The Starfollowers of Coramonde

by Brian Daley

  His standard-bearer was resisting the mandates of wounds that must, the Ku-Mor-Mal knew, claim him. Springbuck snatched his crimson tiger banner, throwing aside his crumpled shield to take it up. Fireheel, feeling his rider’s moribund mood, pushed forward. The Ku-Mor-Mai voiced a challenge through his tortured throat and went among the Baidii, with the sword called Never Blunted hewing his way.

  Behind him were men of Teebra. In the custom of their tribes, they threw down their own shields, drew out the heavy short swords that hung at their sides, and accompanied their Protector-Suzerain with bright blades in either hand. In a moment the entire remaining force had cast itself after him.

  Springbuck slashed and drove, dully curious. From which quarter would the final enemy come? Then he felt a certain change in the tenor of the engagement. Dismayed cries spread through the southern ranks from the rear.

  Up from behind them came a frost-haired giant on a coal-black desert charger, and the men who’d stood at the pass with him, weapons rising and falling with fresh enthusiasm.

  The Baidii, outraged at what they took for some warped deception, turned to fight on this second front. The Ku-Mor-Mai collected the men left to him and held his ground. Many Baidii ran. They couldn’t imagine what kind of maniacs would fight until they were nearly obliterated, for a military deceit. They didn’t know Springbuck and his men were as surprised as they.

  In time the onslaught stopped, Hightower faced Springbuck as yellow dust settled, and the younger man slowly considered the fact that he was still alive.

  Springbuck pushed himself from the saddle and half-dismounted, half-fell. Sitting there, he wrenched his war mask off with a sigh and threw it from him. Many others did the same, blinking as if awakening from sleep.

  Hightower unhorsed. He offered the Protector-Suzerain a scrap of dampened cloth and Springbuck drew it across his tortured lips, squeezing excess water into his mouth greedily. Only then did the Warlord offer him a short drink from a small skin at his belt. There were other waterskins; Springbuck’s troops thronged to be next to drink.

  “How?” was all Springbuck had the strength to wheeze.

  “Not easily,” conceded Hightower. “Come to your feet and walk a bit. ’Tis improper for a leader to sit about when his men have not been seen to.”

  “It isn’t for this one,” Springbuck husked, in his abused gullet. Still, he let the white-maned hero pull him to his feet.

  The story came in starts and stops as Hightower gave orders for them all to withdraw to Condor’s Roost. He and his few hundred had taken it. He sent a detail to fetch the wounded and bring Gabrielle.

  From his position, the Warlord had looked down at preparations for the sally out of the fortress. As Hightower had known he must, the opposing commander had stripped his command to put together the force he needed. The Warlord had, in preceding days, readied scaling ladders for this time. That confused Springbuck, who’d seen no trees worth the name.

  “Well, I know something of war,” Hightower admitted, “and old ideas sometimes serve.” Using long, stout lances, he and his men had bound up serviceable ladders with climbing ropes and strips of leather cut from empty drinking skins and their own gear. Springbuck later saw one, with cleverly leather-hinged tripods for legs.

  “But still, those walls are so high,” he said.

  “Aye, high and hazardous. But I evened that considerable with another rockslide; it took us days to prepare that. We had long lines on the ladders to steady ’em, but two toppled anyway and I lost men. The walls cost us too; these Baidii are men for a fight, regular razors when they are aroused. Someone was drumming for the men out there on the field to retreat, but they thought it had to do with the fight in front of them, so they kept at it from pride. We took the horses we needed, and here we are. Are you fit to ride now, my Lord?”

  They all rode or limped or carried one another to the fortress. Motionless bodies on the ramparts and in the bailey attested to the heat of the struggle to take Condor’s Roost.

  The Ku-Mor-Mai stayed awake long enough to command that the injured be tended, the dead buried, scouts sent out, guards posted, horses cared for and all the other things that would have been done anyway. There were drinking spigots and troughs, and men crowded by these and waded into them, too weak to rejoice, dousing themselves and gulping reverently. Hightower posted some of his own troops to make sure no one made himself sick.

  Springbuck trudged off, leaving Hightower in charge. He found at last the quarters of the enemy commander, who’d died resisting the Warlord’s sally, and bolted himself into it. It was set off a cool courtyard, shaded and quiet. Water trickled from a fountain into a cool, green basin. He plunged his head in, and his crackled skin ached wonderfully. He drank slowly, then filled a goblet from it. Torpidly, he stripped mail and gambeson, boots, vambraces and sword from his body. Cool air began to lift the reek from his naked skin.

  He lay down on a couch, unclothed to the fragrant breeze that came through the fretwork. With a last sublime sip from the goblet, he fell asleep.

  The lock-bolt slid back softly on its carrier, obeying a disembodied will. The door opened silently on oiled hinges. He flinched awake, sweat covering him, alarm on his face.

  Gabrielle stood there, looking down. She regarded the bruises, cuts and lacerations, his sunburned face and raw, split lips. She studied his eyes in their hollow settings. She drew the sash from her waist and opened the burnoose, shedding her clothes like white plumage.

  He hid his questions from himself and took the moment as it occurred, fearing that if he spoke it would elude him like an evaporating vision.

  She joined him on the couch, for a passage at love that proved their flesh had forgotten nothing. She drew away as much of his pain, healed as much of his suffering as lay within her province to do.

  In time she told him, “I came south with him long ago, Springbuck, when Hightower was all in his prime, and together we strove. From the best motives he presumed to overstep the things the Bright Lady had said we might accomplish. For that he was made blind. Hightower remembers what he and I had between us then as love, and who am I, who owe him so much, to deny it? Yet loyalty and indebtedness are not love; and I understood that when the traps almost took you from me in the Gauntlet.”

  Afterward he slept. She rose, took the billowing robes and left him, closing the door softly after her. Condor’s Roost was aswarm. She found Hightower where he was in conference with subordinates. He saw what had happened from her expression; she discerned no disapproval in his. She stood near him, taking his hand, her head on his arm. They communed unspoken grief.

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Hark! from the tombs a doleful sound

  Isaac Watts

  Hymns II

  EXCEPT for those duties considered indispensable by Hightower, the army rested and tended its wounds for two days. They slept, bathed, ate and slaked their thirsts with as much water as they wanted.

  Condor’s Roost kept a bulging pantry against time of war. They dined on unfamiliar southern dishes; jellied meats, shrimp in sweet syrup, spits of highly garnished goat and dog, and honeyed parrot. Debris was cleared away from the pass to open the way south. There was sufficient manpower to rotate crews frequently, so no man had to work more than an hour or two each day.

  The fortress’ forges came to life, as northern smiths began reshoeing those horses needing it. Gear was being repaired, food and water supplies readied. Springbuck threw himself into preparations, determined to keep the appointment of the Trailingsword. There were now two weeks left in its seven times seven days.

  On the third day following the end of the siege, he was called to the ramparts. Hightower was there, shading his eyes against noon’s punishments; he showed the Ku-Mor-Mai where, at the end of the valley, a column of fours had come riding. An alarm was made. This could as easily be bad news as good.

  When the newcomers were halfway down the valley and the fortress’ walls crowded with its former besiegers, shar
p-eyed watchers began to call the blazonry that was arriving, the snarling tiger’s mask. But there were many others, more soldiers than there’d been in the sundered element. Springbuck directed that the gates be kept closed and the drawbridge up until they had proof that this was no ruse.

  Another device could be seen, a green unicorn. Gabrielle strove to see who was under that flag. The end of the column appeared, the four war-drays of Matloo, and Springbuck’s misgivings began to subside. Another emblem was visible, a raised fist holding a length of broken chain, showing Freegate was there.

  On the open ground outside Condor’s Roost, there were unexpected reunions. Brodur was there right enough; Hightower thumped him on the back like a proud father, for having brought his men through. With the Scabbardless was a haunted Andre deCourteney bearing Blazetongue on his hip, and Reacher, King of Freegate with his sister Katya and Edward Van Duyn and allies in thousands. But it was clear that they’d been through bitter battles.

  Andre saw that Gabrielle already knew the very worst tidings he had for her.

  The arrivals’ formation dissolved rather than being dismissed. They pitched camp in the valley, with the men of Coramonde giving what help and hospitality there was. The newcomers had fought all three of the races who served as military arm to Salamá. Now they rode with Odezat war banners for saddle blankets, and jeweled Baidii daggers or Occhlon scimitars hung from their cantle guards. There were profusions of bright silks covering such armor as they chose to wear. Still, it was clear enough that this was an army in retreat.

  After the disaster of Ibn-al-Yed’s Gauntlet, Brodur had decided, in concert with Drakemirth and Balagon, to skirt the Demon’s Breastwork at its southwest end. He’d sent word of what had happened back to the city of the Yalloroon, then begun a forced march.

  But not all bad luck had come to light by that time. There’d been survivors, apparently, of Hightower’s very first skirmish, and they’d managed to escape to the west. Occhlon and Baidii, massed all through that region to repel the landings they’d expected after losing the Isle of Keys, had made an instant move to throw Coramonde back into the ocean. The ships from Seaguard had stood out to sea, safe for the moment, with the remaining troops and the Yalloroon aboard, and Brodur’s messengers also. There’d been no time to get word back to the Scabbardless.

  The following day, the Mariner fleet had come on the scene, propelled by winds called up by Andre deCourteney. When matters were sorted out, Andre had decided to go on, making his landing nearer the end of the Demon’s Breastwork, where he could rendezvous with Brodur. The vessels from Coramonde were to stay on station off the city of the Yalloroon, in case any part of their army attempted to withdraw in that direction.

  But Occhlon trackers had evidently picked up Brodur’s trail, though he was unaware of them, and the bulk of the southerners had gone after him. The Scabbardless was moving as quickly as he could, not knowing how well or ill the Ku-Mor-Mai had fared beyond the Gauntlet. As he’d neared the end of the Breastwork, his scouts had begun to pick up signs of a Southwastelander ambush. The trap had been directed the other way; Brodur had nearly blundered into it from behind.

  Reacher’s army was coming down from the northeast. The southerners were laying the sort of trap they preferred, built around the water holes and oasis at the end of the Breastwork; strategic ground was of less importance to them than control of water. Reacher, in search of both a way south and water for his army, had been led by the terrain straight into the ambush; even his Horseblooded outriders had failed to discover it. But Brodur had struck from the enemy’s rear, dislodging the Odezat, Salamá’s mercenary divisions, from their positions. The engagement had lasted a day and most of the night, ending in the annihilation of the Odezat and the linking of the two northern armies.

  With that Andre deCourteney had arrived, looking for one ally only to find two. He’d given his news to them, and scouts had confirmed that the major part of Salamá’s army was coming on from the west, with the four or five men for each Crescent Lander.

  With the Horseblooded, Glyffan lancers and other light cavalry buying time and hampering the enemy advance, the allied armies had dashed south, determined to keep the schedule of the Trailingsword, though it had meant letting themselves be bottled up, away from the sea. By the time they’d gotten to Condor’s Roost, their pursuers had been no more than a day behind them; it had cost many lives to win even that little lead.

  As they tallied it all up, assembled in the fortress’ officers’ mess, the various leaders who didn’t know one another came to do so. There were stories ancillary to it, told in brevity, but one that was recounted in full was the fall of the Trustee of Glyffa, illustrating Bey’s increased prepotency and the Masters’ feelings of invulnerability. Gabrielle had already cried all her tears; she listened to it now, unflinching.

  When Andre had done he turned to Swan. The High Constable still wore her white-winged, mirror-bright bascinet, and the blue cape of her office, but her armor had seen so much use and damage that she’d appropriated an Occhlon general’s, a fine suit cut from the scaly skin of a giant wastelands serpent, all sinuous browns and blacks and grays. She rose now, with the Crook of office the Trustee had carried since the old woman’s adepthood, covered with sigils and scrollwork of Power. Swan bowed, and put it into shocked Gabrielle’s hands, saying, “Now the daughter takes up what the mother has bequeathed. Glyffa attends your words, oh Trustee.”

  Gabrielle took it, and it was as if her mother were near. Much of her grief fell away; the Crook felt familiar in her white hands. She looked to Swan, whom she’d never met, but whose name had reached her in her mother’s communications. “I will need all support, to employ this well.”

  Swan clasped her hands behind her back, as was her habit, thinking of all that was left to accomplish both in Glyffa and the Southwastelands. “Your legacy will be human weal, and fulfillment.” A tear caught in the long lashes; she repeated the pronouncement, “And your name will live forever.”

  Gabrielle made no remark, but was willing to wager Swan could play a demanding game of chess; the Trustee had chosen her lieutenant with typical perception. Even Katya, who’d had her frictions with the sorceress, beamed cordial approval.

  Springbuck thought one of the more notable events of the gathering went unnoticed; Balagon and Angorman sat side by side, and if they weren’t overly friendly, at least they had put their animosities to rest. On the weary, perilous ride south, their two sects of warrior-priests had, of necessity, come to the mutual peace of allies. A reconciliation of the two leaders seemed only logical; the two accepted it in the Bright Lady’s name.

  All courses were locked in now. The Ku-Mor-Mai said, “Gathered, we may, at the minimum, have the satisfaction of confronting the Five. But it will only be if we go with greatest haste.”

  Andre replied, “Speak with more hope. The Trailingsword conjoined us in this certain time, under precise circumstances, by the Bright Lady’s ordination. Salamá has much to fear from us, even without the Lifetree. As for their armies, the Occhlon and the others are kept together by fear of the Masters; if we can diffuse the power of the Five, Southwastelander alliances may well unravel.”

  Andre tried to feel as hopeful as he sounded. Reacher had mentioned that phrase the Occhlon general had let slip, the Host of the Grave, but no one recognized it. Hightower thought it might be another name for the huge armed array now following them south, but Andre privately doubted that.

  Van Duyn was considering the news of Gil MacDonald. Somehow that made the scholar feel tired; he’d very much have liked to be back in the Highlands Province, building a life.

  They moved through the pass that evening, after stripping Condor’s Roost of whatever provisions, water, weapons, horses and fodder and feed they could use. Crews worked through the night, reblocking the pass with every rock they could pry loose. Word came down to discard all excess burdens; Mother Desert had taught them her lessons. The first Southwastelander scouts were seen co
ming into the far end of the valley by the last men to come down off the heights.

  In the area they entered there was more greenery, and more water. They cantered along past fields and irrigation ditches, meeting no resistance, but abundant eye-popping. Many workers ran for their lives, but most stared in undisguised astonishment. Defended by Mother Desert, they’d never seen an invading army before, only their own men riding out to serve Salamá.

  The army went quickly, no longer troubled by the hardships of the wastelands. Springbuck kept outriders, mostly prowler-cavalry and Horseblooded, far in advance and wide on either flank, and maintained a well-manned rearguard. They kept strong security when they bivouacked, but no attacks came. The country had been drained of virtually every man able to bear arms. Now it was the very old and very young men, along with the women, who kept life going in the Southwastelands.

  Gabrielle seemed a different woman now. She rode with the Sisters of the Line around her, the Crook of office in hand, conscious of the weight of responsibility that had fallen to her. She kept intimate company with no one now, not the Ku-Mor-Mai or his Warlord either. And when she spoke of Salamá, there was a light in the sorceress’ eye that belonged in a hawk’s.

  Swan kept close, to advise or assist her. The Constable’s horse, cleaned and curried now, was recognizable as Gil MacDonald’s chestnut, Jeb Stuart. Springbuck, who’d heard something of her involvement with his friend, made it a point not to bring the American’s name up, unsure if she thought of him as dead or alive.

  They came to the end of the thriving farmlands in a week, having passed through the eastern corner of them, and entered an untilled, arid stretch, unpopulated and frequented only by the occasional vulture or jackal. Springbuck became nervous, and stepped up his patrol activity.