again if the valley he cherished was in mortal danger.

  So, when Richius and the warriors burst into his dining chamber with news of the Naren invasion, the shrieking bell sliced open the night. Riders had come from the front, confirming the dreadful news that Nar was on the march. It was a call to arms everyone in the valley expected. Shortly after dusk the ringing began. To Richius' ears, it was like something out of hell itself, and as he thundered toward the front, following Voris and Dumaka Jarra by torchlight, he was grateful to hear the sound dying out behind him. It was nearly midnight, and every creature in the valley was alert, awakened by the pounding bell and the hammering of a thousand hooves. The forest pulsed with eerie orange light as the defenders of the valley rode forth from Castle Dring, jiiktars and torches in hand, headlong against the mechanized invaders.

  And as they rode, two hundred strong to bolster their brothers at the front, the warriors of the Dring Valley sang their terrible war songs and cried to heaven for strength and victory. They sang as Voris directed them, their voices bold and heavy, so that the shrill music of the bell fell away behind their chorus like the soft bleating of a lamb.

  Richius held fast to the reins of his gelding Lightning, following Voris' lead down the thin, meandering corridor cut through the forest. A fearful excitement bubbled up within him. Those were flame cannons he had seen, he was sure of it. They were being warmed for imminent battle, probably a dawn attack. He glanced up at the high moon. Midnight. Six more hours.

  "How far are we from the front?" asked Richius over his shoulder. He felt Dyana's arms tighten around his waist.

  "Not far," she called into his ear. "Voris says less than a hour."

  Richius grimaced. The last time they were on horseback together, they were running from Tharn's storm. Now they were running down the gullet of peril again. He let the sweetness of her breath warm the back of his neck, loving the closeness of and hating himself for agreeing to let her come. Neither he nor Voris had wanted Dyana to accompany them to the front, b
ut the argument had been sound. Without her, she had claimed, he an Voris would be unable to speak to each other. So they had left Shani in the care of Voris' wife, Najjir, with the insecure hope that they wouldn't be orphaning her, and rode off with Voris and his Dring defenders.

  "Remember your promise," Richius counseled. "You leave as soon as I say so. I don't know how long the defenses will last."

  "And you leave with me," she replied. "It is what Tharn would want."

  Richius nodded. He hadn't actually agreed to leave with her when the defenses inevitably crumbled, but his silence seemed enough to appease her. Tharn wouldn't want either of them at the front, but it was a necessity the cunning-man had obviously overlooked. Richius needed to direct the battle himself. And for that he needed Dyana.

  Ahead of him he saw Voris' bald head gleaming orange in the torchlight. The warlord's horse was kicking up a wake of earth. He was the only one who rode alone. Even Jarra the Dumaka shared his mount with another man, just like the hundreds of others behind him did. They were a great, fast-moving caravan snaking through the night and bringing men to battle, and the valley's shortage of horses wasn't going to stop them.

  Stay to the trail, Voris had warned them. Only the trail was safe. There were traps in the forest now, ingenious things of Triin design. There were thousands of sharpened sticks in the ground their tips dipped in snake venom, the tireless toil of hundreds of Dring women. The trees were strung with bladed weapons so that a misplaced step could sever a limb, and nets filled with rocks hung in the branches, waiting for unwitting heads to crush, It was all meant to keep the invaders to this narrow path, the only way in or out of the valley's deep forest. This was Richius' grand design, part of a plan he had worked on until his brain was numb, and he soon would see if it was enough.

  They darted through the forest until the bell behind them had fallen silent and the voices of the warriors grew hushed with introspection. Richius knew the grasslands where the Narens were positioned were close now. An almost tangible smell of kerosene filled the air. Nar would have dozens of flame cannons and war wagons ready. Night had hidden them from his sight in the watchtower but he knew they were there, cloaked in darkness and waiting for the dawn.

  Come the dawn then, thought Richius, gritting his teeth. We be ready, too.

  For nearly another full hour they rode, until at last a glimpse of the defenses could be seen. Here was where the forest thinned and gave way to a huge, sunken plain of grass and poppies, and between the forest of towering oaks and the flats was constructed the elaborate perimeter Richius had devised. A smile stretched across his face as he saw it, bathed in the light of defiant torches and manned by legions of crimson-draped warriors. They were on catwalks between trees, and on platforms built into the sides of gigantic trunks, and hanging from rope bridges and wooden scaffolds a hundred feet off the ground. Richius saw their white faces all around and above him, peering down at him from everywhere like a million nocturnal birds. A wild excitement rippled through the forest.

  "Cha Yulan!" came the familiar song. "Cha Yulan ta!"

  Cha Yulan ta. The Wolf lives.

  Voris struck his fist into the air and spurred his horse into a gallop. Almost standing in his stirrups, he answered the call of his warriors with a frenzied battle cry, shattering the night with his voice. Jiiktars rattled in the trees, and on the ground dozens of warriors raced up to them, cheering and welcoming the warlord with outstretched arms. Jarra followed Voris, and Richius followed Jarra, and one by one they brought their horses to a halt.

  "Look, Dyana," said Richius, surveying the trees and the trench he could now see beyond them, with its giant shields and its deadly barricades. "It's all perfect, just like I asked."

  And it was more than perfect, more than Richius had imagined in all those long hours locked in his room in Falindar. The perimeter was something Nar itself would have designed, an intricate creation of wood and ropes and earth. In the trees were the catwalks where the bowmen waited, and beyond the trees, bordering and protecting the forest, was a long straight trench manned by another thousand warriors. The trench itself was guarded, too, rimmed with a barrier of sharp spears stuck in the earth at an angle meant to impale a charging infantry. Tall shields of wet logs, lashed together and covered with animal hides, were erected behind the spears, meant to protect the men in the trench from the scorching blasts of flame cannons, while in front of the spears, leashed with heavy chains, were packs of hungry war wolves, waiting to be loosed. The plain itself was crisscrossed with ropes and razors and pitted with deep traps dug to swallow slow-moving greegans.

  Richius dropped from Lightning's back and helped Dyana down. Around them the hero's welcome continued as the men of Castle Dring took up positions beside their brethren, and Jarra shouted orders, straining to be heard over the triumphant voice of the warriors. Richius took Dyana's hand and squeezed it.

  "They've done a fine job," he said. "It's everything I asked for and more. This war isn't over yet."

  "But will it be enough? Can we win?"

  It was the same impossible question everyone was asking. "I really don't know," said Richius. "I don't know what they've sent against us yet. We'll see in the morning, when it's light."

  He looked up toward the nearest trees and saw the observation platform he had ordered, hanging high above the ground between two large oaks. There were several men on the deck, all staring out across the battlefield. A flimsy rope ladder dangled from it, barely reaching the ground.

  "There," said Richius, pointing toward the platform. "We'll be able to see more from the deck."

  Dyana nodded and explained this to Voris, who followed them toward the rope ladder with Jarra. Richius pulled on the ladder to test its strength, then coaxed Dyana onto it.

  "I'll be right behind you," he said. "Go slowly so it doesn't shake too much."

  Dyana scurried up the first few rungs like a squirrel. She smiled down at Richius playfully. "All right."

  Richius followed her up the ladder. Next came Voris and then Jarra, and the combined weight made the ladder groan. But it held, and when Dyana reached the top a warrior was waiting with an outstretched hand. Richius stepped onto the deck after her and went to the edge of the platform, leaning out over its railing and surveying the dark battlefield. He could see the pinpoints of flame cannons and cooking fires far off in the distance. He guessed from the distance between lights that there were at least several hundred men camped just outside the valley. Dyana came up alongside him just as he let out a worried sigh.

  "What is it?" she asked nervously. He pointed toward the lights.

  "I can't really tell from here, but there's a lot more activity than I saw from the watchtower. Those flames are spaced far apart, too, which means at least a whole division."

  "How many is a division?"

  Richius turned to look at her, suddenly sorry he had allowed her to come. "A lot," he answered honestly.

  Dyana's expression was resolute. "We are a lot, too."

  She was right. Down in the trench were at least a thousand men and boys ready to defend the valley, some armed with jiiktars, others with no more than a sharpened shovel. Peasants and warriors stood side by side, a wall of white flesh against the coming onslaught. And of course there were the wolves, over a hundred of them, slobbering and howling in their eagerness for blood. It was all as Richius had ordered, precise in every detail, and he was oddly pleased. He remembered what his father had once told him, that there are moments in a soldier's life when he knows he's doing right, even in the face of doom.

  "My father would be proud of me now, I think," he said quietly.

  Dyana smiled at him. "I am proud of you, Richius. And if Sabrina were here, she would be proud of you, too."

  "Sabrina," he whispered. "I would do anything to change her fate. But the most I can do now is avenge her." He looked at Dyana seriously. "He's out there, Dyana. I feel him. Gayle is out there, waiting for me."

  "Do not," she warned. "You need y
our wits about you. If he is out there, he will not be able to get to you."

  But will I be able to get to him? wondered Richius. The thought was overwhelming. He turned back toward the black expanse of the battlefield and considered his chances of stopping Gayle and the legions of Nar. How many of them were there hidden behind the cloak of night? It all depended on the numbers. If there were only a few brigades, they might win the day. More, and their chances were slim. A whole division will overrun them--not quickly, but certainly. The notion made Richius shudder. There were people in this valley, people he knew. One of them was his daughter.

  Voris strode up alongside him, gesturing broadly to perimeter and directing Dyana to translate.

  "He wants to know what you think," Dyana said.

  "His men did a very fine job," Richius admitted. "I'm impressed. You can tell him that for me. He should know."

  Dyana explained this to Voris and the warlord's face lit with pride. He started pointing out the details of the perimeter, as affected as Richius by the sight of it. They were at least a hundred feet off the ground, with the whole of the field before them.

  "We'll direct the battle from up here," explained Richius. "Dyana, make sure he knows not to give any orders without me. I want to be careful how we use what we've got."

  Voris grunted unhappily as Dyana explained this to him, otherwise the warlord did not protest. He passed the order [ale] to Jarra, who called it down to the men on the ground. Rich saw their expressions darken. They would be taking orders from the Jackal now. He would have to be wary, he decided, and make sure Voris wasn't embarrassed.

  They spent the next hour pacing the deck and staring up at the moon, waiting for dawn to come. The defenders in the trees had fallen silent, some asleep, most lost in melancholy thought. Spring breezes carried aloft the scents of fear and perspiration, and a mile away the twinkle of flame cannons flickered. The night was warm and oppressive, and as Richius watched the moon make its long journey across the sky he felt his eyelids drooping with fatigue. He whiled away the idle minutes toying with Jessicane and fighting back the surreal spell of the Dring Valley.