Circle Series 4-in-1

by Ted Dekker

  The Forest Guard rode hard, jaws clenched, swords still lowered by their legs, easy in their hands.

  Thomas veered to the right, transferred his sword to his left hand, and raked it along the breasts of three Scabs before blocking the first sickle that compensated for his sudden change in direction.

  The lines of horses collided. His fighters screamed, thrusting and parrying and beheading with a practiced frenzy. A pale horse fell directly in front of Thomas, and he glanced over to see that Mikil had lost her sword in its rider’s side.

  “Mikil!” With her forearm, she blocked a nasty swipe from a monstrous Scab sword and twisted in her saddle. Thomas ripped at the cords that held his second scabbard and hurled it to her, sword and all. She caught it, whipped the blade out, twirled it once through the air and swung downward at a charging foot soldier.

  Thomas deflected a swinging sickle as it sliced for his head, jumped his stallion over the dying horse, and whirled to meet the attacker.

  The battle found its rhythm. On every side blades broad and narrow, short and long, swung, parried, blocked, swiped, sliced. Blood and sweat soaked man and beast. The terrible din of battle filled the canyon. Wails and cries and snorts and moans of death rose to the sky.

  So did the battle cries of one thousand highly trained warriors facing an endless reservoir of skillful Scabs.

  Not three years ago, under the guidance of Qurong, the Horde’s cavalry never failed to suffer huge losses. Now, under the direct command of their young general, Martyn, they weren’t dying without a fight.

  A tall Scab whose hood had slipped off his head snarled and lunged his mount directly into Thomas’s path. The horses collided and reared, kicking at the air. With a flip of his wrist, Thomas unleashed his whip and cracked it against the Scab’s head. The man screamed and threw an arm up. Thomas thrust his sword at the man’s exposed side, felt it sink deep, then wrenched it free just as a foot soldier swung a club at him from behind. He leaned far to his right and slashed backward with his sword. The warrior crumpled, headless.

  The battle raged for ten minutes in the Forest Guard’s unquestioned favor. But with so many blades swinging through the air, some were bound to find the exposed flesh of Thomas’s men or the flanks of their horses.

  The Forest Guard began to fall.

  Thomas sensed it as much as saw it. Two. Four. Then ten, twenty, forty. More.

  Thomas broke form and galloped down the line. The obstruction from fallen horses and men was enough. To his alarm he saw that more of his men had fallen than he’d first thought. He had to get them back!

  He snatched up the horn at his belt and blasted the signal for retreat. Immediately his men fled, on horse, on foot, sprinting past him as if they’d been firmly defeated.

  Thomas held his horse steady for a moment. The Scabs, hardly used to such wholesale retreat, paused, apparently confused by the sudden turn of events.

  As planned.

  The number of his men among the dead, however, was not planned. Maybe two hundred!

  For the first time that day, Thomas felt the razored finger of panic slice across his chest. He whirled his horse and tore after his fighters.

  He cleared the line of boulders in one long bound, slipped from his horse, and dropped to one knee in time to see the first barrage of arrows from the cliff arc silently into the Horde.

  Now a new kind of chaos ensued. Horses reared and Scabs screamed and the dead piled high where they fell. The Horde army was temporarily trapped by a dam made of its own warriors.

  “Our losses are high,” Mikil said beside him, breathing hard. “Three hundred.”

  “Three hundred!” He looked at his second. Her face was red with blood and her eyes shone with an unusual glare of defiance. Fatalism. “We’ll need more than bodies and boulders to hold them back,” she said. She spit to the side.

  Thomas scanned the cliffs. The archers were still sending arrows down onto the trapped army. As soon as the enemy cleared the bodies and marched fresh horses up, twenty catapults along each cliff would begin to shower the Horde with boulders.

  Then it would begin again. Another head-on attack by Thomas, followed by more arrows, followed by more boulders. He quickly did the math. At this rate they might be able to hold off the army for five rounds.

  Mikil voiced his thoughts. “Even if we hold them off until nightfall, they’ll march over us tomorrow.”

  The sky cleared of arrows. Boulders began to fall. Thomas had been working on the counterweight catapults for years without perfecting them. They were still useless on flat ground, but they did heave big rocks far enough over a cliff to make good use of gravity. Two-foot boulders made terrible projectiles.

  A dull thump preceded the ground’s tremor.

  “It won’t be enough,” Mikil said. “We’d have to bring the whole cliff down on them.”

  “We need to slow the pace!” Thomas said. “Next time on foot only, and draw the battle out by withdrawing quickly. Pass the word. Fight defensively!”

  The boulders stopped falling and the Horde cleared more bodies. Thomas led his fighters in another frontal assault twenty minutes later.

  This time they played with the enemy, using the Marduk fighting method that Rachelle and Thomas had developed and perfected over the years. It was a refinement of the aerial combat that Tanis had practiced in the colored forest. The Forest Guard knew it well and could play with a dozen Scabs under the right circumstances.

  But here in crowded quarters with so many bodies and blades, their mobility was limited. They fought hard for thirty minutes and killed nearly a thousand.

  This time they lost half of their force.

  At this rate the Horde would be through their lines in an hour. The Desert Dwellers would stop for the night as was their custom, but Mikil was right. Even if the Guard could hold them off that long, Thomas’s warriors would be finished in the morning. The Horde would reach his undefended Middle Forest in under one day. Rachelle. The children. Thirty thousand defenseless civilians would be slaughtered.

  Thomas searched the cliffs. Elyon, give me strength. The chill he’d felt earlier was spreading to his shoulders.

  “Bring up the reinforcements!” he snapped. “Gerard, your command. Keep them on that line, by whatever means. Watch the cliff for signals. Coordinate the attacks.” He tossed the lieutenant the ram’s horn. “Elyon’s strength,” he said, holding up his fist.

  Gerard caught the horn. “Elyon’s strength. Count on me, sir.”

  “I am. You have no idea how much I am.” Thomas turned to Mikil. “With me.” They swung into their horses and pounded down the canyon.

  His second followed him without question. He led her up a small hill and then doubled back along the path toward an overlook near the top.

  The battlefield stretched out to their right. His archers were raining arrows down on the Scabs again. The dead were piled high. To see the Horde’s front lines, an observer might think that the Forest Guard was routing the enemy. But a quick look down the canyon told a different story.

  Thousands upon thousands upon thousands of hooded warriors waited in an eerie silence. This was a battle of attrition.

  This was a battle that could not be won.

  “Any word from the three parties to the north?” Thomas asked.

  “No. Let’s pray they haven’t broken through.”

  “They won’t.”

  Thomas dismounted and studied the cliffs.

  Mikil nudged her horse forward, then brought it snorting around.

  “Yes, I know you’re impatient, Mikil.” There was something about the cliffs that bothered Thomas. “You’re wondering if I’ve gone mad; is that it? My men are dying in a final battle and I’ve dismounted to watch it all.”

  “I’m worried about Jamous. What’s your plan?”

  “Jamous can take care of himself.”

  “Jamous is in retreat! He would never retreat. What’s your plan?”

  “I don’t have a plan.”
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  “If you don’t come up with one soon, you may never plan again,” she said.

  “I know, Mikil.” He paced.

  Mikil spit again. “We can’t just sit here—”

  “I’m not just sitting here!” Thomas faced her, suddenly furious and knowing he had no right to be. Not at her.

  “I am thinking! You should start thinking!” He thrust an arm out toward the Horde now being pounded by boulders again. “Look out there and tell me what could possibly stop such a monstrous army! Who do you think I am? Elyon? Can I clap my hands and make these cliffs crush—”

  Thomas stopped.

  “What?” Mikil demanded. She glanced around for an enemy, sword in hand.

  Thomas spun toward the valley. “What was it you said earlier?”

  “What? That you should be with your men?”

  “No! The cliffs. You said we’d have to bring the whole cliff down on them.”

  “Yes, but we might as well try to bring the sun down on them.”

  It was an insane thought.

  “What is it?” she demanded again.

  “What if there was a way to bring the cliff—”

  “There isn’t. ”

  He ran to the edge. “But if ! If we could bring down the canyon walls near their rear, we could box them in, bring them down here, and we would trap them for an easy slaughter from above.”

  “What do you want to do, heat the whole cliff with a giant fire and empty the contents of the lake on it so that it cracks?”

  He ignored her. It was reckless, but then so was doing nothing.

  “There’s a fault along the cliff there. Do you see it?”

  He pointed and she looked.

  “So there’s a fault. I still don’t see how—”

  “Of course you don’t! But if we could, would it work?”

  “If you could clap your hands and bring down the cliff on them, then I’d say we have a chance of sending every last one of the Scabs to the black forest where they belong.”

  A battle cry filled the canyon. Gerard was leading his newly reinforced ranks into the battle again.

  “How long do you think we can hold them?” Thomas demanded.

  “Another hour. Maybe two.”

  Thomas paced and muttered under his breath. “That may not be enough!”

  “Sir, please. You have to tell me what’s going on. There’s a reason I’m your second in command. If you can’t, I am needed back on the battlefield.”

  “There was once a way to bring a cliff like this down. It was a long time ago, written about in the Books of Histories. Very few remember, but I do.”

  “And?”

  Exactly. And what?

  “I think it was called an explosion. A large ball of fire with tremendous strength. What if we could figure out how to cause an explosion?”

  She looked at him with a wrinkled brow.

  “There was a time when I could get specific information about the histories. What if I could retrieve specific information on how to cause an explosion?”

  “That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard! We’re in the middle of a battle here. You expect to go on some kind of expedition to find information on the histories? You have battle fatigue!”

  “No, not an expedition. I’m not sure it would even work. I’ve taken the fruit so long.” The idea swelled in his mind and with it an excitement. “It would be the first time in fifteen years I haven’t eaten the fruit. What if I can still dream?”

  She stared at him as if he’d gone mad. Below them the battle still raged.

  “I would need to sleep; that’s the only problem.” He paced, eager for this idea now. “What if I can’t sleep?”

  “Sleep? You want to sleep? Now?”

  “Dream!” he said, fist clenched. “I need to dream. I could dream as I used to and learn how to blow this cliff down!”

  Mikil had been struck dumb.

  “Do you have a better idea?” he asked forcefully.

  “Not yet,” she managed.

  What if he couldn’t dream? What if the rhambutan required several days to wear off?

  Thomas faced the canyon. He glanced at the far cliff, its fault line clear where the milky white rock turned red. In two hours all of his men would be dead.

  But if he did have an explosive . . .

  Thomas bounded for his horse and swung into the saddle.

  “Thomas!”

  “Follow me!”

  She followed at a gallop up the path to the cliff ’s lip. He swept past the first post and yelled at a full run.

  “Delay them! Do whatever you must, but hold them until dark. I have a way.”

  “Thomas! What way?” came the cry.

  “Just hold them!” And then he was past.

  Do you have a way, Thomas?

  He ran all the way down the line of archers and catapult teams, passing encouragement to each battery. “Hold them! Hold them till dark! Slow the pace. We have a way. If you hold them until dark, we have a way!”

  Mikil said nothing.

  When they passed the last catapult, Thomas pulled up.

  “I’m with you only because you’ve saved my life a dozen times and I’ve sworn my own to you,” Mikil said. “I hope you know that.”

  “Follow me.”

  He led her behind an outcropping of boulders and looked around. Good enough. He dismounted.

  “What are we doing here?” she asked.

  “We’re dismounting.” He found a rock the size of his fist and weighed it in one hand. As much as he disliked the thought of being hit in the head, he saw no alternative. There was no way he could fall asleep on his own. Not with so much adrenaline coursing through his veins.

  “Here you go. I want you to knock me on the head. I need to sleep, but that’s not going to happen, so you have to knock me unconscious.”

  She looked around uncomfortably. “Sir—”

  “Knock me out! That’s an order. And hit me hard enough to do the job on the first try. Once I’m out, wake me up in ten minutes. Do you understand?”

  “Ten minutes is enough to retrieve what you need?”

  He stared at her, struck by the sound of the questions.

  “Listen to me,” she said. “You’ve turned me into a lunatic. The Horde’s druids might practice their magic, but when have we ever? Never! This is like their magic.”

  True enough. The Horde druids were rumored to practice a magic that healed and deceived at once. Thomas had never seen either. Some said that Justin practiced the way of the druids.

  “Ten minutes. Say it.”

  “Yes, of course. Ten minutes.”

  “Then hit me.”

  She stepped forward. “You really—”

  “Hit me!”

  Mikil swung the rock.

  Thomas blocked the blow.

  “What are you doing?” she demanded.

  “Sorry. It was reflex. I’ll close my eyes this time.”

  He closed his eyes.

  His head exploded with light.

  His world faded to black.

  4

  THOMAS HUNTER awoke in perfect stillness, and he knew three things before his heart had completed its first heavy beat.

  One, he knew that he wasn’t the same man who’d fallen asleep just nine hours ago. He’d lived fifteen years in another reality and had been transformed by new knowledge and skills.

  Two, none of those skills, unfortunately, included surviving a bullet to the head, as was once the case.

  Three, there was a bullet in the barrel of the gun that at this very moment pressed lightly against his head.

  He kept his eyes shut and his body limp. His head throbbed from Mikil’s blow. His mind raced. Panic.

  No, not panic. How many times had he faced death over the last fifteen years? Even here, in this dream world, he’d been shot twice in the last week, and each time he’d been healed by Elyon’s water.

  But this time there was no healing water. It had disapp
eared with the colored forest fifteen years ago.

  A soft, low whisper filled his ear. “Good-bye, Mr. Hunter.”

  Carlos Missirian let the last satisfying moment linger. A line from a movie he’d once seen drummed through his mind.

  Dodge this.

  Yes, Mr. Hunter, just try to dodge this. He tightened his finger on the trigger.

  Hunter’s body jerked.

  For a split second, Carlos thought he’d shot the gun and sent a bullet through the man’s brain, which explained Hunter’s sudden jerk.

  But there had been no detonation.

  And his gun was flying across the room.

  And his wrist stung.

  In one horrifying moment of enlightenment, Carlos saw that Thomas Hunter had slapped the gun from his hand and was now rolling away from him, far too quickly for any ordinary man.

  Nothing of this kind had ever happened to Carlos. It confused him. There was something very wrong about this man who seemed to retrieve information and skills from his dreams at will. If Carlos were a mystic, as his mother was, he might be tempted to think Hunter was a demon.

  The man came to his feet and faced Carlos on the opposite side of the bed. He had no weapon and wore only boxer shorts. He was bleeding from a fresh cut on his forearm that Carlos hadn’t put there. Curious. Perhaps that explained the blood on the sheets.

  Carlos withdrew his knife. Ordinarily his next course of action would be straightforward. He would either bear down on the unarmed man and slash his abdomen or neck, whichever presented itself, or he’d send the knife flying from where he stood. Despite the ease with which actors knocked aside hurling blades in the movies, deflecting a well-thrown stiletto in real combat wasn’t an easy task.

  But Hunter wasn’t an ordinary man.

  They faced off, both cautious.

  It occurred to Carlos that Thomas had changed. Physically he was the same man with the same loose brown hair and green eyes, the same strong jaw and steady hands, the same muscled chest and abdomen. But he carried himself differently now, with a simple, unshakable confidence. He stood tall, hands loose at his sides. Hunter watched Carlos with unwavering eyes, the way a man might look at a challenging mathematics equation rather than a threatening foe.