He reached the north wing. Off to his left he heard shouts and the clash of arms and then the unmistakable booming of Magister Banshau's wrath. 'Oracle!' he cried to himself, then set off at a run.
The corridor widened into an antechamber just before the door that led into the laboratory. A hasty barricade of furniture blocked the hallway, a group of hooded killers and Zr'gsz defending it against a squad of Household Guard. The door into the laboratory had been broken down but the Wirixer mage, totally naked and clumsily wielding a paddle used to stir Oracle's nutrient slop, prevented their entry. A low caste Hisser, back broken by a blow from the paddle, lay kicking at his feet like a dog run down by a carriage.
Even as Fost watched, a Vridzish spearman sank his weapon deep into Banshau's vast belly. The killers swarmed into the laboratory.
A lithe, naked figure vaulted the barricade, steel flashing in both hands. A Hisser swung on Ensign Cheidro with a mace. With a speed scarcely less than a Zr'gsz's, Cheidro whipped his blades into a defensive cross, caught the mace and sent it spinning away with a deft twist. His rapier licked out and killed the Vridzish. Fost hurtled the barricade, joined the effeminate Life Guard, helping him clear the enemies remaining in the antechamber.
'You're well named, Longstrider,' Cheidro said in an unruffled nasal drawl. 'That was quite a leap.'
Fost smiled. Some of the Household Guards, encumbered by heavy armor, had finally struggled over the barrier. They charged into the laboratory.
The unarmed and untrained sages tending Oracle had died under the Zr'gsz onslaught, but none before impeding the headlong rush for a few brief instants. Their deaths allowed Fost, Cheidro and the Household Guards to burst among the intruders like a bomb.
Fost sighted Zak'zar and made for him. A black steel sword in hand, the Speaker of the People had engaged one of the Household Guard when three more rushed him, shortswords poised for the kill. He pursed his lips and blew. Black vapor issued forth. The inky cloud swept over the three. They screamed as the flesh festered and fell from their faces in black gangrenous lumps. They collapsed as their bodies rotted inside their armor. The Guardsman Zak'zar duelled gaped in horror. The Speaker hacked him down.
'Beware the cloud!' cried Fost to the men behind him. Zak'zar turned to Oracle. With a feeling of fatalism, Fost hurled himself at the handsome Vridzish.
Spitting a curse in his own tongue, Zak'zar swung back to meet the attack. 'So you've chosen this way to die, Longstrider?' He grinned. Zak'zar dodged with impressive speed as Cheidro hacked at him. 'Perhaps you'll do the dying, friend,' said the young ensign.
By unspoken consent, Fost and Cheidro separated to attack the Vridzish from two sides. Zak'zar took a cautious step backward. The spur on his left foot found only empty air.
'You gentlemen have the tactical advantage. Make of it what you may!'
Fost and Cheidro attacked. In a prolonged contest, a human had the advantage over a Zr'gsz; the lizard men were quicker but lacked staying power. Zak'zar was obviously exceptional in more than his command of man-speech. Fost felt his reactions slowing, though the fury of the Vridzish's defense did not flag. A sudden slash opened a long gash down the left side of his chest, and Fost knew that the fatigue lag in his reflexes and Cheidro's would hand the Zr'gsz both their lives. The Hisser's grin showed he knew too.
The door to the north side of the room caved inward, riding a yellow fireball. Masked men ran to bar the way, only to fall like grain before a scythe as Foedan of Kolnith hewed his way through using a huge sword.
Zak'zar's blade slowed to visibility as he glanced toward the flash and thunderclap. Cheidro's rapier pinioned his right shoulder. Tearing the blade free in a welter of blood and a horrid sound of snapping sinew, the Zr'gsz wheeled and sheared through the young ensign's face.
Reversing the longsword in his claws, he raised his arms into the unprotected swell of Oracle's flank. The hilt of the sword abruptly turned incandescent. Fost heard the sizzle and smelled the stench of frying flesh. With an explosive hiss, Zak'zar dropped the weapon and jumped back. He blew his black breath. Moriana dismissed it with a wave of her hand.
She made a quick sweep of her fingers and a semicircle of blue flame crackled and roared to the height of a tall man's head. The Zr'gsz was trapped.
'Have you anything to say before you fry, serpent man?' she called.
His hair smouldering from the nearness of flames, his right shoulder a torn and gaping ruin, Zak'zar showed sharp teeth in a smile.
'This round goes to you, Lady. But we shall meet again quite soon, and I believe I can promise a different outcome!'
'Meet again?' Her fine features showed disbelief. 'Not unless they've integrated Hell!'
'I'm not due there for quite a while, yet. It may be that you will precede me, unless your pitiful friends manage to defeat the army of the People that even now prepares to cross the River Marchant!'
The listeners gasped. Fost's face stung with the infernal heat of the flame. He marvelled that Zak'zar endured them so calmly. 'An army! Where would you get the men?' Moriana asked.
'Haven't you divined that? It is an army of the Children of Expectation. Since our exile from the City in the Sky, entire generations have grown to adulthood and then entered hibernation in vast crypts beneath Thendrun, waiting for the day we'd meet you in battle. I number myself among them, Your Highness. I have waited six thousand years for the day of final victory.'
'You won't live to see it!' screamed Moriana. She flung forth her hands. The flames devoured the wall.
Before the hungry blue tongues reached Zak'zar, the Speaker disappeared. There was a sharp crack! as air rushed to the space he had vacated. Then the only sounds were the disappointed clucking of the flames, and the moans of wounded men.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
'It seems we've been through this before,' Ziore remarked, looking down at the armies spread out at the foot of the bluff. Moriana had to agree. In many ways, the impending battle shaped up like the conflict at Chanobit Creek.
Vigorous interrogation of the assassins captured in the Palace revealed a plot laid by Zak'zar in collusion with the Guilds of the High Medurim – and Gyras, late advisor to Emperor Teom. The hunchback had been intercepted riding along the coast road that led to North Keep. After undergoing suitably painful torments, the dwarf was impaled as an object lesson for others.
Had Teom been with a Medurimin woman trained from birth in helplessness instead of Moriana, or had the dozen assailants infiltrating the Golden Dome not succumbed to the libidinous emanations from Erimenes's and Ziore's coupling, High Medurim would now be dominated by the Fallen Ones. Ten days after that night of lust and slaughter, Fost still had nightmares. One image in particular haunted him. Exhausted and bloodied, he had been helped back into the Golden Dome. He saw Ch'rri the winged cat woman kneeling above the body of her erstwhile lover licking the blood from her whiskers and paws. In good feline fashion, she had taken her pleasure from the lust-crazed assassin, then ripped him to pieces.
Badly shaken, Teom had named Fost a Marshal of the Emperor and given orders to march for the River Marchant. In two days, the Imperial Army issued forth from the high walls of Medurim, winding in a mile-long serpentine of trudging foot soldiers, baggage wagons and proud war dogs stepping out beneath armored riders. Temalla was left behind to cope with the administrative tangle ensuing from the attempted coup. Not the least of her problems was cleaning up after rioting had broken out the night of the attack when the Watch had attempted to arrest over seven thousand Medurimin for fornicating in the streets in violation of the traffic code.
As rapid as Imperial response had been, it had not come quickly enough to prevent the Vridzish from pouring across the Marchant and laying waste to half the Black March. Like locusts the Zr'gsz devoured everything edible in their path, including human inhabitants who didn't flee in time. Unlike locusts, what they couldn't consume they put to the torch.
A hundred spires of smoke reared up into the blue sky beyond the
black ant-mass of the Zr'gsz armies. For the hundredth time since the sun came up, Fost tried to estimate how many there were. For the hundredth time, he gave up when the numbers became too hopelessly huge.
'Why did Zak'zar tell us about the Children of Expectation?' Fost asked, pulling up a clump of black-tipped grass and thumping the sod around its base listlessly against his thigh.
'To seize psychological advantage,' said the short, round, bald man in the white robe. Oracle tuned himself to Moriana's mind and succeeded in projecting his image several hundred miles from High Medurim as a result. 'We already know the Hissers had greater numbers than expected. By letting us know where they came from, Zak'zar also gave us reason to fear there'd be so many we couldn't possibly win.' Fost plucked out a blade of grass and chewed on it.
'Yes, if they've been stashing away the rising generation for thousands of years…' He let the sentence trail off. It was too depressing to finish.
'Well, Fost my boy,' Erimenes said avuncularly, 'see how you've come up in the world under my tutelage? You're now a bona-fide hero, and Marshal of the Empire as well, with a fine suit of armor and a strapping black and white war dog.'
'Marshal of the Empire, indeed.' He spat out the grass. 'Being Marshal doesn't mean those highborn fools listen to me, much less take my orders.'
'But Foedan of Kolnith and the Border Guards heed your counsel,' Ziore said. She favored Erimenes with a wink of surprising lewdness.
'That's all well and good,' replied Fost. 'The high and mighty chivalry of High Medurim and the knights of the other City States all think
Foedan's a traitor to his class. And the Border Guards and militias of the various Marches – never mind theirexperience – are considered nothing more than low born dabblers in the fine art of war.' He pointed with an armored arm.
'Behold the main strength of the Medurimin army. Fifteen thousand spearmen, every one of whom is a conscript wanting nothing more than to be somewhere else. Then there are eight thousand regulars of the Imperial Army, who look sharp in drill and who have never seen blood shed outside a barroom brawl. Then the infantry. On both wings are men who will win the day for humanity, if you care to listen to their boasts. Six thousand knights from Medurim and the City States, all of whom can be relied on to do the worst thing possible in any given circumstance. Sandwiched between are the only troops likely to do a damned bit of good, longbowmen from Samazant and Thrishnor, and there're only a scant four thousand of them. 'But what of the Borderers and the militiamen you think so highly of?' asked Ziore.
In disgust, Fost waved at men drawn up well to the rear of the front ranks.
'Back there where they can't get in the way of the precious cavalry.'
Oracle rubbed his plump chin with fingertips. It was a mannerism he'd picked up from Fost, which unnerved the courier every time he saw it.
'Is not the reserve a good place for them?' the projection asked. Fost swallowed hard. The sunlight contrived to shine through Oracle's body.
'It may turn out that way,' Fost answered, 'if the battle isn't lost before they can come to grips with the Hissers.'
Moriana walked over and laid tender hands on his shoulders. He couldn't actually feel her hands, since his body was encased in a lobster carapace of metal, but he still appreciated the gesture. He reached up and clasped her hand to his. 'At least you're near me, love,' she said quietly.
Fost's joy at hearing those words was short-lived. The two genies had heard the words, too, and triggered off a now-common response.
'Yes, my own true love,' Erimenes said in a disgustingly honeyed voice. 'And I shall be here, not far from your side!'
Ziore batted nonexistent lashes and said, 'Never leave me again! Oh, swear you won't, my blue darling.' 'Never, so long as we both shall live, sweetums.'
'Sweetums?' Fost and Moriana cried in unison. They shared a groan. It had been like this ever since the night in the Golden Dome. Neither ghost was a stranger to lust, but with the discovery that they could at long last do something about that particular passion, they had fallen in love – sticky, sweet, gooey love – and had become hopelessly mired in emotion. They lapsed now entirely into unintelligible baby talk.
'Do you know,' Fost declared, 'I liked you both better when you fought all the time?'
'How could you take that seriously, Fost?' Erimenes shook his head in pity for his friend's ignorance. 'That was but gentle teasing. From the first sweet moment we met, we both knew that it was love.'
'Isn't he poetic?' Ziore sighed to no one in particular. 'No.' Fost rose and pulled on his gauntlets. Moriana pointed to a dark form high above. 'Ch'rri's signalling,' she said. 'The Zr'gsz skyrafts have taken to the air.
Fost shuddered, remembering Ch'rri and her lover, her dead, dismembered lover.
'At least the damned City's not with them. Nor the Demon.' Where City and Demon were, they didn't know. Moriana was blocked from directly scrying her lost Sky City, but her perceptions did tell her that it and its resident demon floated somewhere to the southeast. It was little enough that they wouldn't have to match strength with Istu. Yet.
'I'd best mount up,' Fost said, eyeing his war dog. He was not happy about riding into battle on the back of a dog. He managed to stay aboard one – and that was about all. But the fact remained no one in the Imperial Army took orders from any unmounted commander. Even the border men were peculiar that way.
After banging his head against the wall of noble obduracy and class pride, Fost had resigned himself from any direct role in the conduct of the battle. He knew he lacked the experience to be a field officer commanding vast armies of men, yet his choice still nagged him because few of the Imperial nobles and swaggering regular army officers had more experience than he. Fost had settled for command over Moriana's own guard, a unit of volunteers. To Moriana's surprise, the men from the Marches had joined her personal unit in large numbers, some of the veterans from the fiasco at Chanobit Creek. And even a hundred lancers from Harmis, domain of her lost lover and champion Darl Rhadaman, had joined the unit.
Moriana's unit had a vital role to play. They were to ensure that Moriana could work her magics in safety during battle. They were to keep out of the thick of fighting off on the left flank. That was fine with Fost. He had little taste for battle. Personal combat, yes, man to man, face to face. He savored that, sometimes. But not the wholesale butchery promised this day. That sickened and scared him.
A line of skyrafts appeared above the Zr'gsz army and floated silently forward. Fost swung into his saddle and waited.
Responding listlessly to the insistent notes of their officers' whistles and the lead-tipped cudgels of their sergeants, the conscript spearmen shuffled forward. The Zr'gsz moved toward them in a wedge, black massed ranks of low caste spearmen and slingers in the center. Higher caste Hissers rode giant lurching lizards on the trailing flanks. The wind shifted and brought a rank reptilian smell wafting across the Imperial lines. Dogs began an excited barking.
The first wave of skyrafts swooped toward the Medurimin ranks. Arrows sleeted down. Screams of agony and shocked surprise rose, spectrally thin at this distance. Moriana bit her lip. Her biggest concern was choosing the precise moment to use her magic. She had only so much strength and she had to marshal it against the moment of crisis, of greatest tactical need. She looked left and right along the bluffs, checking the preparations she'd made. All seemed in order, but the time for magic wasn't yet. 'It's hard to let those men die,' said Ziore quietly.
'My only consolation is knowing they trade their lives so future generations of humanity will be free of the Hissers. And Istu.'
Trying to psych his mount into believing he was both calm and in command, Fost looked to Oracle and asked, 'How're you doing?'
'Well, I think. Magister Banshau himself is overseeing the balance of nutrients in my pool.' There was a spot of light against the darkness – or Dark, as Fost thought with a thrill of horror. Despite the Hisser spear in his belly, Banshau lived and would recover. T
here are worse armors than several inches of flab.
The skyrafts rained down a continuous storm of arrows on the Imperial foot soldiers. Already, the ill-dressed lines began to waver, though the Medurimin had not yet come to grips with the foe. 'Poor bastards,' Fost said with feeling.
Moriana's fingers itched with the need to hurl spells, to smash the Hissers who fought from the smug safety of their skystone rafts. But she knew she had to conserve her strength.
The borderland archers had opened on the flitting rafts. The Zr'gsz craft were slower and less maneuverable than Sky City eagles. Many shafts found their marks. Small, twisting shapes began to fall among the ranks of spearmen.
Deep thrums punctuated by tocking sounds announced that the Imperial catapults had joined battle. A big skyraft suddenly slewed in air, spilling dozens of occupants to their deaths. The shot had probably been loosed by one of the crews of refugee Estil artillerists Fost had bribed away from Ortil Onsulomulo. They were superlative with their missile engines, though the Imperial crews were far from poor.
The lines of foot soldiers met. A clash of arms and clamor of voices went up. Fost thought it impressive, but Moriana found it almost anticlimactic. It was wholly unlike the rending clash with which her knights and Grassland allies had met at Chanobit.
Almost at once, the Imperial infantry began to be pushed back. Moriana's muscles started winding themselves into knots.
'Commit your cavalry, damn you!' she shouted at the enemy commander.
But the Zr'gsz general, whoever he was – Zak'zar? – was much too canny. He knew that to approach the Imperial cavalry too closely with his own mounted troops would trigger a charge. Haughtily disdainful of their border reserves, the knights would never think of charging in support of their own infantry. So the Vridzish held his mounted men back as long as possible, his infantry chopping up the footsoldiers unmolested by the knights.
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