by Roger Taylor
‘Cannot?’ Sylvriss echoed. ‘Cannot, or will not do you mean?’ Her hand clutched at her child and her mouth curled into a vicious snarl. ‘Would you protect His army with your misguided compassion, Cadwanwr?’
Oslang’s own face became a mirror to the Queen’s in its savagery. ‘We cannot, lady,’ he said, his eyes blazing. ‘Do you think we’d stay our hand from anything that might bring an end to that horror out there?’
He struggled to his feet. The Queen’s anger abated a little at the effort this simple deed required.
‘We cannot lady,’ he said again, more softly. ‘We have the skill and the knowledge to redirect what is sent against us; even great Power. We know that now; these last hours have made us wiser by generations. But we are ordinary men. To use the Old Power as the Uhriel can use it would destroy our feeble frames before we brought down a fraction of that host.’
Sylvriss shook her head. ‘But they’re mortal men,’ she said uncertainly.
Oslang took her arm. ‘They’re mortal, surely,’ he said, more composed now. ‘As even is Sumeral. And, unlike Him, they were men. But they’re His limbs now. They exist in many planes, and their mortality is no longer that of ordinary men. We’ve done all we can.’
Sylvriss bowed her head before Oslang’s pain.
‘How goes the battle?’ she said without looking up.
‘The balance swings against us, I fear,’ Oslang said. ‘The enemy dead are legion, but they have such numbers.’
‘Be specific,’ the Queen said, looking up calmly.
Oslang met her gaze. ‘The lines hold,’ he said. ‘Infantry and cavalry. But they’re nearly surrounded, and the circle tightens despite the carnage.’
Sylvriss closed her eyes briefly as if to picture the scene. The Uhriel might be gone from the field, but, as all had known from the beginning, men must fight men. His army could prevail yet.
‘If need arises can you use such skill as you have with your Power to defend the injured in this camp?’ she asked urgently.
Oslang nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said, frowning. ‘For a while we could use the Power thus.’
Slowly Sylvriss lifted the straps of the baby’s sling from her shoulders and handed it to the Cadwanwr. Then, gently, she set aside its protective hood a little, and, removing her sodden glove, ran her finger over the warm, sleeping, face of her child.
‘I shall withdraw the squadrons guarding our south-ern flank, and those guarding the camp, and lead them into the battle,’ she said.
Oslang stared at her fearfully.
‘This day will not be won unless we commit our every resource,’ Sylvriss said simply, in answer to his unspoken question. She drew on her glove and straight-ened up. ‘Guard this camp as… Hawklan would,’ she said, smiling wanly. ‘And my… ’ Her voice broke a little. ‘… my baby… as I would. Forgive my reproach to you and your brothers. It was hasty and intemperate.’
Oslang folded his arms around the child and bowed.
‘Light be with you, Lady,’ he said hoarsely.
* * * *
Denial screamed through every fibre of Hawklan’s body, but the cold words inside him allowed no escape.
‘Greatest of My Uhriel.’
Hawklan’s mind tumbled wildly in their icy wind. Only his hand tight about the hilt of his sword seemed still.
‘No,’ he cried out silently. ‘I am… Ethriss’s chosen. His hand snatched me from my very death to face you on this day.’
‘That hand was Mine, Hawklan. Ethriss spared none of his creations. I saw your true worth and I took you to be Mine when I should rise again. Now you have brought Me My enemies and destroyed those who betrayed Me by their weakness and folly. You are worthy indeed. Their mantle becomes yours. See your inheritance, and deny it if you can. ’
Hawklan struggled to cry out again, but around him suddenly were worlds of beauty and perfection where such a cry could not be uttered.
He gazed in wonder for a timeless age, at the silent, glittering, revelation. His heart sang out.
‘Thus shall Ethriss’s folly be remade.’
Silence.
‘It is without flaw,’ Hawklan whispered.
‘And it shall be yours.’
Silence.
‘Let slip Ethriss’s cruel goad, and come forward to the power and glory of your rightful place.’
Hawklan’s hand opened, and the black sword of Ethriss slipped from his grasp. He felt it falling, falling, falling, through the darkness of Ethriss’s flawed and swirling world until, with a ringing, sonorous, chime, it was gone.
The perfection closed about Hawklan and drew him forward.
But the ringing of the sword would not die. It ech-oed and re-echoed, growing upon itself, its beating, beating, rhythm, like the sound of powerful wings, shaking the perfection of His realm until it was but a faint shadow in a light that shone and danced with the great joy of being. At its heart swooped the black, familiar form of Gavor.
* * * *
Sylvriss looked at the tableau in front of her. It was as Oslang had described. The appalling toll of the day, though scarcely distinguishable from the mud, now carpeted the entire field. Isolated groups were strewn about the field, some in savage hand-to-hand combat, some, larger, stabbing and thrusting from behind beleaguered shield walls.
But the greater part of the army, though intact, was struggling to prevent the encircling enemy closing about them.
Steadily they were losing ground, and against such numbers, exhaustion and sickness of heart must surely defeat them eventually.
Sylvriss checked her sword, then threw back her hood and let the rain fall cold about her head. She looked from side to side at her force: Fyordyn, Orthlundyn and Riddinvolk; cooks and clerks, ostlers and armourers; the just too old and the just too young who had been guarding the southern flanks of the force against the unknown strength that had cut their supply lines; and, not least, such of the wounded as could hoist themselves into the saddle.
It was no Muster squadron, but it was all they had left, and she had spread the Riddinvolk through the ranks to help maintain its cohesion. ‘Courage and will would win this battle, not horsemanship,’ she had announced.
She lifted her lance high above her head.
At the signal a great fanfare of horn calls sounded above the din of the battle.
The pace drumming began and the line started to walk forward.
Tackle clinked and jangled.
Slowly, the drums increased the pace.
Trotting, then cantering, the hooves splashed through the sodden Narsindal earth. The fanfare sounded again, purposeful and menacing.
Sylvriss tightened her grip on her lance as her Rid-dinvolk soul responded to the urgency of the horse beneath her.
Then, the blasting horns and rattling drums gave way to the shouting and screaming of battle cries, and the line came to the gallop, thundering through the teeming rain, over the dead, and those living foolish enough not to flee.
* * * *
Hawklan became a mote; a spectator.
He trembled as he felt the gathering of great and terrible power.
‘I had thought My last cast slew you, brother.’
The power was gathering still; drawn from all His many selves on many planes; frantically almost; its momentum seemingly uncontrollable.
‘My prince of ravens with his true sight, caught my spirit as it fled the Iron Ring. Now his spirit has wakened him You thought lost so that he may destroy You.’
‘Only you can destroy Me, brother, and you shall not this time, for now My power is undivided; unhindered by the tenancy of your flawed creations. Its totality is within and about Me now and it is gathered for your doom.’
There was a long silence, then, very simply: ‘I have nothing with which to oppose Your might.’
There was another time-rending silence.
‘YOU LIE!’
And the fullness of Sumeral’s power was unleashed.
‘GAVOR!’
Hawklan’s voice filled his own universe in his de-spair for the fate of his friend.
But the tiny winged figure was gone even as the Ancient Power of the Great Searing, jagged with the barbs of humanity’s every dark emotion, surged forth into the void where he had been. Only words lingered there.
‘I forgive You Your wickedness; forgive You me mine, I beseech You.’
Then they too were gone. Gone in the scream that rose into the grey misted sky of Narsindal and echoed out over the world beyond, and those other places that knew Him. The scream that came as His long-hoarded power flowed through His mortal frame and, being unopposed, slipped from its grasp and destroyed it utterly; the scream that came as He measured His folly in this deed, and, most terrible of all, the scream that came as Ethriss’s forgiveness rent His tormented spirit into a myriad gibbering shards.
As it reached and rolled over the awful battlefield, Sylvriss’s riders crashed into and over the crowded ranks of Mandrocs.
Hawklan swayed.
Faintly a voice spoke to him. ‘Sumeral and I were but aberrations in the Great Searing. Now He is spent utterly, and I am among you all, as I should be, and as I have been for many eons. Forgive me my folly, Hawklan. Live well, and light be with you.’
Hawklan reached out to ease the poignant pain in the voice.
Then, dwindling finally, very human. ‘Ah, prince, your touch is true. And it was good to soar awhile in the stout heart of your friend… It was… good… ’
* * * *
‘Hawklan, Hawklan.’ A loud voice brought Hawklan back to the tumult of a solid, familiar, world. Someone was pulling at him desperately.
It was Andawyr. Hawklan, dazed, succumbed to the little man’s limping urgency.
The ground was shaking violently and a screaming wind was tearing at them as they staggered forward. Then the waters of the lake were boiling and foaming, and great waves began to spill across the causeway, threatening to wash them away.
Suddenly, out of the turmoil came figures running towards them. It was Yatsu and Isloman following Dar-volci. Without preamble, Yatsu seized the hobbling Andawyr, hurled him over his shoulder indecorously and sped off, splashing through the waves and leaping over yawning cracks. Isloman did the same for the still bewildered Hawklan despite a feeble protestation.
As they reached the end of the disintegrating cause-way, Hawklan looked up suddenly as if his name had been called. Briefly he saw three shadowy figures in the howling storm. Their hands were raised, in salute. Then they were gone, and a sound greater even than that of the destruction of the Viladrien over Riddin filled the air. Hawklan and the others fell to the ground, their hands over their ears in a vain attempt to shut out the appalling noise. In its wake, the shaking became so violent that the ground was rippling beneath them as if it were the surface of the lake.
The noise rose to a climax and then faded suddenly. The trembling of the ground faded with it and then all was still and quiet.
The four men lay motionless for a long time, until Andawyr looked up and whispered into the silence. ‘It’s over. He’s gone. I can feel it. He’s gone.’
‘And the Guardians have cracked the foundations of Derras Ustramel,’ Hawklan said. ‘I saw them… again.’
The thought triggered a memory. ‘Where’s…?’ he began.
He was interrupted by an oath from Andawyr who had scrambled to his feet and put his weight on his injured ankle.
‘The others are nearby,’ Yatsu said, wrongly antici-pating Hawklan’s question, as he reached out to support the hopping Cadwanwr. ‘Not in the best of shape, but alive. Those Mandrocs were rough. I was glad Dar-volci and Gavor were there.’
Hawklan raised his hands in self-reproach as a cas-cade of questions poured into his mind. Then came a surge of awful grief for his slaughtered friend. With an effort he set it aside. Time enough perhaps, to weep later, he thought.
‘Where’s… the woman? And Oklar’s body?’ he asked. ‘And Serian.’
Yatsu looked at him blankly.
‘They were here when I came to fetch you,’ Andawyr said. ‘She was still cradling his head and crying.’
‘Come and look at the others,’ Yatsu said urgently as Hawklan and Andawyr looked around vaguely. ‘Whoever you’re talking about wasn’t here when we arrived, and Jenna and Tirke need you now.’
As Hawklan tended to the casualties, the mist began to clear a little, though a dense cloud still hid the centre of the Lake. Other roads leading up to the broken causeway appeared; solid lines across the marshland.
‘To the great plain,’ Byroc said, indicating one.
Yatsu looked along it. ‘No food, no shelter, debat-able water and a long way to go through hostile territory,’ he said. ‘I’m open to suggestions.’
‘How about one foot in front of the other?’ Athyr said.
Yatsu nodded, then looked at his battered troops.
‘Where’s your sword, Hawklan?’ he asked.
Hawklan nodded towards the lake.
Yatsu shook his head. ‘Take Tirke’s for now,’ he said, putting his arm out to support Andawyr. ‘It’s better balanced for you than Jenna’s, and we mightn’t have finished fighting yet.’
They set off wearily, two being carried, several limp-ing, all too exhausted to talk.
A low, blood-red sun was sinking into the mist-shrouded west when a Muster squadron came upon them.
* * * *
The following morning, Hawklan woke, aching and deeply weary. He was aware that the tale of the battle had been recounted to him on the journey back to the camp, but he had little recollection save that the Mandrocs had finally broken and fled under the onslaught of Sylvriss’s great charge, and now none were to be found anywhere.
He walked to the entrance of his tent and stepped out. The eastern sky was lightening, and the camp was very quiet. The guards on the palisades were motionless silhouettes.
A noise made him turn. It was Serian. He reached up and patted the horse.
‘We have some tales to tell,’ he said.
The horse nuzzled him affectionately. ‘Where’s Gavor?’ he asked.
Hawklan looked down, unable to speak at first. ‘Later,’ he said unsteadily. ‘All our telling later, Serian. Take me to the battlefield.’
Hawklan did not speak as the great horse took him to the edge of the dreadful killing ground, and as they came there, he dismounted.
A yellow sun was beginning to rise, throwing long anxious shadows across the scene. Small lakes of water stood here and there, golden among the muddy, tousled ground, and slowly the shapes of slaughtered Mandrocs and men began to be distinguished. Numerous small hillocks became horses, and tall sparse grasses became spears and swords. Hawklan walked among them silently, Serian following behind him delicately.
Birds circled and squabbled overhead; animals scur-ried away briefly as they approached, then returned to their feasting when they had passed. Old revellers at an ancient banquet.
‘Would that this horror could pass down through legend as vividly as the tales of courage and splendour will,’ Hawklan said.
‘It could not have been avoided,’ Serian said. ‘This does not compare to what would have been had He prevailed.’
Hawklan remembered the vision Sumeral had shown him. Beyond words in its endless, beautiful, perfection. It had seemed to become empty and futile in the light of Ethriss’s will, yet…?
He walked on. Serian was right, he knew, though amid such carnage, the knowledge made his spirit no less heavy. A dreadful price had been paid, but a great evil was gone and the energy that had gone into its destruction could gradually be harnessed to the work of healing. Yet such a bargain was wrong. Such a savage accounting should never have come about when simple vigilance would have prevented it. Ethriss’s greatest and most flawed creations must strive ever to know the measure of their imperfection or seal such bargains thus always. How the future, near and far, would learn from this event would depend on its telling now, but the greatest prote
ction for all could lie only in the truth, no matter how awful.
And, Hawklan thought, awful it would be-must be.
He looked around. Among these bodies would be people he knew. Eventually he would learn their names and carry the burden of his own grief and remorse and that of his friends and their families. Yet he could grieve now only for the one whose death he did know of. That of Gavor, his companion since he had awakened in the snow-filled mountains, indeed, it seemed, his awakener.
Gavor, irreverent and hedonistic, yet faithful and true. Gavor, tormenting Loman, practicing his bird impressions, gliding high in the sunlit mountain air, tumbling and laughing just out of joy at being. The true spirit of Ethriss and a fitting steed for him at the last.
He looked up in the hope that among the birds swooping and squabbling there, perhaps one of the black silhouettes might be his old companion. But he knew that nothing could have survived the onslaught that had destroyed even its own creator.
Suddenly, one of the birds swept low to land nearby. Hawklan stepped forward, heart lifting, but it was only some raucous Narsindal crow and it flapped away noisily as he came near. Sadly, he mounted Serian and turned back for the camp.
He had travelled only a little way when frantic cries reached him.
‘Whoa, whoa, dobbin!’
The voice was unmistakable. Hawklan spun round and looked up again into the crowded air.
‘Down here,’ came the irritated response.
Hawklan looked down. A short distance away, the familiar form of Gavor appeared, stumping awkwardly through the corpses.
Hawklan dismounted and ran towards him. The raven was dirty and bedraggled and not at his most endearing. ‘That’s the last time I give a lift to any of your friends, I can assure you, dear boy,’ he declaimed indignantly. ‘I’ve never had to fly so fast in all my life as when I had to get out of that place.’
Hawklan picked him up gently.
‘Ow, ow, ow,’ Gavor protested. ‘Be careful.’
