Light of Eidon (Legends of the Guardian-King, Book 1) (65 page)

“I have come,” he said, and though he had spoken quietly, his voice blared
over the crowd.

The dark eyes flicked down to Abramm’s booted feet and up again, apparently ignoring the shield, though the look of amusement broadened almost
into a smile. And you are the real Pretender, then?”

Abramm straightened his spine a hair. “I am Abramm Kalladorne, son of
Meren, prince of Kiriath, and I am no Pretender.”

`Ahh.” Beltha’adi glanced over his shoulder at the satin-cloaked box of
VIPs on the first landing. “Is it really him this time, my cousin?” he asked.

Abramm saw Katahn then, sitting in the first row, flanked by his son
Regar, who was almost unrecognizable with his shaven head and priestly garb.
The Gamer looked up from the mark on Abramm’s chest, favoring him with
that typically ironic expression, one brow arched, a slight smile on his lips.
“It is him, my lord.”

His voice, too, was amplified, and there was in it a current of excitement
that spoke to Abramm’s soul, awakening in it a sudden flush of energy at the
recollection that it wasn’t just his own idea that brought him here. It was the
notion that this moment had been prophesied; it was the realization that
every event had been orchestrated to bring him here, even down to that Star
of Life appearing in Carissa’s hand when he had thought all was lost.

It really was Eidon’s will.

As Katahn’s last word died away, an excited murmur danced across the
crowd. A puff of warm air ruffled the whiskers on Abramm’s jaw, carrying
with it the undeniable tang of rain. In the distance, thunder growled again.
The heavens would open soon, ending all of this. But not yet.

Beltha’adi stepped back and addressed the guards standing near the box.
“Move that piece of dung out of the ring and-“

“No?” Abramm cut in, bringing Beltha’adi’s head around in surprise. “My
people will see to him.”

The dark eyes fastened upon him, speculating, still amused. “You have
ever been a bold one, Pretender. But very well. It matters little to me, since
in the end you will all be dead anyway.”

Abramm turned to the Dorsaddi standing in the archway behind him and
was surprised to find Shemm standing among them. Mephid and Japheth
were already hurrying out to Meridon’s side.

Once they had carried him away, Beltha’adi faced Abramm again, grinning ferociously. “So you send your second in to face me first, eh?” he said as
he brought the elbana around to point directly at Abramm’s chest. An odd
way for the Great Pretender to respond to a challenge.”

“I’m surprised you think so, seeing as during all the months I challenged
you, you had no trouble sending your seconds to face me.” He brought up his
own weapons, sword and dagger, and moved to the right, turning Beltha’adi’s
advance into a circle.

“I had other, more important matters to attend to,” Beltha’adi said.

As did I.”

“Like the acquisition of that new decoration you wear?”

“That was one of them, yes.”

`And you think now it will give you victory over me.”

“I think that the power behind it will give me victory over you.”

“The power of the dying god? Well, let us see, then.”

The Broho attacked in a barrage of two-handed strokes that made up for
their lack of variation by their savage speed. Abramm backstepped furiously,
parrying every stroke handily, but was pressed twenty feet before he finally
managed to tie up his adversary’s blade and step in close to lunge with the
dagger.

Its point tore the fabric of the Broho’s tunic as he spun away, and they
returned to circling. Again Beltha’adi launched a savage series of strokes, but
Abramm was ready this time, choosing the moment, catching the elbana on
his dagger as he stepped out of the line of attack and slashed at the Broho’s
open face with his sword.

He was aiming for the eye, hit the brow instead, only a tiny cut, but
Beltha’adi lurched back with a curse. It wasn’t from pain, but from the indignity of being the first one blooded-him who had expected not to be blooded
at all.

They circled again. “You’re good, Pretender,” Beltha’adi grated, “but
you’re only flesh. And flesh isn’t good enough to stand against a god.”

Abramm kept his gaze fixed on Beltha’adi’s. “No,” he agreed. “It’s not.”

For the first time he saw something like uneasiness in the Supreme Commander’s eyes, just a flicker, as of a thought formed and quickly squelched.

The long blade came at Abramm again in alternating diagonal sweeps. He
blocked them with relative ease, despite the speed at which they came, wondering that the man still seemed to be playing with him. Again he fell into
the rhythm, calculated his move, stepped out of the attack line and lunged,
his sword driving for the unprotected armpit.

This time the move was expected. The elbana slid off the dagger to block,
then whipped back from the offside in a counterattack. Abramm lurched
back almost out of reach, the tip of the blade slicing his chest.

Beltha’adi followed him, lunging and slashing, and Abramm blocked him
stroke for stroke, falling into that strange, misty-edged world where time both
fled in an instant and came to a standstill, where he anticipated his opponent’s moves before they happened and pain and fatigue held no sway. He had been here many times before and knew it always resulted in his best
performance, knew in some back corner of his mind that he was performing
well right now. No. Far more than well, better, perhaps than ever in his life.
Nor had he ever felt stronger. It was as if fire burned in his veins, igniting his
flesh with a power and precision he had never known before.

And when finally the Supreme Commander broke off to resume circling
him, blade held out and ready, he saw that the uneasiness had returned to
the other’s eyes. It dawned on him, then, that perhaps this power in him was
not a normal product of training and concentration and determination, was
perhaps not his own at all.

“You are tired, Pretender,” the Broho said, circling, his dark eyes boring
into Abramm’s. “Your arms are trembling. Your parries are weakening. You
will not last much longer….”

It was hard to concentrate on the words, hard to make them mean anything. And when finally Abramm managed it, they did not make sense. For
he was not tired, nor did his arms tremble, and his parries were coming more
swiftly and decisively than ever.

It was a distraction. He realized that the moment the elbana came back
from a feint and cut into the side of his thigh, seeking to hamstring him, but
he turned away in time.

He saw the Broho master swallow, saw the crease now etched between
his eyes, lined with the blood from the cut on his brow as it mingled with
rivulets of sweat. Other cuts marked the dark tunic, each of them glistening
wetly. Abramm could hardly recall having made them, but in that moment,
he realized he was winning.

The Esurhite was speaking again, his words coming breathlessly-something about a painful death. Abramm ignored him, falling back into the
golden haze, seeing first the eyes, then the movements-peripherally, and yet
focusing on each individually. It was as if his consciousness had expandedhe knew everything at once, so that no move, no trick could get by him. He
lunged and swung and blocked and parried; he dodged and rolled and leaped
and circled. And all the while the fire coursed through his veins, filling him
with light and life and a glorious, exultant strength.

He wondered, finally, if perhaps he was dying and didn’t know it. A brief
glance down revealed his tunic reduced to blood-soaked tatters, yet still he
felt no pain.

His Light will be my strength….

Lord Eidon, if you are indeed taking me, please, let me bring him with me.

Beltha’adi sidestepped, looped free of Abramm’s blade, and stepped back,
circling, watching him warily. His eyes betrayed real concern … and something else. Something smug and knowing. A flicker, the barest flicker, a sense
of something coming up behind, and Abramm turned just as the veren
swooped upon him, his blade driving deep into its breast and the fire flooding
out of him like a dam-burst.

The creature screamed as white light blasted the world away, its momentum carrying it hard into Abramm, bowling him to the ground and ripping
his sword from his grasp as it plowed over him and was gone. Half-blinded,
dagger still in hand, he scrambled to his feet, expecting to be attacked in this
moment of weakness.

But the veren lay sprawled just past him on the sand, and beyond it the
invincible Supreme Commander stood transfixed by surprise, staring gapemouthed at the corpse. Slowly his eyes came up to meet Abramm’s, and
astonishment turned to fear. He shouted for his Broho to attack, but not one
of the five beneath the statue moved. He shouted again, but still none
responded. The five round-eyed faces gaped back at him, at the veren, and at
Abramm, who, looking up, saw that his audience was no longer purely
human. The men were still there, watching in silence, none moving more
than the Broho. But hovering above them, slithering around them, dancing
between them, were a myriad of amorphous shapes in a myriad of colorsred, blue, green, yellow, orange, purple, and every shade between. They quivered and pulsed and jittered, even sidled among the clouds overhead. Many
of them hovered around the great idol, passing in and out of the eyes, the
mouth, the belly, wrapping around it, reaching out and slithering back. There
were more wrapped around each Broho and priest, some inside their bodies.
One man glowed transparent with yellow light, another with red, their eyes
flaring like bright coals.

They writhed and they whispered and they reached out to him. He heard
their rasping, muttering voices, smelled the roasted-grain scent of their presence, felt the cold essence and the hatred-the utter and thorough black
hatred for him and the Light he carried within him. If they could destroy
him, they would do so in an instant, but the Light kept them back.

Rhu’ema.

He had never before seen one, but he knew that was what they were.

And he knew exactly what he was to do. As he started toward Beltha’adi,
the latter let his sword drop, then threw back his shoulders and drew a deep
breath. A veil of purple fire burst from his lips, riding the back of a deep,
hoarse bellow. It slammed into Abramm with enough force to stagger him
backward-but met a barrier of white light that absorbed it like water did
flame.

He kept walking, and the Broho drew another breath, sent out a coil of
black mist and then a jagged snake of red lightning. None got through the
wall of white fire. Abramm drew up before the man, saw the fear in his eyes,
the knowledge of imminent death and then denial fulminating into rage.
Beltha’adi fairly glowed with the power of the creature within him, purple
fire blazing in his eyes, out his nose and mouth, and through every rent in his
flesh. The elbana lifted lazily, then swooped down. Abramm caught it with
his dagger, drove it back and up, and grabbed its hilt with his free hand. As
Beltha’adi released a hand to try to push him, Abramm tore the elbana away
and slashed back with the dagger. He saw a shorter blade, pulled from a hidden sheath, coming at him low, but he ignored it, driving his own weapon
deep into the Esurhite’s chest.

The Light came upon him again, blasting up his arm and into the blade,
into the body of the man impaled upon it. Purple fire flowed out of
Beltha’adi’s eyes and into the sky. Gasping and limp, the Supreme Commander of the Army of the Black Moon slid off the blade and slumped to the
sand. A moment he knelt there in front of Abramm, looking gray and old and
strangely puzzled. Then he toppled sideways to the ground-his mouth
open, his eyes glazed and empty-and did not move again.

The power bled out of Abramm like water from a punctured drinking
sack. His vision of the massed rhu’ema faded, and as it did he became aware
of his body. Pain and weakness shuddered through him, and he staggered
backward a few steps, dizzy and so sharply pain-sick he came to a stop and
doubled over. His flesh seemed a roil of agony, and there was one place, a
well of fire low in his side, he thought might be especially serious.

His knees were about to give way when he remembered where he was,
what he was about. With hundreds of eyes watching him, and a battle in the
making, he couldn’t just collapse. Not yet, anyway. But for a moment he
couldn’t make himself straighten, either.

A few deep breaths, a gasped prayer, a resolute amassing of his will, and
he wrenched himself upright.

He had killed Beltha’adi at the center of the arena and now stood
between the corpse and the archway through which he’d originally entered,
the Dorsaddi comfortingly at his back. The nobles in their box had risen to
their feet and were staring at their fallen leader in undisguised horror. All but
one.

Katahn met his gaze and nodded gravely, a gesture of salute. And morethere was undeniably something of awe in his look.

Abramm scanned the dumbstruck crowd, which even yet did not appear
to have grasped the reality that their invincible leader was dead. Even the
priests on guard by the idol stood stunned and motionless. And though the
idol’s stone grin had not changed, it somehow did not appear as pleased as it
had earlier. Indeed, he could just make out the creatures he knew still swirled
around it, could almost sense their outrage and the panicked frenzy of their
activity.

It was time for the Dorsaddi to attack, while the enemy was still in shock.
They should be rushing the field now, pouring out of the Wadi Juba, bellowing their war cries. But glancing over his shoulder, Abramm saw they were in
shock themselves. Shemm still stood in the archway, Japheth and Mephid
beside him, gaping as stupidly at the Supreme Commander’s corpse as were
the priests, almost as if they expected it to reanimate.

Perhaps they did.

Abramm jerked back around with an awful premonition. Beltha’adi lay
unmoving, but the sense of energy around the idol had increased, and the
clouds overhead were definitely darkening. Small flashes of color whirled
around the great, laughing head. The priests began to chant, their mouths
moving like puppets, their voices rising and falling in rhythm, gaining tempo
and volume. He felt the power building, like a distant swarm of bees, setting
his nape hairs on end.