The Shining Ones

They heard the sound of a heavy blow and curses spat out in archaic Elenic.

‘That’s one of Ayachin’s men,’ Khalad whispered.

‘Ayachin himself wouldn’t be here, would he?’ Berit asked.

‘Incetes was, so I wouldn’t discount the possibility.’

‘If Ayachin is here, I want you two to go looking for Elron,’ Sparhawk instructed. ‘We lost Amador, but Xanetia should be able to get the same kind of information out of Elron. Don’t let him get away – or get himself killed.’

‘Three feet!’ Kalten announced in a triumphant whisper. ‘We can charge just as soon as we catch sight of them now.’

The rafts inched closer, and the voices ahead were much louder now.

‘There’s something moving,’ Khalad said, pointing at a dim shape ahead.

‘How far?’ Sparhawk asked, peering into the white blankness ahead.

‘Maybe thirty paces.’

Then Sparhawk saw more of the dark outlines in the fog and heard the sound of men slogging through shallow water. ‘Mount up!’ he commanded in a low voice. ‘And signal the other rafts.’

They pulled themselves slowly into their saddles, being careful not to make any noise.

‘All right, Ulath,’ Sparhawk said aloud, ‘let everybody know that we’re starting.’

Ulath grinned and lifted the curled Ogre-horn to his lips.

Chapter 30

It was more like a gale than a breeze, and it came howling out of nowhere, bending the evergreens and tearing the last of the leaves from birch and aspen. The fog streamed away in the leaf-speckled blast.

The crests of the shallow waves were suddenly whipped to froth, and the water ran against a shoreline that was not sand, nor gravel nor rock, but grass and half-submerged bushes. There were thousands of men on shore, roughly dressed serfs laboring in a field of tree stumps.

‘Heretic knights!’ a man at the edge of the water screamed. He wore crude bits and pieces of ancient armor, and he stood gaping at the huge force of mounted men which had appeared quite suddenly out of nowhere as the gale tore the fog away.

Ulath’s horn continued its barbaric call, and Tikume’s Peloi and the knights plunged off the rafts, their mounts sending great sheets of water out to either side, almost like icy wings.

‘What must we do, noble Ayachin?’ the crudely armored man shrieked to a lean fellow astride a white horse. The mounted man was more completely armored, although his armor was an archaic blend of steel plate and bronze chain-mail.

‘Fight!’ he roared. ‘Destroy the heretic invaders! Fight – for Astel and our holy faith!’

Sparhawk sawed Faran’s reins round and charged directly at the resurrected Astellian hero, his sword aloft and his shield in front of his body.

Ayachin’s helmet had no visor as such, but rather a steel nose-guard protruding down over half his face. There was a quick intelligence in that face and a burning zeal. The eyes, however, were the eyes of a fanatic. He set himself, raised his heavy sword, and spurred his white mount forward to meet Sparhawk’s charge.

The two horses crashed together, and the white mount reeled back. Faran was the bigger horse, and he was skilled at fighting. He slammed his shoulder into Ayachin’s mount and tore great chunks from the white animal’s neck with his teeth. Sparhawk caught the ancient hero’s sword-stroke with his shield and countered with a heavy overhand stroke of his own, clashing his blade down on the hastily raised and bulky shield.

‘Heretic!’ Ayachin snarled. ‘Spawn of hell! Foul sorcerer!’

‘Give it up!’ Sparhawk snapped. ‘You’re out of your class!’ He found that he had no real wish to kill this man who was fighting to defend his homeland and his faith from a brutal Church policy long since abandoned. Sparhawk had no real quarrel with him.

Ayachin bellowed his defiance and swung his sword again. He showed some proficiency with the weapon, but he was no real match for the black-armored Pandion he faced. Sparhawk caught the sword-stroke with his shield again, and struck a chopping blow at his opponent’s shoulder. ‘Run away, Ayachin!’ he barked. ‘I don’t want to kill you! You’ve been duped by an alien God and brought thousands of years into the future! This isn’t your fight! Take your people and go!’

It was too late, though. Sparhawk saw the madness in his opponent’s eyes, and he had been in too many fights not to recognize it. He sighed, crowded Faran in against the white horse, and began a series of strokes he had used so many times in the past that, once it began, the succeeding blows were automatic.

The ancient fought bravely, struggling to respond with his unwieldy equipment, but the outcome was inevitable. Sparhawk’s progressive strokes bit him deeper and deeper, and chunks of his armor flew from each savage cut.

Then, altering his last stroke to avoid a grotesque maiming, Sparhawk thrust instead of delivering the customary overhand stroke that would have split his opponent’s head. His sword-point crunched through the ancient and ineffective armor and smoothly ran through Ayachin’s chest.

The fire went out of that ancient face, and the hero Ayachin stiffened and toppled slowly from his saddle.

Sparhawk raised his sword-hilt to his face in a sad salute.

A great cry went up from the Astellian serfs as Ayachin’s army vanished. A burly serf at the water’s edge bawled contradictory orders, gyrating his arms like a windmill. Berit leaned over in his saddle and brought the flat side of his axe-blade down on top of the man’s head, felling him instantly.

There were a few pockets of ineffective and halfhearted resistance, but the serfs for the most part fled. Queen Betuana and her Atans drove the panicky workers from the pier, and the knights and the Peloi parted ranks to permit them to flee into the forest. Sparhawk rose up in his stirrups and looked to the north. The knights who had disembarked from Sorgi’s ships were also driving the misguided serfs on the far side of the pier back into the trees.

The battle, such as it had been, was over.

The Queen of the Atans came ashore with a look of discontent on her golden face. ‘It was not much of a fight, Sparhawk-Knight,’ she accused.

‘I’m very sorry, your Majesty,’ he apologized. ‘I did the best I could with what I had to work with. I’ll try to do better next time.’

She suddenly grinned at him. ‘I was teasing you, Sparhawk-Knight. Good planning reduces the need for fighting, and you plan very well.’

‘Your Majesty is very kind to say so.’

‘How long will it take that Cammorian sailor to bring the rest of our army to this side of the wall?’

‘The rest of today and most of tomorrow, I’d imagine.’

‘Can we afford to wait that long? We should go to Tzada before the Troll-beasts start to march.’

‘I’ll talk with Aphrael and Bhelliom, your Majesty,’ he said. ‘They’ll be able to tell us what the Trolls are doing – and delay them if necessary.’

Khalad rode up. ‘We couldn’t find any sign of Elron, Sparhawk,’ he reported. ‘We captured a few of those serfs, and they told us that he wasn’t here.’

‘Who was in charge, then?’

‘That husky fellow Berit put to sleep with the flat of his axe seems to have been the one giving all the orders.’

‘Wake him up and see what you can get out of him. Don’t twist him too hard, though. If he decides to be stubborn, we’ll wait until Xanetia gets here. She can find out everything he knows without hurting him.’

‘Yes, my Lord.’ Khalad wheeled his mount and went looking for Berit.

‘You have a kindly disposition for a warrior, Sparhawk-Knight,’ Betuana observed.

‘These serfs aren’t really our enemies, Betuana-Queen. I’ll show you the other side of my nature after we catch Zalasta.’

‘His name is Torbik,’ Khalad reported when he joined them in the pavilion they had erected for the ladies. ‘He was one of Sabre’s first followers. I think he’s a serf from Baron Kotyk’s estate. He wouldn’t say so, but I’m fairly sure he knows that Elron is Sabre.’

‘Does he know why Elron sent him rather than coming here himself?’ Tynian asked.

‘He hasn’t a clue – or so he says,’ Khalad replied. ‘Anarae Xanetia can look inside his head and find out for sure.’ He paused. ‘Excuse me, Anarae,’ he said to the Delphaeic woman. ‘We all keep groping for ways to describe what you do when you listen to the thoughts of others. We’d probably be a lot less offensive if you’d tell us the right word for it.’

Xanetia, who had arrived with Sephrenia, Talen and Flute on Sorgi’s ship with the first contingent being ferried around the reef, smiled. ‘I had wondered which of ye would be the first to ask,’ she said. ‘Methinks I should have known it would be thee, young master, for thine is the most practical mind in all this company. We of the Delphae do refer to this modest gift as “sharing”. We share the thoughts of others, we do not “leech” them, nor do we scoop them like struggling minnows from the dark waters of consciousness.’

‘Would it offend you, Sir Knights, if I pointed out that it’s easier to ask than to grope your way through four languages looking for the right term?’ Khalad asked rather innocently.

‘Yes,’ Vanion said, ‘as a matter of fact it would offend us.’

‘I won’t point it out, then, my Lord.’ Khalad even managed to say it with a straight face. ‘Anyway, Torbik was here primarily to keep the Astellian serfs from talking with Ayachin’s warriors too much. Evidently there’s a great potential for confusion in the situation. Elron definitely didn’t want the two groups to start comparing notes.’

‘Does he have any idea at all about where Elron is right now?’ Kalten asked.

‘He doesn’t even know where he is right now. Elron just said a few vague things about eastern Astel and let it go at that. Torbik wasn’t really the one in charge here – any more than Ayachin was. There was a Styric with them, and he was the one who was giving all the orders. He was probably one of the first to run off into the woods when we came ashore.’

‘Could that have been Djarian?’ Bevier asked Sephrenia. ‘Zalasta’s necromancer? Somebody had to be the one who plucked Ayachin out of the ninth century.’

‘It might have been,’ Sephrenia replied doubtfully. ‘More likely, though, it was one of Djarian’s pupils. It’s the initial spell that’s difficult. Once the people from the past have been successfully raised, a fairly simple spell can bring them back again. I’m sure there was a Styric south of the wall calling up Incetes and his men as well. Zalasta and Ogerajin have a large body of renegades to draw upon.’

‘May I come in?’ Captain Sorgi asked from just outside the tent.

‘Of course, Captain,’ Vanion replied.

The silvery-haired seaman came inside. ‘We’ll have the last of your people ashore on this side of the reef by tomorrow noon, my Lords,’ he reported. ‘You’ll want us to wait here, won’t you?’

‘Yes,’ Sparhawk replied. ‘If all goes well, we’ll need to go back around the reef after we’ve finished at Tzada.’

‘Will the warm water hold? I’d rather not get icebound up here.’

‘We’ll see to it, Captain,’ Sparhawk promised.

Sorgi shook his head. ‘You’re a strange man, Master Cluff. You can do things no one I’ve ever met can do.’ He suddenly smiled. ‘But strange or not, you’ve thrown a lot of profit my way since you started running away from that ugly heiress.’ He looked at the others. ‘But I’m just interrupting things here. Do you suppose I might have a word with you in private, Master Cluff?’

‘Of course.’ Sparhawk rose and followed the sailor outside.

‘I’ll get right to the point,’ Sorgi said. ‘Do you have any further plans for these rafts – after you use them to go back around the reef, I mean?’

‘No, I don’t think so.’

‘Would it be all right with you if I left a crew on the beach south of the reef while I run you and your friends back to Matherion?’

‘I have no objections, Captain, but I don’t quite understand.’

‘The rafts are made of very good logs, Master Cluff. After your army uses them to get around the reef, they’ll just be lying there. It’d be a shame to waste them. I thought I’d leave a crew to lash them together into some kind of boom. I’ll come back after I drop you off in Matherion, and we’ll tow them to the timber market in Etalon – or maybe even back to Matherion itself. They should fetch a good price.’

Sparhawk laughed. ‘Good old Sorgi,’ he said, putting a friendly hand on the sea-captain’s shoulder. ‘You never overlook a chance for a profit, do you? Take the logs with my blessing.’

‘You’re a generous man, Master Cluff.’

‘You’re my friend, Captain Sorgi, and I like doing things for friends.’

‘You’re my friend as well, Master Cluff. The next time you need a ship, come and look me up. I’ll take you anywhere you want to go.’ Sorgi paused, his expression suddenly cautious. ‘For only half price,’ he added.

The village of Tzada had been abandoned several years ago, and the rampaging Trolls had knocked most of the buildings down. It lay at the edge of a vast marshy meadow with Bhelliom’s escarpment looming over it to the south. The sun was just rising far to the southeast, and the grassy meadow was thick with frost that glittered in the slanting sunlight.

‘How large is the meadow, your Majesty?’ Vanion asked Betuana.

‘Two leagues across and six or eight leagues long. It will be a good battlefield.’

‘We were sort of hoping to avoid that, your Majesty,’ Vanion reminded her.

Engessa was ordering his scouts out to pinpoint the exact location of the Trolls. ‘We were able to see them from the top of the escarpment,’ he told Vanion. ‘They’ve been gathering out in the middle of the meadow every day for the past several weeks. They were too far away for us to see exactly what they’ve been doing, though. The scouts will locate them for us.’

‘What’s the plan, friend Sparhawk?’ Kring asked, fingering his saber-hilt. ‘Do we march on them and turn their Gods loose on them at the last minute?’

‘I want to talk with the Troll-Gods first,’ Aphrael said. ‘We want to be absolutely certain that they understand all the conditions of their release.’