At this Master Matai cracked a bright smile and said to me, 'Now we enter into the realm of legend and supposition. But legend, if accepted unquestioningly, can gain the force of what is real. And supposition, if carefully constructed, can be a set of steps leading to the truth.'
Then he went on to relate a bit of history and tell us where he thought the Galdan fleet would land: 'In the year 1610 of the Age of Swords, Darrum the Great of Galda led a fleet to invade Delu. And King Alok Arani sailed forth with the Delian fleet to meet them in a great sea battle in the Terror Bay. It is recorded that they fought to a draw, though both sides claimed victory. The Delians lost a greater number of ships, while the Galdans lost King Darrum - to a fire arrow that pierced his eye, it is said.'
Master Matai took a slow sip of tea as if he had all the time in the world to relate his story. I waited for him to continue, as did Kane, Liljana and the rest of us.
'It is also said,' Master Matai finally told us, 'that the Galdans did not bear King Darrum's body back to Galda nor did they sink him into the sea. Instead, a Galdan ship named the Sky Dragon landed in secret on Delu's White Coast. The Galdans buried him beneath the sands there. They said that if Darrum the Great could not conquer Delu in life, he might yet in death. For the place where his bones lay, they said, would ever after be Galdan soil. And someday, the Galdans would come to this place and claim it for their own.'
Maram, who could stand the suspense no longer, fairly shouted at Master Matai: 'Well, where on that forsaken coast is this place? You must know, or you would not torment us so!'
Master Matai took yet another sip of tea as if relishing the discipline of patience. Then he told us, 'If the legend is true, they buried King Darrum between two great rocks rising up from a broad, flat beach.'
'The Pillars of Heaven!' Maram said. 'When I was a boy, I stood beneath them! The beach from which they arise is called the Seredun Sands.'
Upon his pronouncement of this name, something inside me clicked as with a key perfectly fitting into a lock.
'The Pillars of Heaven, indeed,' Master Matai said. 'In Galda, for ages, the soothsayers have foretold that one day, Darrum the Great's spirit would return to guide the Galdans. It is said that an army marching through the Pillars over King Darrum's bones will gain invincibility and the greatest of victories.'
I nodded my head at this, then asked, 'And where on the White Coast is this Seredun Sands?'
'Near its midpoint, a few miles to the north,' Master Matai said.
I closed my eyes for a moment, calculating distances and time. Then I looked at Master Matai and Abrasax, and each of the Seven, and I told them, 'Thank you. Then tomorrow we will set out for this beach.'
I did not give voice to my fears for what might befall upon these distant sands, nor did I imagine that Abrasax and the other good Masters of the Brotherhood would wish to hear them.
The next day, just before dawn, I sent envoys riding over the Ianthe River toward King Santoval Marshayk's palace in Delarid. As soon as my army entered his kingdom - the Delians would call it an invasion - alarms would be sent out in any case. I wanted King Santoval to know the general course that my army would take and why we marched.
'Is that wise?' Maram said to me as we stood before the bridge over the Ianthe. 'My father's court is full of those sympathetic to Morjin. I'm ashamed to tell you that the Way of the Dragon has put down some very deep roots in my homeland's poor soil. My father, himself, will certainly fear Morjin more than he does the Galdans - or you. And so someone will certainly send word to Morjin of our plans.'
'Yes, someone will,' I told him, 'no matter what we do. Our army cannot move through Delu unnoticed. But if Master Matai is right, the Galdans are now likely five days at sea. We must hope that in the next five days, Morjin will not have time to learn of what we intend. Or if he does, that he will not be able to inform King Mansul.'
'Always,' Maram said, 'we seem to find ourselves in circumstances in which fate forces us to hope too much.'
'Is it too much, then, that when the odds favor us, the dice should fall our way?'
'No, my friend, it is not - not unless Morjin breathes his foul breath upon them.' He sighed then shook his head. 'But at least we can count on one thing: my father will oppose neither our army nor our enemy. He will wait to see how things fall out between us.'
'If we gain a victory,' I said, 'we can hope that he will join us.'
'We can hope that,' he told me. 'But that it seems to me, truly is wishing for a miracle.'
After that I led our army into Delu, No garrison guarded the passage into this realm, nor did the local lords send any knights or soldiers to oppose us. For hundreds of years, there had been peace between Delu and Kaash, and the Delian kings could not afford to spend any force protecting such a wild frontier. Few people lived in this mountainous region, and those who did kept to themselves and tried to mind their own business. They might have fled at the approach of an army marching out of a foreign land, but we Valari had never pillaged or raped, even in the worst of wars. Then, too, I sent out envoys through the countryside to inform the poor farmers and hunters that we would not requisition supplies but would pay good gold and silver for whatever food and forage the local Delians could sell us. In this way, we gained their good will and acquiescence to our purpose, if not their friendship.
The roads we found to take us toward the east had nearly crumbled into dirt tracks or sheets of scree, but at least we were able to get our wagons down them. The first day of our passage through Delu proved the most difficult for we had to work our way up and over a pass known as the Eagle's Nest. On the other side, however, the Morning Mountains lost elevation with nearly every mile, and soon fell off into a succession of lines of old, worn hills. As the land grew ever more gentle, the rises were blanketed in black ash, oak, chestnut and red poplar while through the valleys grew beech, walnut and elm. Wild grape hung thick about the trees' trunks, and it was the time of year when the plum trees grew heavy with their purple fruits. Maram, often riding alongside me, remarked that Delu was a fair land that had a sad, violent history. He might, I thought have been speaking of Ea herself and all the misfortunes of the last eighteen thousand years.
The next four days we spent in our rush to the sea. Urgency drove us to pound forth over rocky roads and fairiy swim our way through slips of mud and around bogs. Twelve wagons suffered broken wheels or axles, and we had to abandon them. And my men truly suffered, mostly from cramping muscles, shin splints and bleeding feet; no matter how hard they might be, men were still made of flesh that could too easily be exhausted broken or worn by wet boots right off their bones. Forty-six warriors had to fall out of their columns on the third day of our march, and by the fifth day, another hundred and twenty. I could not, however, simply abandon them. We cleared out stores from another two dozen wagons, inside of which the wounded rested and waited for Master Juwain and our other healers to attend them. It was a measure of my warriors' spirits, I thought, that to a man they pleaded with Master Juwain to make them whole and ready for the day of battle.
On the 11th of Soal, I sent outriders to the east to scout the countryside ahead of us, all the way to the sea. That night, as we made camp in a valley full of walnut orchards and potato farms, one of these riders returned with good news - and bad.
'Sire,' a young knight named Sar Galajay said to me in the relative quiet of my tent, 'the sea is close: less than half a day's march from here. We found the place called the Seredun Sands and the Pillars of Heaven. And great rocks they are, black as coal and rising two hundred feet above the beach. Such white sands! I've never seen their like! It is a perfect place for a battle! The beach is half a mile wide and stretches north and south for as far as the eye can see. Three hills block the way to it. If we are careful, they will cover our approach. The enemy would have no sight of us, only ...'
His voice died into the crackling of many fires and the other sounds of our encampment. I waited for him to go on, and he added, 'Onl
y, there is no enemy! Nothing but empty sands and the wind blowing them into little mounds like sugar.'
'Thank you,' I said to him, nodding my head. I tried to fight down my great disappointment and make good of his news. 'Then the hardships of our march have not been in vain. Surely our enemy will make landfall tomorrow or on the day after that.'
Sar Galajay did not gainsay my optimistic words or point out that Master Matai might have been wrong and our enemy might land far to the north or south of the Seredun Sands - or indeed, might have come ashore already. While Lords Sharad, Tanu, Harsha and Tomavar looked on, Sar Galajay tried to pick up on my forced high spirits, saying to me, 'We are hoping you are right. Sire. Sar Siravay and Sar Torald remain in the hills above the beach, watching for our enemy's approach.'
Later that night, I stood around a fire with Kane and Bemossed, and others, listening to Alphanderry sing. He gave the warriors verses from an ancient epic to inspirit them and ignite their valor. He praised the warriors' true essence, which shone the same in all men and women, as it did within the One, and could never be extinguished:
Who takes up sword to rend and slay,
Cut men from life like sheaves of hay?
To feel, in blood, the noblest need.
With honor do the dreadful deed?
'Tis evil killing men in war.
Reduce their dreams to pain and gore,
But worse to suffer evil kings
To make free men their underlings.
They truly live, thus they are free
Who know their immortality;
The soul abides, its sacred light
Shines on through death forever bright
Brave warriors neither fear nor mourn:
The blessed flame is never born,
Within its blaze all living lies,
It always is and never dies.
No sword nor axe nor lance nor mace
Can violate the soul's true face,
No dart can pierce nor knife nor spear,
So fight, with honor, do not fear...
I had never heard Alphanderry sing so powerfully before. His voice seemed to call down the very fire of the stars. When he had finished and put away his mandolet, Bemossed stood in deep contemplation, staring at him. And then he finally murmured to me: 'Do you really think there will be a battle, Valashu?'
'Yes,' I told him, 'I do.'
Kane's savage face gleamed in the firelight as he turned toward the east and sniffed the air. 'So, there will be - I can smell it coming, even as I can the sea.'
My senses were not so keen as his, nor were Bemossed's. But he possessed an exquisite sensitivity to life that Kane seemed to lack. He looked for Kane through the night's gloom, and he asked him, 'Are you not afraid then?'
'Have you listened to none of Alphanderry's song?' Kane replied. 'Ha, afraid! - of what, then? Death?'
'No - of living. At having to survive yet another battle.'
'Ha!' Kane growled out again. 'You might as well ask an old wolf if he fears killing and filling his belly with good meat and his blood with new life so that he can run across the snow all night and then stand howling at the splendor of the moon!'
Even as he spoke these words, his eyes filled with deep lights, and he gazed out at the disc of silver rising above the wooded hills in the eastern sky. I wondered if this same bright orb shone down upon a fleet of ships sailing at this moment straight toward us.
'Your way,' Bemossed said to him, 'is war, while mine must be of peace.'
'What peace, then?'
'The peace of the One. The stillness of the moon and stars that we must learn to bring to men, here on earth.' He turned toward me to meet my gaze. I had never seen a man who seemed so tired or old deep inside his soul - in some ways, older even than Kane. 'Valashu, is there no way to stop this battle?'
I thought of Morjin and how he had clawed his fingers into Atara's eyes; I thought of my mother and grandmother nailed to wooden planks, and of my brothers who had been speared and cleaved upon the Culhadosh Commons. Then I said to Bemossed, 'Only if my heart can be stopped from beating.'
'But what if you gain the advantage over the Galdans and the Karabukers, forcing them into a bad position as you did King Sandarkan? Could you not force them to surrender?'
'Our enemy's army,' I told him, 'is ten times the size of ours. With such numbers, they will never surrender.'
'You do not know that.'
'I do know,' I told him. 'If King Mansul surrendered to such a force of Valari, Morjin would crucify him.'
'But what if you could persuade the Karabukers and Galdans to change sides? And so add another 150,000 men to your army?'
'The Dragon's soldiers, changing sides!' I cried out. 'Impossible!'
Bemossed moved a step closer to me, and I could almost feel his soft breath falling over my face. Something vast and irresistible moved within him then, and the force of his words struck me like a whirlwind: 'Nothing is impossible. King Valamesh. There must be a way - how often have you, yourself, said this?'
There must be a way to end war, I told myself for the ten thousandth time. But how?
As I gazed at Bemossed, the tiredness seemed to leave him, and he smiled at me. His face seemed even brighter than the moon. In that moment, I wanted to believe that all things were possible. But then I chanced to lay my hand on the hilt of my sword, and I felt a terrible power coursing through it, and me. And I said to Bemossed, 'I am sorry, but we cannot avoid this battle. If I called for our enemy's surrender, we would give up our surprise. Our enemy would kill many of us, too many, perhaps even all, and our cause would be lost.'
As I told him this, the weariness came over him again. He slumped as if his sinews had been cut. He gazed at me, and I wondered if he regarded his dispute with me as yet another exhausting battle that must be fought, as he must ever contend with Morjin.
'King Valamesh, they call you now,' he said to me. 'King of Mesh. But what will it take, friend, for you to behold your true realm?'
Then he excused himself, and went off to his tent. For another hour, I stood talking with Kane about stratagems for war. I tried to sleep after that; perhaps I spent a short while in a land of dreams. Just before dawn, however, I was awakened by the hoofbeats and panting of a horse galloping up to my pavilion. I came out to greet Sar Siravay, a much-scarred warrior with ten battle ribbons tied to his long hair. And then he told me that he and Sar Torald had sighted the ghostly white sails of our enemy's ships far out upon the moonlit sea.
Chapter 15
At dawn, we marched east, straight toward the beach that my outriders had described. Our course took us through a valley and then through a cleft in the forested hills. Late that morning we came out into a long dell, where three low hills stood between us and the sea. From a woodcutter, one of my outriders had learned their names: Tirza, to our left, on the north, and Urza in the center. To our right rose the largest of these hills: a roundish mass sparsely covered with some oaks and bushes. Magda, the locals called it.
I dismounted and climbed to the top of this hill, along with Kane and my captains, as well as Prince Viromar and Sar Yarwan. At its top, we peered out from behind trees to study the beach below. My outriders had made an accurate report of it. To the north, perhaps a mile beyond the slopes of Tirza, two immense black monoliths rose up from the white beach sands. I guessed that they must be made of basalt or some other hard rock. I wondered if the Galdans long ago had really buried King Darrum between them. I wondered, too, if the Galdans would soon try to pass through these Pillars of Heaven, for as I saw, Master Matai's divination had proved true and now much of the Galdan army had already put ashore.
Across a distance of half a mile, I looked out upon a confusion of tens of thousands of men crowding the beach like ants. They gathered in groups of ten or twenty, and seemed without organization. Casks and crates of supplies had been strewn about the beach; I saw men breaking open the crates with hammers and emptying their contents into packs that they would b
ear on the march. Other men stood knee-deep in water at the shore's edge, coaxing whinnying horses down the gangplanks of rowboats. None of these beasts had been fitted with armor; indeed, only a few of the men had yet donned their suits of mail or steel-enforced leather, for our enemy clearly did not expect to do battle that day, and perhaps not even that week. Shields stood piled in heaps, and spears had been stuck down in the sand in rows. Many of the soldiers wore nothing more than tunics, with their swords nowhere near at hand. A good thousand of them stood naked in the shallows, bathing in the waters of the Terror Bay, where hundreds of ships lay anchored with their white sails gleaming in the sunlight, travel at sea, as I knew, could be a cramped, foul affair, and so who could blame these soldiers for trying to get clean?
The Karabukers, tall, black-skinned men who favored the spear above the sword, had disembarked on the beach to our left across from Tirza and the northern half of Urza. They were grouped in no better array. I could not make out a single, formed unit in all this manswarm and piles of weapons and gear. I looked for the standards of the Karabukers' lords and captains, but of course they were hard to distinguish. In all the Dragon Kingdoms save Sunguru, not even the most renowned knight or lord was permitted to bear his own arms. The common soldiers wore yellow garments showing clusters of small red dragons, while King Mansul himself would be draped in a golden surcoat emblazoned with a three-quarter sized dragon. I wondered if the enemy's king had led the way ashore, or still remained aboard his ship. Although such masses of men were difficult to count, I estimated that at least nine tenths of both the Karabukers and Galdans had made landfall.
Without a word, I motioned to my captains and the Kaashans to follow me down the back slopes of the hill. We met up with King Talanu about half a mile to the west, along the banks of a little stream. We held council on horseback, and I described to King Talanu what I had seen from the top of Magda. Then we quickly laid our plans for battle.
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