Splinter Of The Mind's Eye

by Glen Cook

  But the time came at last. The morning when he could kiss Meryem good-bye and tell her that when next they met it would be within the Most Holy Mrazkim Shrines themselves.

  More than twenty thousand men responded to Nassef's call. Their tents were everywhere. Sebil el Selib reminded El Murid of Al Rhemish during Disharhun.

  Yousif's people had been quiet for nine days. They had ceased contesting the passage of the warrior bands. Nassef had been telling anyone who would listen that he did not like it, that it was a sign that the Wahlig had something up his sleeve.

  Then the news came. Yousif had mustered every man he could, some five thousand, and had installed himself at the oasis near Wadi el Kuf. His neighbors had loaned him another two thousand men.

  "We'll have to fight him there," Nassef told El Murid. "There's no choice. We can't get to Al Rhemish without watering there. This is what he's been waiting for all these years. The chance to get us into a conventional battle. It looks like he wants that chance so badly that he doesn't care about the numbers."

  "Give him what he wants. Let's rid ourselves of him once and for all."

  Nassef guessed right most of the time. But he had erred in calling in all of El Murid's supporters. By so doing he stripped the desert of his sources of intelligence. He and El Murid would not learn the truth about Yousif's stand till it was too late.

  Nassef selected twenty thousand men. El Murid took twenty-five hundred Invincibles. They left a substantial force to defend the pass in their absence.

  It was a morning many days after departure. The sun hung low in the east. They moved up on the waterhole by Wadi el Kuf.

  The wadi was a shallow, broad valley a mile and a half east of the waterhole. It was filled with bizarre natural formations. It was the wildest badland in all Hammad al Nakir.

  Nassef and El Murid raised the Lord's standard atop a low hill a mile south of the oasis, and an equal distance from the wadi. They studied the enemy, who was waiting on horseback.

  "They don't seem impressed by our numbers," Nassef observed.

  "What do you suggest?"

  "It seems straightforward. Hold the Invincibles here, in reserve. Send the rest in one wave and overwhelm them."

  "This is a strange land, Nassef. It's so silent."

  The stillness did seem supernatural. Thirty thousand men and nearly as many animals faced one another, and even the flies were quiet.

  El Murid glanced at the wadi. It was a shadowy forest of grotesque sandstone formations: steeples, pylons, giant dumbbells standing on end. He shuddered as he considered that devil's playground.

  "We're ready," Nassef said.

  "Go ahead."

  Nassef turned to Karim, el-Kader and the others. "On my signal."

  His captains trotted their horses down to the divisions they commanded.

  Nassef gave his signal.

  The horde surged forward.

  Yousif's men waited without moving. They had arrows ready on the strings of their saddle bows.

  "Something's wrong," the Scourge of God muttered. "I can feel it."

  "Nassef?" El Murid queried in a voice gone small and tentative. "Do you hear drums?"

  "It's the hoofbeats... . "

  El Murid did hear drums. "Nassef!" His right arm stabbed out like a javelin thrust.

  The devil's garden of Wadi el Kuf had begun to disgorge a demon horde.

  "Oh, my God!" Nassef moaned. "My God, no."

  King Aboud had harkened to Yousif's importunities at last. He had sent Prince Farid to Wadi el Kuf with five thousand of the desert's finest soldiers, many of them equipped after the fashion of western knights. With Farid, in tactical command, was Sir Tury Hawkwind of the Mercenary's Guild. Hawkwind had brought a thousand of his brethren. They were arrayed in western-style lances of a heavy cavalryman, his esquire, two light and one heavy infantrymen.

  Nassef had time to think, to react. Heavy cavalry could not charge at breakneck speed across a mile of desert and up a slight hill. And Hawkwind obviously meant to bring his shock power to bear.

  "What do we do?" El Murid asked.

  "I think it's time for the amulet," Nassef replied. "That's the only weapon that will help now."

  El Murid raised his arm. Without a word he showed Nassef his naked wrist.

  "Where the hell is it?" Nassef demanded.

  Softly, "At Sebil el Selib. I left it. I was so excited about coming, I forgot it." He had not worn the amulet for years, preferring to keep it safe within the shrines.

  Nassef sighed, shook his head wearily. "Lord, choose a company of Invincibles and flee. I'll buy you all the time I can."

  "Flee? Are you mad?"

  "This battle is lost, Lord. All that remains is to salvage as much as we can. Don't stay, and deprive the movement of its reason for existing."

  El Murid shook his head stubbornly. "I see no defeat. Only more trouble than we anticipated originally. We still outnumber them, Nassef. And no matter what, I won't leave the field while men are dying for me. Not when they have it in their hearts that I am commanding them. What would they think of my courage?"

  Nassef shrugged. "We can but die with honor, then. I suggest you form the Invincibles to meet the coming charge." A moment later, after studying the enemy banners, he murmured thoughtfully, "I wonder what Hawkwind is doing here."

  "Trust in the Lord, Nassef. He will deliver them unto us. We have the numbers, and Him on our side. What more could we ask?"

  Nassef stifled an angry response. He helped guide the Invincibles into a new disposition.

  At the oasis, at feast, it seemed that El Murid's confidence was justified. Yousif's force was surrounded.

  "Who's this Hawkwind?"

  "A Guildsman. Perhaps their best general."

  "Guildsman?" El Murid's ignorance of the world outside Hammad al Nakir was immense.

  "A brotherhood of warriors. Not unlike the Invincibles. Called the Mercenary's Guild. They're also a little like the Harish, and yet like nothing we know. They own no allegiance except to one another. After Itaskia, they're probably the greatest military power in the west, yet they have no homeland but a castle called High Crag. When their generals frown, princes cringe. Just their decision to fight for someone sometimes stops a war before it starts."

  "How do you know? When have you ever had time to learn?"

  "I pay people to learn things for me. I've got spies all over the west."

  "Why?"

  "Because you want to go there someday. I'm preparing the way. But it's all irrelevant if we don't get out of this alive."

  Hawkwind's force was close enough to start increasing its pace.

  None of the Invincibles had seen knights before. They neither understood nor sufficiently feared what they faced. When their master gave the signal, they charged. They trusted in the Lord and their name. Hawkwind increased his pace again.

  The long lances and heavy horses hit the Invincibles like a stone wall. The Royalists passed through and over them, and crushed them, and in ten minutes were turning and forming for a charge into the rear of the horde beleaguering Yousif.

  Neither Nassef nor El Murid said a word. It was even worse than Nassef had expected. The Wahlig of el Aswad was in a bad way. But once help arrived the battle became a rebel slaughter.

  Hawkwind placed a screen of infantry between himself and the remnants of the Invincibles. He placed another of light horse between himself and the oasis, with extended and slightly C-shaped wings. Then he started hammering with his armored horsemen. Charge. Melee. Withdraw. Reform. Charge.

  El Murid was too stubborn to accept reality. Nassef's troops, down in the witch's cauldron, were too confused to realize what was happening.

  Hawkwind set about systematically exterminating them.

  At one point Nassef wept. "My Lord," he pleaded, "let me go down there. Let me try to break them out."

  "We can't lose," El Murid murmured in reply, more to himself than to his war general. "We have the numbers. The Lord is with
us."

  Nassef cursed softly.

  The sun moved to the west. Hawkwind extended his wings, completing a thin encirclement against which Nassef's warriors collided randomly, like flies against the walls of a bottle. He put more and more strength into the circle, daring El Murid to try something with his battered Invincibles. The Wahlig's men filtered out of the cauldron and became part of the circle.

  Some of Nassef's men tried to surrender, but Prince Farid had ordered his to take no prisoners.

  "They have taken away our last ounce of choice," Nassef moaned. "We have to throw these pitiful few hundreds in to give those men down there a chance to escape."

  "Nassef?"

  "What?" The voice of the Scourge of God was both sorrowful and angry.

  "I'm sorry. I was wrong. The time wasn't right. I listened to myself instead of to the Voice of God. Take command. Do what you can to save what you can. O Lord Almighty, forgive me for my arrogance. Pardon me for my vanity."

  "No."

  "What? Why?"

  "I'll tell you what to do, but you do the leading. This is no time to show weakness. Salvage some respect from the disaster. Do that and we can always say that they tricked us, that the Evil One blinded our eyes."

  "Nassef! You're right, of course. What should we do?"

  Fifteen minutes later the survivors of the Invincibles hurled themselves against Hawkwind's circle. They did not strike toward the center, but cut a shallow chord meant to break the widest possible gap.

  Nassef's warriors began flooding through while the gap was still opening.

  El Murid and his brother-in-law rode at the head of the charge.

  El Murid flailed about him with his sword. The clash of weapons, the screams of horses and men, were overwhelming, maddening. The dust choked him. It stung his eyes. A horse plunged against his, nearly unseating him. A wild sword stroke, partially turned by Nassef, cut his left arm, leaving a shallow, bloody wound. For an instant he was amazed at the lack of immediate pain.

  Nassef struck about himself like some war djinn just released from Hell. The Invincibles did their desperate best to keep their prophet from coming to harm, but...

  "Now!" Nassef shrieked at him. "Give the order to fly. To the wadi. We can lose them in the rocks." Most of Nassef's men were away. The circle was collapsing toward El Murid and the Scourge of God.

  El Murid vacillated.

  A random swarm of arrows rained from the cloudless sky. One buried itself in his mount's eye.

  The beast screamed and reared. El Murid flew through the air. The earth came up and hit him like a flying boulder. A horse trampled his right arm.

  He heard the snapping of bone over his own shriek. He tried to rise. His gaze met that of a Guild infantryman who was calmly working his way through the chaos, braining wounded Invincibles with a massive war hammer.

  "Micah!" Nassef screamed at him. "Get up! Grab hold of my leg!"

  He found the will and strength. Nassef started away.

  "Hang on tight. Bounce high."

  He did.

  Behind him, another hundred Invincibles gave their lives to make sure he got away.

  Once into the wadi, Nassef flung himself from his mount, seized El Murid's left hand. "Come on! We've got to disappear before they get organized."

  The sounds of battle died swiftly as they fled deeper into the grotesque wilderness. El Murid did not know if distance or final defeat were responsible, but he feared the worst.

  They kept to terrain no horse could penetrate. Their enemies would have to come for them on foot if they insisted on pressing the pursuit.

  It was almost dark when Nassef found the fox den. Two badly wounded warriors crowded it already, but they made room. Nassef did his best to eliminate traces outside.

  The first hunters came only a short time later. They were in a hurry, chasing game still on the wing. Other parties passed during the next few hours. Occasional shouts and metallic clashings echoed through the wadi.

  During each stillness Nassef did what he could for the two warriors. He did not expect either to live. When it seemed that the pursuit had ended, he worked on El Murid's arm.

  The fracture was not as bad as it had seemed. The bone had broken cleanly, without being crushed.

  It was midnight when the pain subsided enough for El Murid to ask, "What do we do now, Nassef?" His voice was vague, his mind airy. Nassef had given him an opiate.

  "We start over. We build it again, from the ground. We don't hurry it. At least we won't have to capture Sebil el Selib again."

  "Can we do it?"

  "Of course. We've lost a battle, that's all. We're young. Time and the Lord are on our side. Be quiet!"

  He was at the mouth of the den, masking the others with his body and dark clothing. He could see the flickering light of torches playing among the rocks.

  Men followed the light.

  One complained, "I'm tired. How long do we have to keep this up?"

  Another replied, "Until we get them. They're in here and I don't intend to let them out."

  Nassef knew that second voice. It belonged to that stubborn brother of the Wahlig, Fuad. Hatred welled within him.

  One of the wounded warriors chose that moment to die. His comrade thought quickly enough to smother his death rattle with a corner of his robe.

  "Why didn't you bring the damned amulet?" Nassef demanded testily, after the danger had passed. "It would have made the difference."

  The Disciple barely heard through his pain. He gritted the truth between clenched teeth. "I was a fool, wasn't I? The angel gave it to me for moments like those. Why didn't you say something before we left? You knew I was keeping it safe in the shrine."

  "I didn't think of it. Why should I? It's not mine. We've been a pair of prize idiots, brother. And it looks like we're going to pay the ancient price of idiocy."

  The devil Fuad did not give up for four days. Hardly a minute passed but what there was not some Royalist hunter within hearing of the den. Before their trial ended, Nassef and El Murid were drinking their own urine in a grave they shared with two decaying corpses. The body poisons filling the urine made them so sick it seemed certain they were but trading a quick death for a slow one.

  Chapter Eight

  The Castle Tenacious and Resolute

  T here is great rejoicing in Sebil el Selib," Fuad snarled as he stalked toward Yousif, Radetic and the Wahlig's captains. A heavy layer of trail dust covered him. "Nassef and the Disciple have returned. They survived."

  The cords in Yousif's neck stood out. His face darkened. He rose slowly, then suddenly hurled his platter across the room. "Damn it!" he roared. "And damn that fool Aboud! When they finally take Al Rhemish and strangle him, I hope I'm there to laugh in his halfwit's face."

  Wadi el Kuf had been the limit of Royal aid. Nothing Yousif had done or said had been sufficient to excite Prince Farid into exceeding his orders and following through. The opportunity had been there, to pursue and slay, to recover Sebil el Selib. But Farid had had his instructions, and had been satisfied himself that El Murid and Nassef were dead.

  Farid's father was old and fat and none too bright. He loved his comforts and could see nothing beyond tomorrow. He did not want his son wasting money or lives.

  There had been a time when Aboud had been a renowned warrior and captain. He had driven the Throyens from the disputed territories along the northern end of the eastern shore. But that had been long ago. Time, that old traitor, slows and weakens all men, and makes them less inclined to seek hazard.

  "Thank God for Farid," Yousif sighed, his rage spent. "No one else could have gotten us the help we needed at Wadi el Kuf. Megelin? What now?"

  "We step back a few years and go on."

  "The same thing?"

  "The same. And don't count on them making any more mistakes. They've had their one and gotten away with it. El Murid will take the lesson to heart. He'll listen to Nassef now,"

  Nearly eight thousand of Nassef's men had esc
aped Wadi el Kuf. They were back in the desert now, stunned, but a foundation for a new guerrilla infrastructure.

  "We should have attacked Sebil el Selib while they were still demoralized," Yousif growled. "We should've hit them and kept on hitting till they gave up. None of the leaders were there."

  "Hit them with what?" Fuad asked caustically. "We were lucky they didn't come after us."

  Yousif's forces had been battered and exhausted after the battle. Getting themselves home had been the most difficult task they could handle.

  Fuad added, "They would have if anybody had been there to tell them what to do."

  Yousif's anger evaporated. He could not sustain it in the face of the truth.

  The years had taken their toll. El Aswad was approaching its limit. Yousif had done all he could, but his best had not been enough. From Wadi el Kuf onward he foresaw nothing but a downhill slide. His last hope had been that El Murid and his generals had perished. But Fuad's news accounted for the last of the missing leaders. They were all alive. The fury of Wadi el Kuf had consumed none but the expendable.

  "Megelin," Yousif said, "think for the enemy. What will he do now?"

  "I don't know, Wahlig. They say Nassef is vindictive. We'll probably get a lot of attention. Beyond that guess, you might as well read sheep's entrails."

  Yousif said nothing for several minutes. Then, "I'm going to concede the initiative again. We'll keep up the patrols and ambushes, but avoid contact most of the time. We'll stall. Concentrate on surviving. Try to lure them into a debilitating siege of the Eastern Fortress. Aboud is old. He's got the gout. He can't live forever. I talked to Farid. He's on our side. He'll be less sedentary. He can see the shape of things. He'd give us what we need if he wore the Crown."

  But neither fate nor Nassef would play the game according to Yousif's wishes. In the year after Wadi el Kuf Yousif's men seldom saw their enemies. They could not be found even when hunted. Nassef seemed to have forgotten that el Aswad existed. With the exception of the patrolled zone immediately before the mouth of Sebil el Selib, security and peace reigned in the Wahligate.

  The quiet drove Yousif and Fuad to distraction. They worried constantly. What did the silence mean?