'It will be a hot day,' Maram said from beside me as he looked up at the sun, 'if we have to wait too much longer to engage. This is the part of battle that I hate most of ail the waiting.'
Even as he spoke, the drums of Morjin's army thundered with even greater force. Trumpets blared, and the cries of war elephants bellowed out across the steppe. So did the eerie howls of the Blues. I watched as, more than a mile away, our enemy formed up for battle. So many men, howevex could not so quickly assemble into their lines.
'Half a million men,' Lord Sharad said from off to my right. He shook his head, encased in a shining steel helmet. 'Let us see if Morjin packs them twenty ranks deep.'
'Or extends his lines,' Lord Avijan said, 'miles to either side of us.'
For a few moments, they reopened the debate that we had argued during our councils. Lord Noldashan, with Lords Manthanu and Jessu the Lion-Heart farther back, sat on their heavily armored mounts listening to them speculate. So did Joshu Kadar, Siraj the Younger, Sar Vikan, Sar Shivalad and my other Guardians. Sar Jonavar, I thought, would not be able to lament after today that he had missed the greatest of battles. Farther along the front line of our cavalry, I saw King Sandarkan and King Viromar waiting to see how things would fall out. King Mohan, sitting beneath the standard of the blue horse of Athar, also looked our way.
'So,' Kane growled out into the warm morning wind, 'Morjin has enough men to build his ranks ten deep and to flank us.'
But so long as Sajagax's Sarni could rove the grasslands on either of our flanks firing their long-range arrows, as Kane observed Morjin would be unlikely to extend his lines too far and so expose them to a hail of death.
'Sajagax will hold his own against Morjin's Sarni,' Maram said. 'Ah, he must. And if he does, I suppose it will be our fate to ride against those damn Ikurians again.'
We all waited to see how Morjin would set his order of battle. Soon I watched the black eagles of the Ikurian standard bearers move forward at the head of a great mass of armored knights, who took their places on Morjin's left flank opposite us. Morjin's heavy cavalry, I guessed, would outnumber ours by more than three to one. To the west of these fierce warriors, with their broad-bladed swords and fur-trimmed helms, stood the phalanxes of Sunguru, broken at intervals by fifty great, trumpeting elephants. And then came the impressed soldiers of Eanna who were almost like slaves, and the Sakayans in ranks twenty deep and seventy thousand strong. Their battalions formed just beneath the slopes of the Owl's Hill to their rear. I could not see clearly the army of Hesperu lined up beyond them on a swell of grass farther to the west. But riders brought me a report of the hundred thousand Hesperuk soldiers in bronze, fish-scaled armor. King Arsu, these messengers said, sat inside a kind of castle perched on the back of a great bull elephant with bronze-shod tusks more than ten feet long. Other lords and knights, with archers, rode atop other elephants at the front of the Hesperuk phalanxes. Then came the tiny armies of impressed Surrapam and Alonian soldiers, and the vastly larger army of Uskudar, led by King Orunjan. A horde of Blues with their fearsome axes gathered next to a great mass of more heavy cavalry from various Dragon Kingdoms; these thousands of heavy horse formed the Dragon Army's anchor in the west. As with our army, Morjin's Sarni would range across the steppe on either flank, fighting Sajagax's warriors. Behind our enemy's lines, Morjin had stationed archers and reserves, as had I. Most of these, it seemed, were Yarkonans: some of the very same men that Count Ulanu had led against my companions and me at Khaisham. I knew that Kane longed to take vengeance for the Yarkonans' burning of the Great Library and massacre of the people trapped inside. I did, too, but I had more concern for Morjin and his Dragon Guard. My messengers could not tell me on what part of the field they might be waiting for us. They guessed that they must be hidden by our enemy's lines, perhaps behind the Owl's Hill near the center of the field.
Where is he? I wondered as I set my hand upon the hilt of my sword. I remembered the saying that the silver gelstei would lead to the gold. Where is the Great Beast who stole the Lightstone?
Maram, beside me, ran his finger down beneath the mail covering his neck. His face was sweating, and he seemed to want nothing more than to drink a horn of cool beer. He gazed out at the great multitude of our enemy arrayed upon the Wendrush's trampled grass, and he said, 'So many - if the gates of hell had opened to disgorge a swarm of demons, I do not think there could be so many.'
'They are only men,' I said, pointing out across the field. 'And you are forgetting one thing about them.'
'Ah, what is that?'
'In all their multitude, there is not a single man named Maram Marshayk.'
This caused Maram to laugh, a sound that the warriors around him picked up and passed back and forth along the lines as they recounted the deeds of my best friend. They badly needed such encouragement. Bemossed's desertion, I sensed, had worked at their spirits like a leech draining a body of blood.
My stallion stamped his hoof against the turf, and I reached down to stroke his tensed neck beneath the armor that covered it. And I murmured to him, 'Just one more time, old friend. Just one more charge.'
Kane, to my right on top of the Hell Witch, stared out at our enemy with an immense will to destroy them. And I said to him, 'Such great numbers - not even at the Sarburn did Morjin and Aramesh command so many. I have never stood at a place of such a great battle as this.'
For moment it seemed that Kane's blood ran through his veins as cold as ice water. Then his black eyes flashed in the sun as he looked at me. 'No, you are wrong. For you have stood at the center of the Tar Harath.'
'The Tar Harath?' I said, puzzled. I remembered with a bitter pain that sun-seared hell at the heart of the Red Desert. 'Men do not even go into that place. No battle ever could have been fought there.'
'You are wrong about that, too. For once the Tar Harath was a grassland such as this. And it had a different name, taken after the site of the great battle.'
'What battle?' I asked him. 'So - we called it Tharharra.'
Tharharra, I thought, the Tar Harath. Could it be possible? The Battle of Tharharra, that had been the greatest of all the ages? There, once a time, a host of Galadin, Elijin and Star People led by Kalkin and Marsul had defeated a vast army of Daevas under Angra Mainyu. Marsul had wrested the Lightstone from Angra Mainyu himself, while Manwe and other Galadin had bound the Dark One on Damoom.
'But the verse we heard in the amphitheater,' I said in astonishment, 'told that Tharharra was fought on Erathe, out in the stars!' Kane pointed up at the sun and said, 'We dwell, always, in the stars.'
Then his hand swept out across the grassy steppe east and west as he added: 'This is Erathe. That is what we named our world long ago - long, long ago. I was its king, Valashu. When I was born, the White Mountains stood lower and the Morning Mountains higher. The stars were different, too.'
He looked up at the sky, whose deep blue shimmer hid the great spirals of lights spread throughout the universe. Then he sighed and said, 'But men are not different - and so once again we must fight. But this will be my last battle.'
I turned to meet eyes with him in a silent understanding.
'Your time is coming, too,' he added.
I tightened my grip around my sword to draw strength from it. Then I drew Alkaladur and gave the command to advance. Trumpets rang out. In an unbroken line stretching five miles across the steppe, the men from the Free Kingdoms marched toward our enemy. Our cavalry kept pace on either flank, while Sajagax ordered his Sarni warriors to begin maneuvering for advantage on both wings even farther out across the grass. The terrible jangle of silver bells worn by sixty-five thousand Valari warriors seemed to shiver the air; the thunder of our drums shook the very earth. We drew within half a mile of our enemy, but their massed formations remained unmoving, like immense blocks of bronze and steel upon which we must surely break.
And then, as we narrowed the distance to four hundred yards, there came a great and hideous howl from the Owl's Hill. At preci
sely that moment, a terrible pain ripped through the center of my right hand, and I nearly dropped my sword. I looked out above our enemy's lines to see a band of Blues gathered upon the hill's top. A second howl split the morning's peace as my left hand, fastened around of the straps of my shield, burned as if pierced with a heated iron. Upon the third howl that fell upon my advancing warriors like an evil breath, I nearly fainted from the spike of agony that tore through the bones of my feet. Then I watched in horror, as did tens of thousands of my men, as the Blues at the top of the hill raised up a lone wooden cross.
'It is Bemossed!' I gasped out to Kane. My eyes burned as I stared across the field, trying to make out the face of the tiny figure nailed up on crossed beams for entire armies to behold.
'I know it us he!'
And Kane, I thought, knew it, too. His jaws clamped shut with such force that it seemed he might have bitten through steel plate; the fire in his eyes and shooting through his trembling body might have caused him to sweat blood.
'So,' he finally growled out. 'So.'
I sheathed my sword and took hold of his arm. I was afraid he might fall into a furv and charge alone straight toward the Owl's Hill. And I was afraid that I might join him.
'It is the Maitreya!' one of my warriors down the line to the west cried out, pointing up and out. 'Look - it is the Shining One!'
There comes a moment when we know that doom is upon us, and cannot be averted. Even so, we try to deny it. As Kane shook his head in bitterness and despair, I sat on top of. Altaru trying to stop tears from flooding my eyes. I did not warn to believe what my heart knew must be true.
'The Mataeya!' hundreds of voices cried out all at once. 'It is Bemossed!'
I called for a halt then, for at that moment a herald bearing a white flag rode out from our enemy's lines across the field. I sent out a herald of my own to meet with him. This man - his name was Sar Garash -soon returned to report that Morjin had requested a parlay,
'A parlay!' Maram called out to me. 'A trap, more likely. You can't let yourself get close to that crucifying snake, Val. Don't go!'
'Ha!' Kane shouted as he laid hold of his sword, 'If it's to be a trap, then let us spring it and put an end to Morjin for all time!'
'No, Kane,' I told him. 'You know we cannot.'
And we couldn't, I said, because if we slew Morjin, then surely Morjin's men would finish off Bemossed. Too, the one who met with us at the center of the field might not be Morjin himself, but only one of his droghuls whom we could not distinguish in appearance from the real Morjin. And last, I told Kane, we could not murder Morjin here beneath the sacred banner of truce because I was now a Valari king who could not do such a thing.
'Six counselors are to ride out with Morjin,' I said to Kane, 'and I am to bring as many.'
I turned to Maram, sweating in the building heal of the morning, and he huffed out: 'Not I! You have kings at your command Val.'
'But you are a prince among men,' I told him, 'and a hero whom the minstrels will sing of for ages. Come, friend, and let us finally write the ending to this song!'
Maram was weeping as he nodded his head at me. I did not know if he shed tears for himself or for Bemossed - and all of Ea.
'Kane,' I said, turning to my right, 'you will come, too, yes?'
The blaze in Kane's dark eyes told me that nothing could stop him.
For my other counselors, I choose Ymiru, Atara, Sajagax and King Hadaru. It took some time for my messengers to ride forth and summon them to me. Then, beneath a white flag held aloft by one of my heralds, we moved out to confront our enemy. We met Morjin and his counselor at the center of the field. Atop a snow-white horse, the Red Dragon rode easily and with an air of authority, as if the very grass and all the earth beneath him were his to command. I could almost feel the force of his fell desires emanating from him with a terrible heat. He wore an armor of mail and steel plate stained a bright carmine and encrusted with glittering rubies, in mockery of the diamonds that we Valari bore. Two of his retinue were similarly accoutered: a great, squat, black-bearded Ikurian named Zahur Tey, who proved to be Lord of the Dragon Guard, and my old enemy, Prince Salmelu of Ishka - now named Arch Igasho. Two other Kallimun priests hung by Morjin's sides: Arch Uttam, who had nearly put my companions and me to death in Hesperu, and Arch Yadom. Both had the gaunt, hollowed-out look of cadavers that had been eaten at by wolves; they wore long yellow robes in place of armor, for they were no warriors. The fifth of Morjin's followers, however, in his youth, had been a great warrior who had fought his way to become chief of the Marituk tribe. But over the years Gorgorak had grown nearly as great in girth as in reputation due to his fondness for food and beer. His once-golden hair had gone gray, and his little blue eyes buried deep within his puffy red face stared out at me in challenge. Right behind him rode Count Ulanu, now acclaimed as Yarkona's king. He had a hard, foxlike face framed by a neatly shaped beard. Ulanu the Handsome he had once been called - until Liljana had cut off the end of his nose in a battle preceding the siege of the great Library. As he drew closer, he glared at me with poisonous dark eyes as if to transfer his hate for Liljana onto me.
I did not need to look at Morjin to feel his great malice burning him up like a disease. I had not seen him, in the flesh, since I had put my sword through his neck in Argattha. Through the grace of his kind he had recovered from this mortal wound, and more, he had called upon the darkest of sources to invigorate his body with a terrible new life. Through the power of the illusions he cast, others saw him as a golden-eyed angel. But I would always see him as an old, old man whose sagging skin had gone gray with corruption. His smell was all foulness and fear, rage and hate.
He halted far enough away that I could not easily hurry forward to strike at him with my sword, but close enough for me to make out the webwork of broken veins that made his eyes seem like pools of blood. The others drew up behind him.
'King Valamesh!' he called out to me, formally and politely. 'I would like to thank you for making parlay with me!'
His voice, like a battering ram, struck straight into my chest with a power I had not remembered. Save for Alphanderry, I had never heard anyone put tone to words more beautifully.
'Morjin!' I called back to him. 'I do not know what we have to discuss - unless it is your surrender!'
I could almost feel Kane smiling savagely at this just behind me. But what I had said, and even more the manner in which I had said it, only infuriated Morjin.
'I did not give you leave to call me familiar!' he shouted at me. 'I am King Morjin of Sakai, Lord Emperor of Ea and Lord of Light!'
'You are the Lord of Lies!' I said. 'Why should I listen to anything of what you have to say here?'
In answer, Morjin turned to point at the cross rising up from the Owl's Hill and framed by the great, skull-like rocks of the Detheshaloon. I could not call out to Bemossed, nailed up in the air so far away, but my whole being burned to ask him a single question: Why did you go to our enemy?
'The Hajarim slave,' Morjin said, turning back to me, 'is a false Maitreya. I promised you he would be punished, and his agony has only begun. But it is upon you to end it.'
'How so ... Lord of Light?'
Morjin could not abide sarcasm, and his face darkened with rancor. 'Surrender to me, here and now, your sword. Command your men to lay down their swords. Their bows, too. Command them then to return to their encampment. Do these things, and despite what I have written to you, I will spare their lives. I will see that the Hajarim is taken down from the cross and given to your healers.'
He lies! I told myself. He is the Lord of Lies, the Crucifier, the Red Dragon, the Great Beast!
And upon this thought, as I gazed up at Bemossed with his hands stretched out to the world, I knew why he had deserted in the dead of night. Out of a strange pride that knew nothing of vanity and conceit, but only the foolishness of compassion, he had gone to Morjin with a desperate hope thnt he might somehow heal this dark angel.
'Do as I
say,' Morjin told me, 'and we can avoid this battle that no one wants. And I will let even you have your life.'
Could Morjin, I wondered, really think that I might believe him and set up my men to be slaughtered? Why had he really called this parlay?
'I, for one, do want battle!' Sajagax suddenly shouted, shaking his bow at Morjin. 'You have laid waste Kurmak lands and ravaged my people! We will have our revenge! I care not for any of your threats and lies! Nor your slave army: the One will give us strength today and keep our sight true. If Valashu Elahad had not asked otherwise, right here I would put an arrow through your eye!'
Sajagax's fierce words caused Morjin's pallid face to drain of all blood. I imagined, however, that Morjin's men perceived him through the colored glass of illusion as a mighty and sanguine warrior who stared down Sajagax with a vast self-assurance beaming from an implacable countenance. Morjin had only to nod at Gorgorak for this great chief of the Marituk to speak in Morjin's stead:
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