Angus Wells - The God Wars 03 (52 page)

           
The questers resisted the impulse to
shoot the animals, less from any altruistic motives than the need to conserve
ammunition: for all they sent the

           
Jesserytes' own shafts back, still
they stood perilously close to finding themselves without arrows.

           
A final headlong rush saw three more
crimson- armored bodies dispatched to Zajan-ma—and the four surviving warriors
into the rocks.

           
They dropped their bows as they came
close, springing limber from their plunging animals for all the weight of their
armor. The riderless beasts afforded them cover, a living, surging barricade of
flesh and muscle they drove before them, in among the stones, swords in hand.

           
Calandryll tossed his bow away, the
straight- sword flashing from its scabbard to parry a blow that would otherwise
have divided his skull. His riposte glanced off a red breastplate and he flung
himself to the side as the heavy Jesseryte sword endeavored to carve his ribs.
He struck again, the blow slowing his attacker even though it failed to sunder
the man's helmet. He was driven back, seeking some chink in the crimson armor,-
finding none. The Jesseryte advanced, fulvous eyes glaring from behind the
masking veil. Through the rocks, Calandryll saw a second come running to take
position beside the first, the two moving apart, that they should attack from
both sides. He heard the clamor of steel on steel, on armor,- heard Bracht's
bellowed curse. From the corner of his eye he caught fleeting glimpses of the
Kern and Katya retreating back through the jumbled stones, forced like himself
onto the defensive by the seemingly impregnable armor of the kotu-zen.

           
He stepped past a boulder and damned
his ill luck as he realized he now stood in a cleared spot, wide enough the two
Jesserytes might easily flank him. Then something clattered off a helmet and
one man staggered, loose kneed, his sword arm dropping. There was a second
impact and his veil drove inward. Red gouted from the eye holes and the
kotu-zen fell down. Calandryll parried an attack. Saw his attacker halt as a
stone bounced from the sweeping cheek-piece of his helmet, then totter as
another struck his breastplate. A third whistled past Calandryll's head to
strike the helmet where it protected the warrior's brow. For an instant the
head was snapped back by the force of the blow: Calandryll lunged, driving the
straightsword up, the point piercing the Jesseryte's jaw, his brain. The man
grunted and collapsed, his weight threatening to wrest the sword from
Calandryll's hand.

           
He snatched it loose and saw
Cennaire standing with a rock in each hand, poised to throw, her expression
fierce. "Lady," he cried, "you save me once again."

           
She smiled, fleetingly, and darted
away, to where Katya faced an opponent, driven back against a semicircle of
boulders, unable to retreat farther, or to find a weakness in the man's armor.
Calandryll followed her, in time to see her hurl the stone with terrible force,
sending the kotu-zen staggering sideways. She flung another missile, that
crashing against the crimson helmet, the man groaning and dropping to his
knees. Katya sprang toward him then, her saber darting, searching out the vulnerable
places in his armor, severing his throat.

           
Cennaire scooped up new stones and
ran to where Bracht dueled, the falchion a blur in the dimming light, fending
off the attack of the Jesseryte's heavier blade. One stone smashed with deadly
accuracy against the kotu-zen's helm, the second against his knee. He toppled,
one leg twisted at an unnatural angle, and Bracht leapt astride him, a hand
tugging back the helmet as the other slashed the falchion across the windpipe.

           
"My thanks." The Kern
raised his bloodied
 
sword in salute.
"Now do we quit this place ere they send more."

           
They hurried to the horses, Ochen
there before them, reins gathered in his hands, muttering oaths as he
manhandled the recalcitrant beasts toward them. Overhead, the sky darkened
swifter than it should, as if a storm gathered. To the west the sun painted a
band of sanguine light across the horizon; to the east the moon was hidden
behind the strange obfuscation. To the north fires pricked the plain with
myriad distant glows. They mounted, studying the way ahead, all with the same
thought: that it should be mightily difficult to pass unscathed through the
massed ranks of the enemy.

           
"I think," said Ochen,
"that the time has come to take a chance."

           
Bracht laughed hugely at that and
said, "We've not already?"

           
"I'll chance the use of
magic." Ochen's answering smile was fleeting. "I'll attempt to
contact the wazir-narimasu."

           
"Do we wait," asked
Calandryll, "or do we ride?"

           
"Ride," said the mage.
"Ride and pray."

           
They heeled their horses down the
slope, Bracht in the lead, holding the stallion to a fast canter, reserving the
animal's strength for a final gallop. The sky assumed a
midnight
hue, unlit by moon or stars, though sullen
light played, balefire that flickered a morbid red. The reek of Tharn's
malignity grew, with it the sense of horrid, hopeless oppression. Riding hard
on Ochen's heels, Calandryll caught the brief waft of almonds. He turned,
reassuring himself that Cennaire remained alongside, and voiced a half-spoken
prayer.

           
Do
you Younger Gods hear me now. Do you aid us, be it in your power, that we enter
Anwar-teng unharmed.

           
The fires ahead came closer;
brighter, threatening. The sounds of men and animals drifted over the grass.
The pounding of their horses
⁷
hooves counted out the minutes, the
steady diminishment of the distance between them and the hostile ranks before.
Calandryll rode with straightsword in hand, thinking that did the Younger Gods,
the wazir- narimasu, not come to their aid, they must surely die outside the walls
of Anwar-teng. Overhead, the balefire seethed, the air sullied with its stench,
as if flesh corrupted, burned. They drew closer to the encircling fires . . .

           
. . . Closer still, enough now that
they heard the alarums ringing strident from the enemy camp. Bracht shouted,
^/7
Gallop!
Ride for your lives!
⁷⁷
and gave the black stallion its head.

           
. . . And a riderless horse joined
their charge, a great horse, taller than the stallion, its hide a jet in which
starlight danced, as if it were composed not of flesh but elemental matter. Its
eyes flashed fiery, and where its hooves struck the ground, brightness like
splintered shards of sun erupted, silent despite the tremendous speed of its
passage. It overtook them, and it seemed they were caught up in the vortex of
its passing, their mortal mounts dragged onward, hooves seeming no longer to
touch the earth, but to run above it, on the air itself, unhindered by the
limits of physical existence. Calandryll said, "Horul! Praise be!"

           
And in his mind—in all their minds—there
came a silent voice:

           
What
aid is mine to give you shall have. Was that not promised! Did you doubt thenl
Think that I and all my kin should forsake youl Nay, we stand with you as best
we may. Remember that where you go.

           
Ahead, riders came out to meet them,
lancers and mounted bowmen.

           
Misguided
fools,
came Horul's thoughts, contempt and pity mingled.
They know not what they do.

           
Arrows lofted and disappeared in
sparkling coruscations as they neared the god. The lancers charged and the
leading horsemen were bowled over, flung back against their fellows as if by an
unimaginable wind. Several yelled in terror and turned from the god's headlong
rush. Behind him the questers thundered through the perimeter of the camp,
fires flung wild beneath their hooves to ignite pavilions, stacked bales of
hay. The insurgents' horses shrilled their fear, plunging on the picket lines,
tethers snapping as they bucked and reared, freeing them to run wild through
the confusion that gripped the bivouac.

           
The walls of Anwar-teng loomed
above, beacons bright with promise of refuge along the ramparts. A blue
radiance, pale, but strengthening steadily, rose from the citadel to confront
the balefire that gathered concentrated overhead. The charnel reek of Tharn's
manifestation was opposed by the sweet scent of almonds. From the embrasures
along the walls shafts flew, and faint through the tumult of pandemonium that
rose from the besiegers came shouts of encouragement.

           
The teng's gates creaked open, blue
light bright there, and armored men, archers, running a little way clear to
form an avenue into which the god brought the questers.

           
Horul halted, rearing, within the
aegis of the gates. Vast hooves pawed air, and from the flared equine nostrils
fumed brilliance, like tumbling starlight.

           
I
leave you now. Where you soon go I cannot follow, nor any of my kindred, save
in spirit. Know that you go with our blessings, with our gratitude, and our
hope that you succeed, that you return safe.

           
The warriors of Anwar-teng—their
armor a blue to match the radiance overhanging the hold, Calandryll dimly
noticed—drew back. Horul's great haunches bunched and the god sprang skyward,
light trailing behind, the hooves striking silent on the air. The balefire
gathered before him, as if malign power massed in opposition within the aethyr.
The gates swung to even as Calandryll followed the god's progress, the thud of
their closing overwhelmed an instant later by a tremendous thunderclap, a
fireglow that leapt across the heavens, momentarily bathing Anwar-teng and all
the surrounding plain, Lake Galil, in fierce red light.

           
Then darkness as eyes near blinded
adjusted to the ensuing gloom. Calandryll felt the chestnut move und^r him,
blinking as he struggled to regain sight, finding a kotu-zen leading him into
the bowels of the citadel. He rubbed at his eyes and called,
"Cennaire?" hearing her answer him, her voice hushed, awed, from
close behind. Ahead, as sight returned, he saw Katya, Bracht at her side, Ochen
before them, deep in conversation with the three brilliantly robed men who
strode briskly alongside the wazir's horse.

           
None spoke further as they proceeded
into the hold, down avenues and roadways crepuscular for all the lanterns hung
from the high, surrounding buildings, toward the center.

           
A square there, entered by four
roads extending toward the cardinal points of the compass, the buildings that
formed its walls each marked with the horsehead emblem of the Jesserytes' god.
They dismounted—none came to aid them, but rather stood back respectful—and on
Bracht's insistence saw their animals safely stabled. Then haste, Ochen and the
three robed men bringing them swift down corridors and across dim-lit halls, up
winding stairways, to a great chamber set high, its ceiling pierced like that
chamber in the keep with a roundel of clear glass. Through it, Calandryll saw
the sky was once more dark and baleful, layered with ominous light, though here
there was no sense of oppression, no redolence of Tharn's fell emanation. He
looked about.

           
As if in deference to stranger
custom, the chamber was lit with lanterns and candelabras, their glow
reflecting off bare stone walls, the plain wood floor. It was a simple chamber,
unadorned, at its center a round table, that ringed with faldstools, more
standing empty than were occupied by the men who waited there, studying the
incomers with wondering, narrow eyes. The three who had met the questers at the
gate moved away, taking places among their fellows, and Ochen stepped forward,
bowed, and named the questers one by one.

           
Calandryll studied the men seated
around the. table. All were old, their faces wrinkled, to greater or lesser
extent like Ochen's, most white-haired, though a few yet boasted grey, and some
even departing vestiges of the Jesserytes' characteristic black locks. All wore
robes of splendid color, the spectrum displayed in magnificent combinations.

           
The introduction done, a man at the
table's farthest limit motioned the newcomers to seat themselves. He, it
seemed, was elected spokesman, for when they took their places the rest
remained silent as he said, "We bid you welcome to Anwar- teng, friends.
We are the wazir-narimasu, and I am named Zedu. We owe you thanks for what you
have attempted ..."

           
"Have
attempted?" Calandryll caught the ominous meaning of that past tense and
interrupted, courtesy dismissed as sudden fear arose. "How mean you,
have
attempted?"