by Roger Taylor
Both he and Arinndier had protested this, but Yatsu had overridden them. ‘You’re too old and too impor-tant,’ he had said unequivocally. When Eldric had leaned forward angrily, the Goraidin’s eyes had widened as if he had just been confronted by an insolent cadet. ‘There’ll be no debate,’ he said. ‘You’ll have a body-guard.’ As a small concession, he added, ‘It’ll make the men feel easier.’
Now he was glad of it. He was too old for this kind of butchery. Old faces and old memories rode alongside him, and knowledge of consequences rode at his heels.
A hand clutched at his bridle. It was a pleading hand, he knew, but he slashed at it and both saw and felt it separate from its arm. There was an animal squeal and it was gone, into the bloody melee underneath the advancing squadron.
What had you crafted with that hand? he thought. What music had you made, or loved one’s hair caressed? A massive rage welled up inside him. A selfish rage, he knew. I will grind you under the hooves of my horses for bringing me to this again, you abomination!
A spear struck his cuirass. It was a timely reminder that here only the needs of the moment existed. His left hand reflexively seized its shaft and his right hand brought his sword down savagely across the extended arms that held it; this time there was no regret.
He raised the spear high above his head and turned to his men.
‘Oklar!’ he roared. ‘To Oklar. For Rgoric and Fyor-lund. Death to the Uhriel.’
The cry sounded above the screaming and shouting and was taken up by the rest of the squadron.
Dan-Tor heard the distant cry. Darkness welled up inside him as it had in Eldric.
You shall have Oklar before this day is out, he thought savagely. Though it cost me this body.
‘The right wing holds, Ffyrst. We’ll have them yet.’ Urssain’s voice cut through Dan-Tor’s black intent. Turning away from the mayhem being wrought by Eldric’s cavalry he saw that the right wing was indeed holding. Meticulously it had wheeled around to assault the rear of the phalanx and it had maintained both its advance and its formation despite a charge from the defending light cavalry led by Darek and Hreldar.
As they had neared, it had become apparent that the Militia, with Aelang’s Mathidrin at their backs, were not going to break, and the two Lords had veered the squadron away from the bristling rows of spears at the last moment, before their horses did it for them.
Now the Militia had closed with the line that the rearguard infantry had hastily formed, and bitter hand to hand fighting had begun in which the Lords’ infantry were being pressed relentlessly backward. Hreldar and Darek’s cavalry could do little more than skirmish on the well-defended flanks of the advancing enemy.
Dan-Tor’s attention moved from left to right. The wedge of heavy cavalry was moving relentlessly nearer, Eldric at their head, like retribution itself. As he looked at the ordered horsemen, Dan-Tor had a brief vision of Sylvriss laughing.
Yet their progress was being slowed by the panick-ing masses fighting to escape both them and the advancing pikes of the phalanx, while the rear of the phalanx was showing signs of disarray as their own defending infantry was pushed back into them. The long pike was of little value as an individual weapon and the phalanx depended totally on its close formation for its effectiveness. If this were broken by rear or flank attack then the whole phalanx could be disrupted, and the Lords’ army would fall to the superior numbers of their enemy.
The battle hung in the balance.
* * * *
Down the aisles between Dan-Tor’s workshops, Idrace and Fel-Astian were running frantically, their faces desperate with fear and effort. The four Mathidrin were running with them, quite willing to accept their judgement in the matter they had just set in motion.
* * * *
Dan-Tor debated, the din of battle washing around his cold heart. The clash of arms, the shouts of fury and terror, the screams of men and horses; ancient sounds. These creatures learn His lessons well, he mused. But the thought was transient; his predominant concern was whether the phalanx would be broken before the panic set in train by Eldric’s cavalry spread through the whole army.
He looked again at the two main arenas of the battle.
It was too close a calculation.
He could not risk defeat. To lose so much so easily was unthinkable, and yet… it was possible.
Slowly, a dreadful resolve formed. He must use the Old Power. It would not take overmuch to smash the weakening rear of the phalanx and ensure victory for his army.
The decision brought an unexpected clamour of thoughts in its wake. Hawklan? Would the terrible Guardian be awakened? Then, the remembrance that Hawklan could not be Ethriss. And in any event, the green-eyed abomination was not on the field. He would have felt the presence of Ethriss’s sword had he been. But the pain? The damage to his body? Such a modest use would be unlikely to kill him, but would it plunge him back into the darkness again?
A tiny spark flickered deep inside him, guttering remnant of a fire he had thought long doused. Your men face pain and death for you, how can you not share their lot? How can you, their leader, offer less than they?
He recoiled inwardly from this untimely reminder of his erstwhile kingly humanity. The pain and the hurt would have to be borne because they would be as naught compared to His wrath if Fyorlund were lost.
Yet, men must face men. His own words returned briefly to mock him in some way that he could not immediately fathom. No, it must be.
Closing his eyes, Oklar reached deep into his ancient skills and gathered his power. This must be finely judged. He prepared his entire being for the impact that he must both deliver and receive.
* * * *
A thunderous concussion shook the battlefield.
Dan-Tor opened his eyes in shock. For an instant, his shadow spread out in front of him as though the sun were at his back; yet it shone still in his eyes. He felt Urssain turning and heard him gasp.
Imitating the action of his acolyte, Dan-Tor turned and looked upwards. Rising above the City was a brilliant, whirling mass of white incandescence, borne upwards on a column of smoke shot through with roaring flames.
For a moment, his mind refused to function, then: the workshops! His great warehouse! Who could have known the purpose of what was stored there?
Hawklan! It could only be he. The demon had sur-vived! And once more he had reached silently into the heart of his enemy’s domain to strike at him. Briefly the horrible rage of Oklar’s dark soul transfigured Dan-Tor’s face, though none saw it, all eyes being on the prodigy now dominating the sky above the City.
The glowing mass rose higher and higher, and the battle faltered, its terrible hubbub submerged momen-tarily beneath the awesome roar of the blazing column that seemed to be clawing at the sky as if to retrieve this escaping new sun.
Then…
‘They’re at our back.’ The thought welled up from the defending army and was given voice by Urssain.
Dan-Tor spun round, back to the now strangely silent battlefield, still illuminated by the funeral pyre of his years of corruption.
The balance tilted.
Those lines of Militia that were so far undisturbed, broke utterly and the Mathidrin lines wavered omi-nously. Eldric’s cavalry recovered and surged forward again through the now rapidly thinning ranks, and with renewed heart, the rearguard of the phalanx started to move forward.
Then a sudden charge from Hreldar and Darek’s cavalry broke the infantry protecting the flank of Aelang’s Mathidrin.
The battle was abruptly a rout.
Dan-Tor felt the reins of his power not so much slipping as being torn from him. The Old Power could not now change the outcome of this battle without surely destroying his mortal frame. Men must face men.
The faces of Hawklan and Rgoric and Sylvriss came unbidden into his mind, enigmatic, triumphant and mocking in turn. The cries of ‘Death to the Uhriel’ floated to him on the terrible screaming tide of his fleeing army.
H
e turned to Urssain. ‘Withdraw the Mathidrin,’ he said coldly. ‘We retreat to Narsindalvak.’
Chapter 35
Eldric sat alone in the small antechamber. In a few moments he must go the Geadrol and begin the long telling of all that had happened since the King had suspended it.
Under the Law, Eldric could have declared himself Ffyrst and legitimately sustained himself thus by force of arms against any who chose to oppose him, especially in the light of Rgoric’s last command and his holding of the King’s Iron Ring. Indeed, he had given the thought some consideration after he had begun to get some measure of the harm Dan-Tor had wrought to the many institutions of Fyorlund. It was, however, only a fleeting consideration and following it he had simply convened the Geadrol in the traditional manner.
‘I didn’t help launch this country into civil war to replace one tyrant with another,’ he said, when Dilrap and Darek had explained his rights to him. ‘I amp;mdashwe all amp;mdashhave enough guilt to bear as it is. Besides, I know no other way than the Geadrol. It’s a way that contains a wisdom that’s beyond us all. Look how we fared when it was gone.’ It was a difficult argument to refute. ‘We must debate and decide our futures together, and in the sight of the people.’
And, in quiet moments such as this, it was guilt that dominated Eldric’s thoughts. Even the victory could not truly be celebrated. It was some consolation that by virtue of their discipline, few of the High Guards had fallen in the battle, but many of the Militia had died or been dreadfully wounded, not least when the High Guards had tried to get through their rout to engage the retreating Mathidrin.
‘They’re Fyordyn, all of them,’ Eldric had said, as he had walked through the lines of smashed and broken dead during the awful cleansing of the battlefield. ‘Led astray in their weakness, just as we were. They deserved better than this.’
And Dan-Tor had escaped, fleeing at great speed while the Mathidrin had retreated, for the most part, in good order, fighting a ferocious rearguard action. After a few hours of cautious pursuit, Eldric had judged that the cost of attempting to capture Dan-Tor or even break the Mathidrin would be too high and, leaving an extended picket line to warn against an unexpected return by the enemy, he had turned his cavalry back to Vakloss.
Then there had been that brief but appalling spasm of private vengeance-taking, as citizens, hitherto silent, had turned on Militia members and others that they knew, or believed, had supported Dan-Tor’s regime. That, Eldric had crushed with force of arms.
‘Any retribution to be meted out will be done in accordance with the Law,’ he said with a frighteningly cold menace in his voice when incidents were reported to him. ‘That same Law will be brought to bear on anyone who thinks otherwise. Better Dan-Tor than an unfettered mob.’
His hand idly fingered the elaborate carving that decorated the arm of his chair. Many problems vexed him. Some were difficult and painful such as what was to be done with those who had co-operated with Dan-Tor? There were many shades of guilt and mitigation there, from that of Lords such as Valen and Shalmson to that of the ordinary traders and public servants who serviced the regime. And indeed, what of the guilt of inaction to be borne by the majority? Many shades.
Other problems were frightening in their implica-tions, high among these being the strange materials that Dan-Tor had launched against the phalanx and that Yatsu and the Goraidin with the aid of Idrace and Fel-Astian had fired in the warehouse. Involuntarily Eldric shuddered at the memory of both, and at Yatsu’s simple comment. ‘If he’d used catapults… ’
Shaking his head, he stood up and took the sword belt which was hanging from the back of his chair. As he fastened it around himself his mind became quieter. We will discuss all these matters in the Geadrol, he thought. I am not alone, nor ever have been. And we are all the wiser for these dreadful events. Let us have openness and honesty above all things. Only in the truth can we begin to understand, and only in understanding can come the forgiveness that will unify our country again and prepare us to face the real enemy.
Dilrap and the City Rede were working to re-establish the many offices of government and the Law that had been swept aside by Dan-Tor. The army had brought order back to Vakloss and was now searching out pockets of Mathidrin resistance in the more distant estates. The Goraidin were studying the ways of the Militia and the Mathidrin and watching the approaches to Narsindalvak. And Arinndier and Jaldaric were riding to Orthlund, to Anderras Darion, to tell the Orthlundyn of what had befallen, and perhaps to hear news of Hawklan himself.
Unexpectedly, at the thought of Hawklan, Eldric’s calm faltered. He did not understand how it had come about, but he knew that it was Hawklan who had bound Oklar. But Hawklan was now strangely ill, while Oklar lived, and, bound or no, had put a powerful army into the field. And if Oklar roamed free, what of the other Uhriel: Creost and Dar Hastuin? And above all, what of Him, Sumeral, brooding in the cold wastes of Narsindal…?
Eldric swayed, and put his hand to his head.
I cannot carry…
But even as the thoughts formed, others came, like flank riders, to support him. Rgoric, rising anew after twenty years under Dan-Tor’s hand; Sylvriss, riding free towards Riddin and carrying Rgoric’s heir; Hawklan and Isloman, messengers from Orthlund, stepping out of mist-choked gloom on their way to expose and confront Oklar; the Goraidin, watching and acting where others had failed; Dilrap amp;mdashfunny, dithering Dilrap, perhaps the bravest of all, strewing Oklar’s path with confusion while reporting his every deed to Lorac and Tel-Odrel; even Idrace and Fel-Astian, returning from Orthlund to fight their own war alone, wandering the countryside as labourers, watching and learning until finally they came to work at the heart of Dan-Tor’s corruption. And what chance had brought them and the Goraidin together to turn what would have been diversionary fires into a monstrous conflagration which had tilted the whole battle?
I am not alone, nor ever have been, Eldric thought again and, straightening his formal tunic, he strode forward and threw open the carved wooden doors of the antechamber.
All eyes in the crowded, but silent, debating hall turned towards him.
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