Authors: Vera Nazarian
Marihke looked disdainfully in his direction. “You are lucky then, man. Lucky that we let you live in that encounter. And if you’d been better trained, and conscripted with a real Army, then you might have fared even better against us. And had there been a real Army and a real government, the enemy of your lord would have had the services of a strong civil judiciary force instead of having to resort to our dubious clandestine services to destroy him. Which brings me to my point.”
And then he again addressed the general multitude. “We Bilhaar, your guilty conscience and enforcer, your sword arm, and your hired shield, your dark law and your executioner, are on the side of all of you today, ready to fight for this City, to take back Tronaelend-Lis from the Qurthe!”
“
How can we fight something we cannot touch?” cried another man from the crowd. “Look around you. It’s dark during day, the Twilight One’s doing! What have we to fight that? What have you, with your double swords and your fancy tactics? Nothing!”
“
Not true!” cried Marihke, his voice rising with force. “We have the Light Guild, and it is the only thing the Enemy fears!”
“
Then show us the Guildmaster! Let him come forth at last!” they cried from the multitude. “Let him reveal his face to us, and lead us in battle! We follow the Light Guild, not Bilhaar!”
Voices swelled all around, furious, passionate, hopeless.
Marihke stood before them in silence, waiting for them to have their say. But seeing that no one was willing to stop their outcries, he raised his hands up in a calming gesture, palms outward before him.
And was again ignored. The crowd’s momentum had risen to exclude his moment of authority.
For that reason, Marihke resorted to something that Elasirr had warned him to try only if all else failed.
His hands still upraised, he brought the palms together, and willed the familiar energy to gather from the center just above his abdomen, and flow into his fingertips.
And then he released it.
The crowd gasped as one, as the sphere of
red
light exploded from his hands and rose three feet in the air above his head. It was at least five feet in diameter, and it blazed with steady incredible fury, a fallen sun.
And as universal silence came to them, Marihke began to speak, this time heeded by everyone, while the
red
fire blazed above him, and tinted his severe features with pasted-on
color
light: “It is time, O City, that you know the truth, for the end is nearly upon us! Know then, that the Bilhaar and the Light Guild are one and the same!”
And the multitude roared.
T
he Gates of the Inner City stood wide open, for the first time in eight days. The Guild had begun the attack by sheer force of surprise, and succeeded. Immediately upon the opening of the Gates from the inside, several of the Masters wrought spheres of
orange
and
red
, no more than half a dozen in number, and directed them to float through the thick dusky air at the guards. It was interesting to observe their reaction to the light—the first experiment of using
color
in battle against the Qurthe, thought Ranhé. The dark warriors stood back instantly, on reflex, shielding their eyes, and were thus distracted enough that the Guild soldiers could strike them with plain steel, and met hardly any resistance.
Elasirr rode in the forefront of the City forces, Lord Vaeste and Ranhé at his side. Their company included the Masters, select highest-ranking Bilhaar, and other non-assassin trained soldiers of the Guild—altogether only several hundred in number, all equipped with swords and small fist-sized glass orbs, as yet empty of light. On the way to
Dirvan
, they were to meet with the greater resistance reinforcements from the Military Quarter, composed of the Military and the rest of the City Guilds, that were supposed to have been organized and led by Marihke Sar. And they were to light and distribute the orbs to Marihke’s resistance army.
The gray sun had nearly risen to zenith in the murky sky, but its weak radiance barely warmed their skin.
They wore light cavalry armor consisting of metal link vests and strong leather bindings, light helmets of dull steel alloy, elbow gloves, and uniform trousers. Gilimas Prada had given up a considerable sum of anonymous gray jewels to various Guilds, in order to equip them thus. The armor was rather antique, procured from some old stores from the Military Quarter, and unused for at least several decades. It was thus unreliable, and all had been warned not to depend upon it for superior protection from blows.
Their swords, however, were new, modern razor-sharp steel, especially those of the Bilhaar. Even now, the Sword Guild continued to produce weapons of premium quality, because the demand was always there—not for mass-scale warfare, but for personal conflicts and assassinations.
These swords had served them well already, at the Inner City Gates.
When the Qurthe were struck down, they bled ordinary human blood. Even in confusion, many had been difficult to fell, like huge tree trunks. Another difficulty had been the piercing of their dull black iron armor, almost invincible to ordinary blows.
Only, here Bilhaar came to the rescue. They struck fiercely, with lightning speed, and only they could pierce the armor upon the first sword-blow. Other soldiers used, on the average, three blows before reaching leather and skin and flesh.
Three of the Bilhaar, a tall lithe guildsman Jimor and the brothers Teryr and Ukrt, dispatched six of the Qurthe with quick merciless strokes of their long blades, moving them in tandem, while behind them followed wild-maned Pual, and he shaped a fine web of
yellow
light from his upturned palms and threw it like a net to Nottom, another guildsman, who in turn passed it to a guildswoman in light leather armor, Yog-Jade, and they made a triangle of radiance that stood overhead, with the dull sun-disk paling in the background. It completely immobilized the remaining Qurthe guards.
In a matter of minutes they had freed the entrance to the Quarter, and then continued onward, leaving behind them the dead bodies of a small division of Qurthe who had been guarding the Gates all these days.
The Guildmaster and Lord Vaeste had refrained from this first exploratory strike. Instead, Elasirr had pranced in a circle, observing, while underneath him his great ebony stallion strained like a pulled-back bowstring.
When all was done, in a matter of minutes, they regrouped, and again rode out into the square before the Inner City, into the great empty Markets area.
In the distance, through gray thick air, they saw movement approaching directly from the East where lay the Military Quarter.
“
Marihke is advancing,” said Elasand, the skin of his face showing pale from beneath the dark steel helmet. “And it’s time for us to converge upon them.”
“
Yes,” said Elasirr impassively. “It is time.”
Off in the other direction, from the south, past the Markets, past the Arata, lay
Dirvan
, the heart of the City, blanketed in dusk and ebony of the Gardens.
From there came nothing but silence.
All vaporous, still. Distant motionless silhouettes.
“
Where is the Enemy?” whispered Ranhé, staring into the southern empty horizon, shielding her eyes from the constant weak sun-glow. “Why doesn’t he send his forces against us here, in the open? What does he wait for? What does he expect?”
“
Good question,” said Elasand. “I think Feale waits for us to come to him. Or else—”
“
Or else, he toys with us,” concluded Elasirr. “We constitute no threat. He has the upper hand, with several thousand soldiers camped outside the City, and as many patrolling the inside. Our resistance is no more than a joke for him. Even with the ability to forge
color
light, we are still outnumbered.”
“
My lord,” said Ranhé, reining in her mount to draw closer. “If such is the attitude you hold and this army holds, then there is no point at all in fighting. We are fools! Let us turn back now, go into hiding, and come up with some other more constructive and indirect means to retake the City.”
“
Thus speaks the mercenary in you,” said Elasand softly, his eyes coming alive with anger. “I am rather surprised at you, Ranhé. And yet, I shouldn’t be. For some time now I had grown to trust you, and you have proved your constancy to me. It has become too easy to rely on you always being there. But was any of it genuine? I should never forget your words to me once, long ago. . . . You are loyal to nothing and no one. Even now, it’s so hard to digest, this possibility. I wonder, how much do you honestly feel for this City of ours?”
“
Does it matter?” she retorted. “I am still here, my Lord Vaeste, and will serve you while I may. You choose to misunderstand me. My suggestion was only in bitter jest. . . .”
“
If so, it was poorly timed!” said Elasand, angry still.
But Elasirr turned to her, his eyes half-lidded as always, his gaze hidden, and he examined her blankly, without judgment, as she sat in the saddle, facing him silently.
The wind was strong here in the open space of the Markets, blowing in their eyes. Elasirr’s pale blazing hair was gathered behind him underneath his helmet, but the air currents tugged at the fine flaxen strands from behind.
She watched those pale soft strands of hair, flowing in the wind.
For a moment, Ranhé’s mind wandered, and she found herself disembodied, taken out of this time and place, simply looking at the man before her, and next to him his raven-haired idealistic brother with the pale beautiful eyes. Once, those eyes of Elasand Vaeste had touched her, wounded her. And yet, it was not he, but this one, the man with the secretive gaze of the assassin, who somehow appeared to understand her. He, and not the Lord Vaeste—who now accused her of something so far from her true intent—he was the one who now watched her, trying to fathom the true motives underlying her words.
“
Actually, you’re right, we’re fools,” he replied blankly, looking into her eyes. “And yet, it’s too late to do anything else. We cannot turn back. This was meant to be.”
“
But how can you know?” she tried again.
“
I know, for I saw this come to pass. In the forest, at the old shrine. I saw some of it.”
“
Then—you must know the outcome of this battle?”
But Elasirr turned away from her in that instant, and directed his stallion forward. Elasand meanwhile, still looked at her with reproachful eyes, and then said curtly, “Come along.”
“
I am sorry. I will now be silent and humorless, unto oblivion,” she added, urging her mount to follow.
And then, she saw what it was that made Elasirr begin to move.
Directly south of them, at the bright reflective strip of the Arata, a blackness began to form.
It was moving directly for them.
Black poured forth from
Dirvan
along the bridges over the canal, and obscured the pallid marble. Black took shape in the distance and solidified into a cavalry, like a moving wall, with the great scaled beasts moving in the forefront, and mounted upon their backs were the Qurthe warriors.
Sun fell upon them and was dissolved in the swarthy armor, their cold iron, the sea of great pikes, their crested helmets.
All dull hueless, shapeless. All uniform, a flowing river of boulders, of mud, of volcanic ash. Twilight moving upon them, deepening into true night.
The Enemy was moving directly north of
Dirvan
, toward them.
Heading straight for the Inner City.
G
ray dull sky outside. The sun, an orb of insipid glow, floating near zenith.
Hestiam Grelias stood near the window, looking out. Next to him, Chancellor Lirr was pacing tiredly, with folded hands, stepping gingerly between the two black guards standing near the door, and the other three lined up near the north wall.
In the corner, in a large comfortable chair, drowned a small figure of a young boy. He sat huddled in the chair, his feet propped beneath him, arms wrapped around his knees tightly. He had longish soft hair of an indeterminate shade of darkness, and deathly pale skin. His eyes were dull, empty of any expression.
“
How are you holding up, Lissean?” said the Chancellor gently, pausing to look at the boy.
The boy’s eyes focused momentarily, as though his soul was pulled into his body only at the sound of his name being called. “I am fine, sir,” he replied softly, and then grew vacant again.
Hestiam turned back to stare at him nervously for a moment, before again resuming his observation of the sight outside. “Any moment now,” he whispered. “Any moment, and he will walk in to torture me.”
“
You must have strength, Your Grace,” responded Lirr.
“
What’s the point? He said we will all die today. That’s why he brought the two of you here . . . So that he can torture me with death—yours, mine—”
“
I am not afraid,” said Lissean suddenly.
At that moment, the door opened.
Feale came inside softly, a figure of sable elegance. Slim he was, like a slender demon, and tall.
Chancellor Lirr watched impassively the smooth blackness of his skull, the beautiful shape of the brows above the eye sockets.