Frost (19 page)

So much blood ... so many dead men.

She had killed, yes. Seen death, yes. But not like this, not on this scale. Her lips curled back to scream as she raised an incarnadined hand.

A pikeman charged, and she could see his eyes through the narrow slits of his helm. That broke the spell. Silently, she thanked him even as she twisted, leaned, struck. Her weapons-master had trained her too well and too long to let panic rule her in a crisis. The man sank slowly, staring, a curse on his lips as she withdrew her blade.

Snapped from her paralysis she rejoined the fray. Like a fiend from the Nine Hells she struck and vanished, appearing at another part of the battle, striking, dealing death until her arm was weary and her mind numb with fatigue.

And fatigue was nearly her undoing.

Too late, she saw the assassin dive from his crannied perch in the cliff wall. Dodging his sword was easy enough, but not him. His weight tumbled her from the saddle. She struck the earth hard, stunned, expecting quick cold steel in the back. The assassin loomed over her.
If only she had the strength to strike his feet—she knew how—knock his legs out.
But there was no strength left in her. Leering obscenely, he raised his blade.

But the blow never fell.

Riderless, Ashur reared, tossed his great head and lunged. The assassin's eyes bulged; a scream tore his lips as the horn emerged through his middle. Ashur heaved, and the thrashing body sailed through the air, smashed into the towering rock face.

It gave her the time she needed to get her breath. Recovering her sword, she rose to greet more foes. Seven ragged soldiers circled her, and more were coming, seeing her afoot. She took a two-handed grip on her blade and waited.

“Bitch!” cried one. “If you can be unhorsed, then you can be skewered. We'll see how your Chondites fare without you to rally them."

Her guts twisted with a grim dread of what she intended, but there was no mercy in her. One hand left her sword and grasped the hilt of Demonfang. She knew the fearful effect of its screaming. That might save her now.

A raw chill touched her soul as the fiendish blade came free. Its wailing note sang over the pass, drowning other battle sounds. She had never heard it so loud as now in the presence of so much blood.

Furiously she shouted at her attackers: “Come on, then, and savor this bitch's charms!"

Terror flamed in her opponents' eyes. She lunged once, twice with the dagger, swung her sword. At first taste of blood the shrieking ceased, but unsheathed, the blade soon found its voice again. It trembled in her grip, insatiable and demanding. Almost of one will, her foes broke and ran. She leaped on the slowest of them; Demonfang fairly writhed in her hand as she opened his throat. The baleful, dripping dagger was still at last. Grimly, she cleaned the edge and sheathed it.

Foeless for the moment, she took a much-needed rest. The battle had broken into small skirmishes through the pass; space was clear around her. In the distance, Kregan, Aecus and a handful of Chondites assailed the hardiest resisters. Everywhere death littered the earth, and the dust drank up the life-fluid. She leaned wearily on her sword and sighed.

It was nearly over when Rhadamanthus and Minos rode cautiously into the pass, picking their way around the bodies. A nervous Ashur waited nearby. Gathering the reins, she waved as she mounted and went to meet them.

The Book bounced in the pouch against her side, and she clamped a hand on it, reflecting on what she had witnessed—what she had been part of. There was no glory here. No honor. On an impulse, she drew out the Book, considering its value in blood.

“No!"

She looked up to see who called. Minos waved his arms frantically. Rhadamanthus spurred his horse in a mad rush toward her.

Sudden thunder shook the sky. The air crackled; a scorching bolt of alizarine lightning flashed through the night, stitching a serpentine pattern on the darkness. A hoarse cry ripped from her throat as death reached for her with rippling, fiery fingers.

Dimly, she heard an old man's shout. Another blast of lightning, blue and jagged, twisted out of the earth itself, smelling of sulfur as it streaked upward. It met the first bolt in a glaring burst of whiteness. Heat seared her face. A shattering explosion rocked the countryside, and she was lifted head over heels out of the saddle.

Zarad-Krul,
she realized bitterly before the ground smashed all awareness from her.

 

 

 

 

Chapter Ten

 

She woke slowly to the drone of urgent voices. Someone called her name. Kregan, she thought. Fear in that voice. She tried to answer, but a warm languidness filled her limbs, her head.
I should get up,
she told herself. Yet, it was so peaceful to lie still and stare into the black abyss of unconsciousness that hovered so near. They would not let her alone, though. Someone kept calling her name until, with an effort, she opened her eyes.

Kregan's face was a mask of pain. “You look terrible,” she managed.

A faint smile. “Are you all right?” He cradled her head in one hand, offered her water from a canteen with the other. She took a small sip and pushed the rest away.

“Just get me off these damned rocks; they're biting holes in my spine."

He helped her to sit, then to stand. It seemed the entire Chondite army had gathered to worry over her. Sheepishly, she put off Kregan's assisting hands and balanced precariously on her own feet. Licking her lips, she flashed a triumphant, half-amused grin.

But then, she remembered the Book. It was in her hands—she must have dropped it when she fell. Frantically, she searched around. They had not moved her from the place where she had fallen, but the Book wasn't in sight. She shot a desperate look at the Chondite faces.
Could one of them have taken it? Or some agent of Zarad-Krul?

“The Book...” she started. And stopped. A familiar weight banged her hip. Inside the pouch she traced the runes carved on the binding. A sigh slipped between her lips. Someone had replaced it while she was unconscious. Rhadamanthus, probably, or Minos. They had been closest.

“You should not have revealed it so carelessly,” Aecus admonished her, his voice gruff, face flushed with excitement and anger.

She met his gaze for just a moment and decided to ignore his bad manners. She gave him her back and faced the other two elders.

“One of you saved my life, I think. But how? What happened?"

“As it turns out,” answered Minos, “Zarad-Krul was watching the battle from afar through a scrying crystal. At first, he shielded himself so that we couldn't detect his presence, but as the fighting grew more intense and the Shardahanis began to lose, he let his guard slip."

Rhadamanthus picked up the tale. “We sensed him simultaneously, but doubted he had power to take an actual hand in the conflict, not being physically present. Only a partially accurate conclusion, it seems, but we decided to come closer to the fighting just in case."

“He probably would have stayed hidden,” Aecus interrupted, “but when you foolishly revealed the Book of the Last Battle the wizard became so enraged he tried to strike you down."

Rhadamanthus smiled patiently. “Fortunately, his bolt was slow and weak, and I was able to disrupt it with my own. Had he been present, though, or his power just a little stronger, I couldn't have moved fast enough to save you."

Aecus sneered. “You'd be dead meat."

“Well, I'm not,” she answered somewhat defensively, “and I'll be more careful from now on."

“We ask no more."

“But Elder-brother,” Kregan said. “This, and the attack of Zarad-Krul's Eye in Rholaroth prove that the wizard knows her aura. He can strike at her anywhere at any time."

“At Demonium we can take care of that."

She looked at Kregan, curious, suspicious.

“A ceremony,” he explained, “but it takes a lot of participants, and we've not time to go into the details. The Field of Fire is still a good ride away."

Aecus scowled agreement, and she resisted an urge to put her sword between his legs. After all, whether she liked the elder or not, they were on the same side. And she'd watched him fight. He was good—damned good.

The battle had been a short one. They mounted up. The dead were left for the land to claim. There were no prisoners—that was not the Chondite way. There was no time to rest, and nobody complained. Across the dark plains and low hills they rode, and with every bounce in the saddle. Frost discovered a new bruise or an ache not realized before.

It was impossible to measure the time that passed. Thicker than viper's blood the darkness hung in the Chondite sky. No sun, no moon, no star shone through. They ate a little as they went, drank water or wine. Alternately, they rode hard and walked, but only once did they dismount. A stone triangle like the one outside the gates of Erebus reared like an awesome sentinel above the landscape, and the elders called for the troops to halt while they rode on to it.

Frost took the opportunity to nap and dreamed of a crackling fire and a soft pallet. Her poor body felt no relief when she was wakened only a short time later.

The elders returned with information. Indrasad had finally fallen to the Shardahani onslaught, but the remnants of its army were waging war-in-retreat to slow the enemy's advance on Demonium. There was no other sign of Zarad-Krul or the Dark Gods, Nugaril and Mentes.

What was it like, she wondered, to stand within those monolithic triangles and touch another mind on the other side of the country? Maybe someday she would find out, but now it was back in the saddle and onward.

The steady drumming of Ashur's hooves were a strong counter-rhythm to her own heartbeat. The blood pounded in her veins. The wind roared in her ears.

And when the horses would run no more, they walked. Kregan's white charger startled her out of a half-doze, appearing suddenly at her side. Since departing the Tekaf Pass, Kregan had kept company with the Elders and not spoken to her. She gave a feeble smile of greeting and looked askance.

The Chondite chewed a ration of dried meat. “Woman?” he said gently. “Tell me what puts the wrinkle in that lovely brow?"

His soft words struck a chord somewhere deep inside, warmed her in a way she found almost annoying. She had intended to keep silent to pay him back for avoiding her, but when he questioned her again there was a sadness, a kind of weary yearning in his voice that wrung answers from her.

Anything to keep his company for a while
, she realized with a start.

“Your apprentice-brothers,” she said, gazing back the way the army had come, “they haven't returned yet. I've been wondering what it was I spotted on that ridge."

“Rhadamanthus said he didn't fear it,” Kregan reminded. “Is that all that's bothering you?"

“There's that
trial
you mentioned.” Their eyes locked, held. “I'm afraid, Kregan. I don't even know what it is, but I'm afraid."

He maneuvered his mount closer until his stirruped foot brushed Ashur's belly. He set a strong arm about her shoulders.

It was what she wanted, had yearned for, to touch him. And though such weakness was an embarrassment and a shame she yielded to an impulse and leaned her head on his chest. She would not give in to tears, though. It was precarious riding, but they continued that way, embracing.

“There's fear enough to share on this journey,” he whispered in her ear.

After awhile she sat up, her composure intact once more, and smiled.

As the distance to Demonium shortened the pace increased. Just before a low crest the army broke into full gallop. Frost crouched close to Ashur's neck and nudged the unicorn with her spurs. Kregan did the same, and they passed the elders, easily outdistancing their comrades. Over the flat plain and up, up the crest.

First to reach the summit, she blinked in disbelief, jerking hard on the reins. The unicorn reared in protest and crashed his hooves on the ground, snorting. Kregan halted beside her while the elders, then the army, flowed around and past them like a human wave.

Below, the land burned with a vibrant fire of many colors: deep reds, blues, oranges, hot golds and cold greens, splendid shades of purple and violet. Like tiny stars fallen to earth every stone and pebble glowed in the darkness. Even the bare spots where no stones lay seemed to possess a hazy luminescence.

“The Field of Fire,” Kregan said. “At the very center you can just make out ....

“Demonium.” She made no effort to hide her awe.

A finger of earth and rock jutted from the landscape, a pinnacle balanced between the sky and the ground. She should not have been able to see it in the night, and yet some unnatural source of light showed it plainly. The summit of that bizarre finger was sheered flat, and atop it stood three immense monoliths.

The Demonium Gate.

“What causes the stones to glow?"

“For thousands of centuries the rocks and stones have lain undisturbed, absorbing the interdimensional energy that seeps through the gate. But, being inanimate matter, they can only contain a small portion of that energy; the rest is released harmlessly as colored, heatless fire. This place is sacred to us."

“It is beautiful and strange,” she admitted after a long silence.

He touched her cheek, just a brush of the fingertips. “There's much here that's beautiful."

She met his even gaze and matched the grin that blossomed on his face. “We'd best ride down,” she said at last. “At least we've beaten Zarad-Krul here."

The army established camp at the very foot of Demonium, and under Aecus' direction sentries were soon posted and horses tethered, but left saddled and ready.

Frost and her Chondite companion spread blankets together and built a small fire.

“Your eyes are greener than a cat's,” Kregan said as they worked, “and bright as this fire or the stones out there."

“You talk too much,” she replied curtly, though his words secretly pleased her. They warmed strips of their dried meat rations over the flames, ate and settled back on pallets.