On foot, the two of them went out the extruding ridge to the rounded brow of the small hill.
Aram gave the big man a few moments to examine the ground and then he spoke. “We must defend this hill, my friend,” he said, “for it can be used as a direct route into our right flank.”
He indicated the rim of the caldera behind them to the south, which continued on around in a gradual curve toward the north. “The wolves will hold that ground – along with a contingent of Captain Matibar’s archers.” He turned away and gazed down the sloping sides of the hill that fell away into the valley. “But our flank must be here.”
Comprehension dawned upon the features of the big man, and this expression of understanding was followed immediately by a posture of grim determination.
He looked at Aram. “This is Wallensia’s task, is it not, my lord – holding this hill?”
Aram nodded as he met Mallet’s eyes. “It is, and it will not be an easy one. It may very well be impossible. But if the enemy were to push you back, or overrun you, he would have direct access to our right flank.” He pointed back toward the main ridge. “And if he gained that ridge, he would roll us up to the west and we could not prevent it.”
He watched the big man’s face for a long, quiet moment.
“Can you hold this hill?” He asked.
Mallet turned in a slow circle, in a careful examination of the ground. He walked over and gazed down into the canyon behind and then returned to study the slopes that fell into the valley ahead.
Finally, he stared at the tower for a while.
Neither man spoke. A cold, restless wind picked up and blew sharply out of the north, feeling as though it came directly off the icy slopes of the mountains beyond the dark valley.
Then, Mallet pivoted to face Aram.
Saying nothing, the big man lifted his lance, Lasherbane, upended it, and drove it deep into the gravelly top of the hill. Then he rose to his full height and met the gaze of his king, the man who had led them here, the man he had sworn to follow into the underearth if required – the man he was convinced was not a man at all, but a god.
“This is my post, my lord,” he told Aram. “You have entrusted it to me, and I will not abandon it. When the enemy comes, whether it be tomorrow, or the next day, or the next, they will find me here and ready for them. And at the end of that day, whether I am alive or whether I am dead – I will be at this post.”
Aram watched him for a long moment.
“Mallet, my old friend –”
“Yes, my lord?”
“Be alive.”
18.
After giving his generals several hours to examine the ground upon which they would deploy their troops and prepare to meet the enemy, Aram sent them back to oversee the task of getting the bulk of the army as close to the chosen battlefield as possible before the end of the day. Then he called in Leorg, Shingka, Padrik, and Goreg, and gave them their orders for the coming day. Afterward, “Patrol this ridge,” he instructed them. “Watch it throughout the night – from the flanks of that western mountain to that upon the east. Do not allow the enemy to surprise us.”
“They will not get past us undiscovered, my lord,” Leorg assured him, and the wolves loped away in small groups to do his bidding, Leorg and Shingka, with Goreg and his kin toward the east, and Padrik and his kin to the west.
Then Aram was left alone upon the ridge as the sun declined toward the horizon. He lifted his gaze from a final examination of the ridge top and looked long at the gleaming black tower of his enemy. He felt certain that the baleful eye of the grim lord was upon him as well at that moment.
“We are here,” he told Thaniel. “What will he do?”
The horse was silent for a time, and then he said, “The grim lord will send forth his power, Aram. What else can he do? Unless he were to come out and face you between the lines, alone, he must attempt to drive this army away. Though he be a god – he and all his minions are now besieged. All his strength is here, and all that of the world is at his door. He will fight. He can do nothing else.”
Aram considered that for a moment, and then nodded. “That is my hope. I cannot help but suspect, however, that he intends mischief which we cannot foresee. Why else would he surrender this ground to us, and give us time – as he apparently intends – to deploy our strength upon it?”
“I do not know the answer to that, Lord Aram, but as to the possibility of mischief?” The horse snorted with contempt. “What can he do to us that you cannot answer? You are stronger, whether you – or he and his forces – know it or not.”
Aram smiled. “Would that I possessed your certainty.”
Thaniel was silent for a moment, and then he said, “You will destroy him, my lord – either upon the morrow, or the next day; whenever he can summon the courage to face you.”
Aram looked around as the thin, cold breeze picked up once more and blew out of the mountains to the north of the valley. “The wolves will patrol this ground throughout the night,” he told the horse. “Let us get out of this wind and camp on the other side, where we might have a fire – if I can discover wood for it in this desolate place.”
They went back up and over the cut and onto the south side of the rim, where Aram found a sheltered ravine and gathered a few sticks of dead brush to make a fire. As he sat near the small flame and ate a cold supper, he looked down upon the valley to the south and saw many fires burning in the night.
How many of those men, he wondered, would be alive to sit by another fire after tomorrow, or perhaps the day beyond that? And would they prevail, once the grim lord sent his thousands out to meet them? Many times, Aram had heard the advice of others – that such thoughts should not trouble a commander – but it was of no use. He could not dismiss the nagging suspicion that there had been a better way to resolve all this.
Perhaps, after all, he should have accepted Manon’s offer to come alone, and settle it between the two of them.
But that “solution”, as Thaniel had stated with such certainty, was most likely a trap.
He shook his head, as if to empty his mind of doubt.
Still, he could not shake the feeling that there was something he had missed. The army had been unopposed, all the way up across the plains. Manon had seemed content to pull in all of his power and wait to be confronted here, as if inviting a siege.
Why?
He could find no good answer to that simple, short question.
Tomorrow, if the grim lord sent his power out to meet them, then, perhaps, he would know.
He pulled his cloak more tightly around him and lay down next to the tiny fire, which even now was burning down to ash. The golden armor would keep him sufficiently warm. The urge for a fire was nothing more than the need to find comfort in the brightness of a flame, small solace in the thick, bitter darkness that covered this part of the world.
He gazed up at the smoky, starless sky for a time and then closed his eyes and thought of Ka’en, and his young daughter.
Would he ever see them again?
The pang of that sentiment turned his thoughts to the Sword. He had discovered – quite without knowing how – a means of controlling its fire. Could he gather enough power from this veiled sun of the north, and hold it in check long enough to blast the god into obscurity from a safe distance?
Manon would no doubt resist the dissolution of his body with all his might, even when pierced by the blade. Could he use the god’s resistance to bodily destruction to find time to flee to a safe distance after driving the Sword into him?
And what was, in fact, a safe distance?
Aram had witnessed the awful result of a god’s dissolution once before. The entire valley atop Kelven’s mountain had been blasted into ruin by the obliteration of that god’s body.
Once wounded, could Manon resist destruction long enough for Aram to run so far? And would he? Or, realizing that his end was upon him, would the god desire to take his destroyer with him into eternity?
Sleep did not come readily.
At times during the night, he would doze off, only to be brought sharply awake, sometimes by the feeling of doom hanging above his head; at others, it would be to thoughts that Ka’en and Mae were in danger, unprotected by him, far off to the southeast. Other times, it was simply the wailing of the wind through the rocks of the barren hillside that startled him to alertness.
The last time he awoke from a short period of slumber, it was to the tramping of boots, coming up the road. In the east, the sky had grown pale with a hint of pink. He got to his feet and located the dark bulk of Thaniel in the gloom.
“It is time to dress you into your armor, my friend.”
“I am ready, Lord Aram,” the horse replied.
After outfitting the horse, Aram also put on his black armor over the golden armor from the mountain. The hood, he left through his belt. For the next several hours, at least, it was more important that he see and hear clearly, especially if Manon sent out his army.
The sound of boots pounding along the road intensified and as the light strengthened, Aram could see the soldiers at the head of the long column, marching four abreast, winding up the long slow curve toward the cut that would bring them to the battlefield.
Aram spoke to Thaniel once more and he and the horse went straight up and over, halting upon the crest to gaze down into the valley. Except for the heights of the tower, the top of which had already found the first rays of the sun, the valley was dark, lost in the shadows of the volcanos and the crater rim to the east.
Padrik came up out of the twilight to his left.
“Anything to report?” He asked the wolf.
“Nothing, master. The enemy did not come onto this slope during the night.”
Aram nodded. “Stay alert. It will take most of the morning for the army to deploy into lines. The enemy may see an opportunity while we are not ready to receive him.” He looked down at the shadowy form of the wolf. “I meant what I told you and your people yesterday – stay off the valley floor.”
“As you wish, master.”
Moments later, Leorg and Shingka appeared from the east to give a similar report. Though Manon obviously knew that they were here, he had not sent any probe toward them.
As he sat upon the ridge awaiting the leading elements of his army, Aram pondered this and spoke his doubts once again to the horse. “Is the grim lord content to have a straight fight – strength against strength, here upon this ground? Has he at last found a measure of honor?”
Thaniel was silent for a moment. Then, “Though I cannot know the mind of Manon, I believe that you are looking at this only from your position, Aram – which is that of a man who thinks that he has driven his enemy to ground. You forget that Manon may want us here, in exactly this place.”
Aram frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Just this – we are all here, all of his enemies. And the grim lord no doubts trusts that his might can overwhelm us, even upon this higher ground,” Thaniel replied. “By allowing us to come to him and gather before his gates, he may think to destroy us all, without having to send his minions to hunt us across the face of the earth. He may be as anxious as you are to resolve the issue once and forever.”
Aram gazed forward as the light strengthened upon the valley floor below, gradually resolving the huts and other buildings surrounding the base of the distant tower. “Do you believe that he can do as you suggest?”
“I do not know Manon’s mind, as I stated, Aram,” Thaniel answered. “I simply relate what is logical.” Then he snorted. “But if, in fact, my belief in his intent is accurate, then he will be sorely disappointed today. The men of the earth will fight – as they have already shown.” He blew another great blast from his nostrils. “Besides that, my friend, you are here with us – and you are stronger than he.”
“He is a god,” Aram reminded him.
“Yes,” the horse agreed, “he is. Still, you are stronger.”
Aram looked to his right as Kavnaugh Berezan and the leading ranks of his half of the strength of Elam spilled through the cut. Officers shouted orders and the soldiers of that great land began swinging around toward the west, tramping across the slope just below where he and Thaniel stood watching them. Every so often along the line there marched a standard bearer. On each pole, the blue and gold of Elam’s flag hung in the second position, beneath the horsehead standard of the king.
Most of them had their heads turned to the right, gazing northward at the dark valley and its massive, gleaming tower. This was their first sight of the wicked place where sisters, cousins, and even daughters had been transported after being yanked from the bosoms of their families. In some of those hearts there burned the hope that – despite what they’d been told by their new High Prince – today might not be just the day of reckoning for him who had stolen those women, but release and freedom for the women as well.
After staring into the valley, many of them looked the other way, up the slope toward the man they had come to know as king, beneath whose standard they now marched. Discovering their monarch’s gaze upon them, several raised a hand in salute. Aram nodded in reply.
For the next hour, Berezan’s forty thousand troops erupted from behind the near wall of the cut, swung left off the road and tramped off toward the west. Marching near the last of them came Donnick, tall and stoic as ever. Saluting Aram briefly, he glanced out toward the valley and then calmly kept on, speaking low every now and then to those who walked near him.
When the front ranks of those troops came up against the rockslide, a mile or more to the west, they turned and began forming up, facing the valley – into which the first rays of morning finally had begun to find their way.
Immediately behind the last ranks of Elam, Boman came through the gap, mounted on Stennar, and then the men of Duridia came through and began to move to the left as well. As Boman’s commanders knew as well as anyone upon the field how to deploy their men in preparation for battle, Boman and Stennar moved away and came up the hill to stand beside Aram and Thaniel. The governor saluted Aram and then peered into the valley.
“He still does not come forth?”
Aram shook his head. “No, Governor, and he is missing an opportunity here while we form our lines – one neither you nor I would let slip by.”
“Perhaps after all, he means for us to come to him,” Boman suggested.
“Perhaps,” Aram agreed, “but I would rather fight here.” He lifted his hand and indicated the distant city that spread out darkly from the base of the even darker tower. “Who knows what machines of war he hides among those buildings? That is a discovery I do not intend to make.”
Boman looked over at him. “And if he doesn’t come out?”
“We will await him here,” Aram replied. “If he does not come today, we will encamp upon the south slope tonight and challenge him again tomorrow.”
Boman hesitated. “Forgive me, my lord, but if he does not come out tomorrow – or the next day, or the next?”
Turning toward the Duridian, Aram met his gaze. “Tell me – what are your thoughts in such an occurrence, Governor?”
Boman shook his head. “You are far more experienced in the matters of war than am I, my lord.”
“Perhaps that is so,” Aram agreed. “Nonetheless, I trust your judgment. It was not an idle question.” He looked back toward the valley. “If he does not come out – if he never comes out – what do we do?”
Boman swept his gaze back and forth across the valley between their position and the massive city sprawling at the base of the tower. “We could test his resolve to stay in place,” he said. “Send in Wamlak’s mounted archers, close enough to launch some darts among his troops.
They might inflict some damage upon him and because they are mounted they will find it easier to fall back quickly should he begin to move forward.”
Aram considered that for a moment and then nodded. “It may be that we can do something to entice him to come out. I do not want to face him upon ground that he has prepared. The grim lord is powerful and exceedingly wicked – I do not doubt that there are some nasty surprises hidden in that city.”
They sat in silence while Boman’s men continued to pour rapidly through the gap and form lines of battle to their front. The right wing of that line extended eastward from Berezan’s right flank and moved ever nearer the road as the stolid southerners marched leftward and then wheeled into place, facing the dark valley below.
The governor examined his troops, which by now stretched across the slope in front of them and nearly touched the gleaming pavement of the road. He looked over at Aram. “I should see to my commanders,” he said.
At that moment, the sun, though veiled by the ever-present smoke and haze, fell full upon the valley. Boman leaned forward, squinting through the growing light. Lifting his hand, he pointed.
“Maybe, after all, he means to come,” he said.
Aram narrowed his eyes and squinted at the distant city. Instantly, he realized that the governor saw correctly. The dark line that had stood before the city on the previous day had formed once more and slowly, inexorably, distance was opening up between that line and the mass of stone structures behind it.
Manon, after all, was coming forth to meet them.
Aram looked to his right, where the last of Duridia had come through the gap and formed up, their right flank almost touching the road. Mallet and his Wallensians were marching through, swinging off the road to the right and toward the top of the distant rounded hill. The big man was marching along with his troops, with Markris the horse that he usually rode keeping time alongside the column. The fierce Jonwood rode Colrad at the head.
The Wallensians were through in less than half an hour, and then Olyeg Kraine and his half of Elam’s forces began spilling out of the cut and following Mallet and his band toward the east. Like all those that came before, the marching troops turned their heads as one and gazed down upon the dark valley of the foe. Kraine looked over, raised his hand in a quick salute to Aram and then continued to move eastward with his men, determined to form up quickly and with good order.
Kelven's Riddle Book Five Page 18
