Then Morjin called out, to him and all of us, but especially to Atara: 'Valashu Elahad and I
are
chained together! And
this
shall be the hammer that forges the links!'
With that, he held out the cup toward me. Its soft golden hue suddenly flared to a deep and angry amber. The silver gelstei might seek the gold, but it seemed that the gold could also seek the silver. The long blade strapped to my side fairly quivered; I sensed the Lightstone pulling at my sword's silustria as a lodestone draws in iron. I had always hoped that the Lightstone, though it might command every other kind of gelstei, would have no power over the silver.
'Can you feel it?' Morjin said to me.
Despite myself - or perhaps
because
I wanted to deny the truth of things - I clasped my hand to Alkaladur's hilt. I had always called upon this marvelous sword to give me strength to bear the death agonies that I dealt out to others, and even more, to cool the heat of the kirax that poisoned my blood.
'Can you feel
him?'
Morjin asked me, pointing with his other hand toward Bemossed. At that moment, with his golden hammer, Morjin battered down the Walls of aloneness protecting me, and all Bemossed's agony came burning into me.
'There is a cure for the fire of the kirax,' Morjin said to me. 'A cure for all that grieves you. Do you remember what it is?'
To inflict my own suffering on others, I
thought.
But how can I do such a thing?
'You must open your heart to me,' he told me. 'You must direct that sword you keep inside toward those who defy me.'
'No,' I gasped against the pain tearing through me.
'You
will
serve me, Valashu!'
'No!'
I stared up at the Owl's Hill, and I felt Bemossed weakening in his final fight for life, even as Morjin's hold over the Lightstone grew stronger.
'Valashu, together you and I can -'
'No!' I shouted at him. 'Never!'
My voice seemed to fall upon my friends and Morjin's counselors with the force of a storm wind, for their faces grew grave with distress and they clung to their horses. But it left Morjin untouched.
'And
still
you deny me!' he thundered at me. He pointed behind him at the vast army lined up across the steppe. 'In the face of death and the destruction of all you hold dear, you deny me! So be it. If you won't accept the cure for what mars you, you will have the curse!'
Then his hand tightened around the Lightstone. I felt myself hurled as if into a pool of boiling oil. Its bubbling heat stripped the flesh from my bones and ate away my mouth and my eyes. I could not see, nor could I draw breath. Morjin had warned me that Bemossed's death throes would become mine, multiplied a thousandfold. I did not know if the immense pain piercing me to the core was only a tenth of that which Bemossed suffered - or ten thousand times as great. But it seemed to go on and on forever.
'Let go of your sword!' Maram called out to me.
I could not let go of my sword. I sweated inside my armor from every pore as my whole body shook; I gasped for air and bit my tongue and tasted blood. I did not want to let go of my sword. How could I fight Morjin without it?
'Do
not
let got,' Kane called out to me. 'Do not!'
I gripped Alkaladur's black jade hilt carved with a great swan and set with diamonds, even more tightly. Then the torture unmanning me eased, a little. I did not know if Bemossed, nailed to his cross, found just enough will to contend with Morjin over the mastery of the Lightstone and all its powers. Or if I might hold a strength of my own to resist Morjin. 'This parlay,' I gasped out to him, 'is over!' Morjin smiled at me, and I knew with a searing certainty why he had called me to meet with him here between our two armies. An inextinguishable agony - to say nothing of Morjin's hate for me and mine for him - clung to me like a robe of fire.
'It
is
over,' Morjin said to me. His red eyes gleamed like pools of blood. 'And now it is time for you, and all of yours, to die.'
Without another word, but watchful of Atara's and Sajagax's bows, he wheeled his horse about and rode back toward his army. His counselors followed him. I heard Sajagax mutter: 'It is too bad I filled my quiver this morning with long-range arrows and not armor-piecing ones. Truce or no, I would slay that snake!'
'If you did,' Atara said to him, 'then Morjin's men would surely slay Bemossed.'
I sat gasping for breath as I fought for the will not to fall down screaming; it was like breathing in pure flame. I looked up at the top of the Owl's Hill. How much longer, I wondered, did Bemossed have to live? How much longer did any of us?
Then, with these thoughts trying to work their way through the blaze of pain that clouded my mind, I led my friends back toward our lines and battle.
J
ust as we reached that place where I had to part with Ymiru - he, to return to the center of our lines and I to our wing -I paused to tell him what he and the Ymaniri must now do. Then I rode back with Kane and Maram to rejoin our cavalry, while Sajagax and Atara continued on to take their places leading their Sarni warriors,
'King Mohan!' I cried out as we drew up to the massed knights on our right flank. Our enemy's drums had begun beating out the challenge to war once again. 'Lord Avijan! Lord Sharad - to me!'
Those I had called for, with Lord Manthanu, Lord Noldashan and others, galloped over to me to hold council. And I gasped out to them: 'We must change our order of battle! King Mohan, you will take command here of our cavalry.'
This fierce man, resplendent in his diamond armor, nodded his head to me. Although obviously pleased - and honored - he waited for me to say more, for he did not understand my decision.
'Lord Avijan, Lord Sharad!' I called out, turning to my cavalry lords. 'We will lead the Meshian knights back behind our lines to our center.'
Both of these great warriors seemed puzzled. According to all the Valari knew of making war, heavy horse had no place at the center of the battlefield hemmed in by masses of spear and shield men.
'We must break through,' I said. 'We must lead a charge up the Owl's Hill, and rescue Bemossed.'
'Sire,' Lord Sharad called back, looking at me deeply, 'you are not yourself!'
Now King Mohan cast me a penetrating look as if to wonder if what had transpired with Morjin had driven me mad. With the robe of fire searing my soul I wondered that as well. I had no time to explain that the fate of much more than Ea might depend upon keeping Bemossed alive. All I could say to my warriors was: 'The Maitreya cannot die!'
'But, Sire,' Lord Avijan said to me, glancing up at the lone cross
towering over the battlefield 'surely Bemossed is as one already dead.'
'No!' I shouted. 'There is still much life in him - I can
feel
it!'
'But even supposing we break through, when the Red Dragon perceives our objective, surely he will give the command to slay him.'
'No!' I shouted again. 'Anything might happen in battle. We might throw the enemy into confusion. Morjin himself might be killed, or wounded, and the command never given.'
Maram wiped the sweat from his face, and said to me: 'But can't you see it's a trap? That is just what Morjin will want you to think, and do!'
'It can't be helped, Maram.'
'Can it not? Morjin uses Bemossed just to get to you! And if we lose you, we lose everything. Don't let him kill you! If you must attempt this madness, choose another to lead the charge!'
'No,' I said to him, shaking my head, 'it must be me.'
At my obduracy, Maram looked at me in anger and frustration as tears filled his eyes. Kane, staring up at Bemossed, said to me more tersely: 'So - it
is
a trap. A terrible chance.'
'It is our
only
chance!' I said to him. 'Will you ride with me?'
At this, Kane grimly nodded his head. So did Lord Sharad, Lord Avijan and Lord Noldashan - and others. And then, finally, so did Maram.
'Into the Dragon's jaws,' he muttered to himself. 'Well, my friend, I suppose I always knew this would be a day for fire.'
After sending messengers galloping to speak with Lord Tanu and Lord Tomavar, I gave the command for my army to renew its advance. Now, up and down our lines, our war drums began booming out their dreadful thunder. On our far right, out across the steppe's wind-rippled grasses, I saw that Sajagax had already begun the battle. Companies of Kurmak and Adirii warriors, with the Manslayers, rode upon the Janjii, Mansurii Zayak and Marituk tribes loosing a hail of arrows. It was no easy work of logistics to cut out my Meshians from our other cavalry massed too near the enemy Sarni. It took some precious minutes of horses whinnying and stamping, and men shouting in confusion, to reform them behind our lines. And then, even as our thousands of foot marched upon our enemy and the tinkling of millions of tiny silver bells rang out into the air, I led my eight hundred knights back behind the advancing Atharian and Waashian infantry toward the center of the field.
Our enemy, however, remained unmoving. Phalanxes of pike men packed twenty ranks deep and locked together shield to shield do not easily advance in good order over uneven ground across a front of five miles. Why
should
the Dragon army move forward when they had only to wait for my warriors to impale themselves on the acres of steel-tipped pikes sticking out from a long wall of shining shields?
Soon our army came within range of our enemy's archers. Clouds of black arrows, with an unnerving whining, streaked up from behind our enemy's lines and fell upon my advancing warriors. At this distance, most broke upon or glanced off their armor with a clatter of steel against diamond that was dreadful to hear. A few shafts split the diamond seams and penetrated through the underlying leather to skin and flesh beneath. Men cried out and fell; others hurried forward to take their places. Our archers, keeping pace behind our lines, paused every half minute to stand and loose volleys of their own. A great number of their arrows found their marks, punching through the poorer strip armor worn by the soldiers of Sunguru and the Eannan's thin mail. The screams of wounded and dying men merged with the cacophony of trumpets, drums, shrieking elephants and jangling bells into a single, terrible sound. I rode quickly along, at the head of my companies of knights, whose heavily-amored mounts beat at the ground and churned up the earth. I looked to my right, at the glittering ranks of the Kaashans closing the distance to the great Dragon army. Through the gaps between my men, marching in loose formation, 1 could now see the faces of the front rank of our enemy. Thousands of pairs of eyes stared out in dismay at the approaching Valari warriors. I felt their fear like a wave of sick heat emanating from them. Although they badly outnumbered us, they must have heard the stories told of the Valari's long, steel kalamas and the pitiless men who wielded them. My warriors' spirits held true and strong, though I felt how keenly Bemossed's torture grieved them. Spirit, in battle, was always such a delicate thing. A man's urge to risk his life for those of his companions could become a dread of death; the natural fear that caused one's heart to send streams of blood shooting like an elixir through mind and limb could easily explode into a full panic.
'The Valari!' I heard someone from within the Sakayan phalanxes cry out. 'The Valari come!'
Just as our army drew within javelin distance of our enemy, another of the Sakayans called to him in answer: The Dragon will burn them! Let the Dragon burn all the Valari!'
More arrows streaked down from the sky. One of them clacked off the armor covering Altaru's neck; another broke against my shoulder's steel reinforcement. At last, my knights and I had come up behind Lord Tanu's battalions. Meshian javelin men darted forward between our lines, hurling their spears at our enemy, javelins in hundreds struck deep into wooden shields with a great thucking sound. As our lines drew even closer to the massed phalanxes, warriors in our front ranks loosed spears of their own; almost all found their marks in the long shields that covered the Sakayans' bodies.
'Death to the Valari! Let the Dragon burn the Valari!'
Then, from Lord Tomavar's fourth battalion, one of my warriors let loose a cry of alarm. He stood some thirty yards ahead of me, and although I could see only the side of his stricken face, I felt sure his name was Garadan of Lashku. Sar Garadan thrust his spear into the air in the direction of Morjin's army, and he cried out, 'A dragon! A dragon has come to earth!'
I turned to gaze up toward the great, looming rocks of the Detheshaloon. So did ten thousand of my men. A black spot above the massif blotted out a tiny bit of blue in the sky. In only moments, however, it grew larger as it flew straight toward us like a flock of crows. But the thing that loosed a terrible cry into the air like a crack of thunder could be no bird nor bat, nor any other of the world's flying creatures, for it was not of the earth. 'A dragon!' hundreds of my warriors cried out. 'A dragon is come!'
Now I knew what dread thing Atara had warned me of. 'Oh, Lord!' Maram muttered, pointing out and up. Just before my army closed with our enemy, the dragon - for such it truly was - bellowed out again. I could now see it clearly as it streaked closer, beating the air in quick whumphs with its leathery
wings. It must be nearly forty feet, i thouht, from its iron-like snout to the knotted tip of its tail. Red-black scales covered every inch of its massive body; its great, golden eyes gazed out with what seemed a desire to burn and rend. A long, sinuous neck turned its huge head right and then left as if the dragon was searching for something.
'Yormungand!' Maram suddenly cried out from beside me. 'The dragon's name is Yormungand!'
His distress caused me to call for a halt. I stared at Maram in amazement. So did Kane, Lord Avijan, Lord Sharad, Joshu Kadar and the other Guardians closest to us.
'But how do you know?' I asked Maram.
'Because I can feel
his
mind burning
my
mind!' Maram told me. He shoved his long lance down into its holster, and with his free hand, he grabbed his head. 'The dragon is looking for me!'