Touched by the Gods

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

  “Of course,” Malledd said, shaking his head. “I'm hungry, too.” He sheathed his sword and followed as Onnell led him away from the river and the barricade, toward the field kitchens and supply wagons at the western edge of the camp.

  As they walked, Onnell glanced around to make sure no one else was in earshot, then remarked, “You fought well for a beginner, from what I saw.”

  “Thanks,” Malledd muttered.

  “That's all it was, though – good for a beginner. The gods didn't give you any magical skill with a sword?”

  “Not that I could tell,” Malledd said unhappily. “I did the best I could.”

  “It wasn't bad,” Onnell said. “A little wild. But you kept it up well, especially toward the end. You hardly looked tired at all.”

  “I'm not tired,” Malledd said. “I don't tire.”

  Onnell glanced up at him and saw he was completely serious. “That's interesting,” he said.

  Malledd shrugged.

  Onnell went on, “I assume you came out here to be the champion you were born to be, and lead us against the rebels?”

  “I came out here to do whatever I could to stop them,” Malledd replied.

  Onnell nodded. “That may not be all that much,” he said. “I can't see some of these people accepting a new arrival as a leader – not unless he's something really special. You're big and strong, but you're still just a promising beginner. Maybe if you'd gotten here when the rest of us did, and learned along with the rest of us...”

  “I should have been here,” Malledd admitted, “but I didn't know it yet. And I didn't want to be here.” He thought briefly of Anva and the children and quickly suppressed the thought; he had to concentrate on winning, on destroying Rebiri Nazakri and defeating Ba'el's scheme to overthrow the Empire. That was the quickest way to get home to his family; thinking about them would only distract him and delay him.

  “I can understand that,” Onnell said.

  Malledd studied his companion. “Why are you here?” he asked. “Couldn't you have left if you wanted to? Lord Duzon said there have been many desertions.”

  “There have been,” Onnell agreed. “I don't blame them. But I'm staying, at least for now. Someone has to. Someone has to keep those things out of Seidabar.”

  Malledd nodded. “I was chosen for it at birth,” he said. “I think you're the nobler of us, Onnell.”

  “I don't have a wife back in Grozerodz,” Onnell answered. “It's easier for me. I have less to lose.”

  “Isn't your life more than enough?”

  Onnell grimaced. “Apparently not,” he said, “or I wouldn't be here.”

  Malledd didn't pretend to understand that, and the two big men walked on side by side until they reached a table where three women were handing out hard bread and thick beer.

  “No cheese? No fruit?” Onnell asked. “I know meat's too much to ask, but...”

  “No cheese,” the nearest woman snapped back. “We ran out. And the beer's low, so don't spill any.”

  “We've got some onions,” the second woman said, pointing out a small heap of scraggly brown lumps.

  “Better than nothing,” Onnell muttered, grabbing one from the pile.

  Malledd accepted his bread and beer, then followed Onnell off to one side, where the two men settled to the ground.

  A moment later Bousian joined them; he wore a thick brown patch over his left eye. “Malledd!” he called, as he approached. “I heard you'd arrived!”

  Malledd found himself smiling so hard he couldn't speak; it was good to see another familiar face.

  “Survived another night, Bousian?” Onnell asked.

  “As far as I can tell I have,” Bousian replied. “Or perhaps my soul is dreaming this as it's carried to the heavens.”

  “I'd hope for better dreams than this,” Onnell retorted.

  “So would I,” Bousian agreed, “but we don't always get what we hope for.”

  Onnell and Malledd both grunted agreement to that.

  “It's good to see you, Malledd,” Bousian said, as he seated himself. “Perhaps we'll live to see the end of this after all.”

  “I'm just one man,” Malledd said. Then he relented. “Even though I am who I am, I'm just one man. The gods haven't made me unbeatable.”

  Onnell nodded. “He fights like a talented rookie, and no more,” he said.

  Bousian frowned. “Really? That's not good.”

  “That's what I am,” Malledd said.

  “If I might speak freely...” Bousian hesitated.

  “Go ahead,” Malledd said. “We all know what I am.”

  Bousian nodded. “Well, then, you're the divine champion, protector of the Domdur. You're supposed to lead us all against the nightwalkers and the Nazakri.”

  Malledd grimaced. “Maybe,” he said. “I'm the champion, yes, but I don't know if I'm destined to lead you anywhere.”

  “It is the traditional role,” Bousian pointed out.

  “These aren't traditional times,” Malledd replied, “and Rebiri Nazakri is not a traditional foe.”

  “Surely the will of the gods hasn't changed – ”

  Malledd held up a hand. “Bousian,” he said, “you don't know what you're talking about. Since you saw me last I have spoken to a god, face to face, and I know what my situation is far better than you do.”

  Bousian hesitated. If any other man, excluding priests, had made such a claim he would have dismissed it as lunacy, but this was Malledd, the chosen one. “You spoke to a god?” he asked.

  “Baranmel,” Malledd said.

  Bousian blinked. “You spoke to Baranmel?” That did add a certain believability to the claim, but on the other hand, what would a frivolous deity like Baranmel have to say about such weighty matters as wars and empires and destinies?

  “At a friend's wedding in Seidabar,” Malledd said. “He told me a story, one that Samardas wanted me to hear.”

  Bousian had to admit that did make sense, for another god to use Baranmel as a messenger. He had never heard of such a thing happening before, but on the other hand, until the oracles fell silent, the gods had all the messengers they needed without relying on Baranmel.

  “Samardas,” Bousian said thoughtfully. “Interesting. I'd have thought you'd be of more interest to Ba'el. Wasn't it his mark you wore at birth?”

  “It was,” Malledd said. “But he wasn't the one who wanted Baranmel to speak with me.”

  “Ba'el presumably isn't much for words,” Onnell suggested. “He's more interested in action.”

  “Well, he's given us plenty of that here, these last hundred nights,” Bousian said. “His days at the sun are almost upon us; maybe then he'll smile on us and give us a victory.”

  Malledd glanced at the rising sun, a golden half-circle atop the earthworks. He felt suddenly cold.

  Bousian was right – midsummer was almost upon them. In just three days, on Midsummer's Day, Malledd would turn twenty-seven and Ba'el's power would be at its peak.

  And Ba'el favored the Nazakri.

  Lord Duzon had mentioned that it seemed as if the enemy were waiting for something; suddenly Malledd thought that while he might not know what the enemy was waiting for, he knew when it was expected.

  Chapter Fifty-One

  “Get some sleep,” Duzon said as he trudged toward his own tent. “We can talk this evening.”

  “No, my lord,” Malledd insisted, following close at his heel. “This is urgent; it can't wait.”

  Duzon turned, still walking, and looked at Malledd curiously.

  The man showed no sign of the exhaustion everyone else felt. Right now Duzon wanted nothing so much but to fall onto his cot and let the world go away for a few hours; it had taken an effort even to force himself to eat, though his stomach had been as empty as a nightwalker's soul, and he hadn't bothered to clean himself properly, but had merely wiped off the worst of the gore. This was normal; he'd felt like this every morning for half a season or more. Everyone who fought for the Emp
ire here felt the same.

  Malledd, though – Malledd was just as battered as anyone, with blood and filth streaked and smeared on his arms and face and clothes, with scrapes and cuts everywhere, his tunic torn a dozen places, yet his eyes were bright, and his shoulders did not sag, and he was here demanding to talk to Duzon.

  “Aren't you tired?” Duzon asked.

  “A little,” Malledd lied.

  “Gods!” Duzon said. A laugh escaped him as he realized what he had said. “It is the gods' doing, isn't it?”

  “I suppose. It's not important right now. My lord, I really must talk to you.”

  They were at the flap of Duzon's tent, which had not been among the twenty or so burned by the nightwalkers during the night's assault. He paused there and turned to face Malledd.

  “Then talk,” he said.

  Malledd glanced about uneasily.

  “No one's listening,” Duzon said. “They're all too tired. I'm too tired, but I'll do my best to hear you out.”

  “It's about the gods,” Malledd said.

  “Have they spoken to you?” Duzon cocked his head and tried to decide whether to believe Malledd if he said “yes.” He didn't really doubt that Malledd was indeed the chosen of the gods, but that didn't mean he accepted as true everything the man said. He had never heard anyone assert that the divine champion couldn't be a liar or a madman.

  Malledd shook his head. “No. Not again; this is part of what Baranmel told me, but I didn't think about it until now.”

  “Ah,” Duzon said. “What, then, was this revelation?”

  “It's about Ba'el,” Malledd said.

  “Mighty Ba'el, god of war and conquest, the particular patron of soldiers.” He gestured at the great red moon that hovered on the western horizon, still plainly visible despite the dawn. “What about him?”

  “Midsummer is coming, and Ba'el's Triad,” Malledd said.

  “So it is. A favorable omen for us, I assume?”

  Malledd shook his head vigorously. “No, my lord,” he said. “It's a very bad omen. Ba'el favors the enemy!”

  Duzon stared at him for a moment, then lifted the tent-flap.

  “Would you care to come inside and explain that?”

  Malledd ducked into the tent and Duzon followed; Malledd found a place on the cot while Duzon took the folding camp-stool, and the two men sat facing each other.

  Malledd quickly ran through Baranmel's explanation of how Ba'el had realized he had been tricked, how he had set out to destroy the Domdur Empire so that wars would again spread throughout the world.

  “The other gods still favor us – most of them, at any rate,” Malledd concluded, “but Ba'el is our greatest enemy and Rebiri Nazakri's strongest ally, though the Nazakri may not know it.”

  Duzon stroked his beard. “Why did you not mention this sooner? We spoke before at some length, and you said not a word of this.”

  “I didn't want to spread needless worry. Why tell soldiers that the greatest of all the gods, their own patron, wants to see them fail and die?”

  “So Ba'el has been working against us?”

  “Definitely.”

  “He's aided the Nazakri?”

  “I think he gave the Nazakri his black magic.”

  “And the unrest back in Seidabar? The bickering within the Imperial Council? Your priest friend told me about that.”

  Malledd shrugged. “Probably,” he said. “I don't know about that.”

  “Yet he chose you as the champion, did he not?”

  Malledd blinked in sudden realization, and he said, “Of course he did – and where was I these past forty triads? Am I a soldier, or a leader? I'm just a smith.”

  “You can fight,” Duzon said. “From what Darsmit told me, you can lead. Ba'el is not the only god involved in making a champion.”

  “Of course not. But I don't want to fight or lead, and that may be Ba'el's work.”

  “The gods make us what we are, Malledd, but then we make our own lives. You're here now.” He waved that away. “So you think that Ba'el's Triad will be an evil time for us?”

  Malledd nodded.

  “Do you have any idea what form this evil might take?”

  “None. But hasn't it seemed as if Nazakri was waiting for something, biding his time? If so, isn't it likely that this was the time he was awaiting?”

  “Ba'el's Triad,” Duzon mused. “The longest, hottest days of the year, when Ba'el stokes the sun's fires. Shouldn't that be when the nightwalkers' power is least, when the nights are shortest?”

  “That's what I'd expect,” Malledd agreed.

  “Yet you think it's when Nazakri will finally make his move?”

  Malledd nodded again.

  “What would you do about it?”

  “We must destroy him before then!”

  Duzon, weary as he was, managed a laugh. “We have been encamped here for more than a season, Malledd, trying to find a way to do just that. How can we achieve in two days what's eluded us for so long? We can't destroy the rebels with what we have here; we must await the arrival of Lord Kadan and the Imperial Army.”

  “What if they never come? Vadeviya tells me that Lord Kadan is caught up in palace intrigue, and under suspicion of treason. We can't just wait for him!”

  “What choice do we have?”

  “If we could just get across the river and into the enemy camp by daylight, when the nightwalkers are powerless...”

  “How? That's why the enemy is camped so far north, Malledd – there's no way for living men to cross the water here against armed opposition.”

  “Then how does the Nazakri intend to get his men across?”

  Duzon shrugged. “I don't know. I've wondered about that for many a triad.”

  “We can't swim?”

  “They have archers, and swordsmen who would meet us at the bank. And the river is wide – we'd be exhausted as we waded ashore, easy prey for them.”

  “Boats?”

  “Archers and swordsmen, and Rebiri Nazakri's magic – and rowing is almost as much work as swimming.”

  “A bridge?”

  “That would take days. The nightwalkers would burn it before we could get it halfway built.”

  “What if it were stone?”

  “Then they would tear it to pieces.”

  Malledd frowned thoughtfully. “We have magicians,” he said.

  “Indeed we do,” Duzon agreed. “New ones, anyway.”

  “Can't they cross the river?”

  “Yes, but when they do cross they're met with arrows. When those are dodged or deflected they have only the magic to destroy a handful of nightwalkers – and not the time to do even that much, for the sentries will have awakened Rebiri Nazakri, whose black magic can easily counter a dozen of our New Magicians. Then they flee back across the river – and the weaker of them may well fall in the river and have to swim the last few yards.”

  “Could they carry soldiers across? The living rebels are a small force, and one man with a sword can lop off a hundred nightwalker's heads in a matter of minutes by daylight.”

  “He can if he's not killed first,” Duzon replied. “Each magician can only carry one or at most two soldiers. We have no more than a score of New Magicians – I haven't counted lately, it may be no more than a dozen by now. What could thirty men do against the rebel army?”

  “Thirty men,” Malledd mused. “No more?”

  “I'm not even certain we could manage that many; you'd have to ask Vrai Burrai or Tebas Tudan.”

  “Can't the New Magicians renew their power from the sun?”

  “Of course – but not instantly; it takes time. Malledd, we've been over all this...”

  “Suppose,” Malledd said, “you were to build a bridge in sections, not in place, but here in camp – perhaps disguise it as wooden walls – and then have the New Magicians carry the pieces into place. They could renew their power when it ran low, and have the entire bridge in place within a single day. Then we could charge acro
ss, and lay their camp waste.”

  “They'd burn it.”

  “No, have it assembled in the water, weighted to rest ankle-deep – no one can burn wood under water.”

  “It couldn't be an ordinary bridge – more like a series of rafts.”

  “Exactly!”

  Duzon mulled that over silently for a moment.

  “It might work,” he admitted. “They'd see us coming, of course; we'd have to fight through archers and swordsman.”

  “We'd carry shields, of course, to stop the arrows. Not all of us would survive – but none of the nightwalkers would reach Seidabar.”

  “Um,” Duzon said. “We'll have to talk to Vrai Burrai.”

  “You can talk to him,” Malledd said.

  Duzon looked at him sharply.

  “My lord, I will be there with my sword, and I will fight as best I can for my people and my Empress, but I'm not the one to lead this; the men don't know me, they know you. Vrai Burrai doesn't know me, he knows you. General Balinus and all the rest, they trust you, not me. Bring them this as your idea.”

  “You don't want the credit?”

  Malledd shook his head.

  “You don't want to be in charge?”

  “My lord, I was marked at birth by Ba'el, who is now our foe; I'm not the one to lead here.”

  “You're the chosen of all the gods.”

  “And you, my lord, are the chosen of the Domdur – I've heard my companions talk about you.”

  Duzon stared at Malledd for a moment, and felt the blood rush to his face as he stared. He turned his head slightly, to look at the cot on which Malledd sat.

  He let out a long sigh. It appeared he would not be able to use that cot for quite some time yet.

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  “Our people are being butchered!” Lord Kadan shouted, pulling against the guards who held his arms. He stood at the center of the Council Chamber, facing the fifteen other Councillors – and Prince Graubris, who had taken Kadan's own customary seat. “They're being slaughtered, and it's your doing, Shoule!”

  “No!” Shoule shouted in reply, rising to his feet behind the Council's semicircular table, “It's yours, you traitor! You sent them to die!”