Yesterday's Kings (40 page)

“B
EWARE!
” E
BEN YELLED
, his bellow near deafening Cullyn. He raised his own hands, muttering furiously as light seemed to gather about the priest so that Fendur’s black-clad form grew indistinct, like a shimmering mirage. Power gathered, palpable, about him, and then he was hidden altogether as the light became incandescent and erupted.

It was akin to that other attack, when Cullyn had first encountered Lyandra, but far more powerful. Myriad fires shot from where the priest stood his horse, great licking tongues of flame that seared the morning and struck like lightning at the Durrym ranks. Cullyn kicked Lyandra’s feet from under her and flung himself on her even as she protested, cursing volubly. Laurens dropped to the ground beside them as the morning was filled with a sulphurous stench, as if some great furnace gate had been opened. Durrym died without a sound, torched by that dreadful fire too swiftly to cry out. Rather, they were reduced to crisped corpses that collapsed into drifting ashes. Tents took fire, the grand pavilions burning so that for a while flame held the Durrym trapped. Some sought refuge in the river, more followed Cullyn’s example and fell to the ground. Cullyn looked up, wondering if his hair burned, and saw Eben standing like some ancient monument, his hands thrust out even as little flames danced over his robe and across his hair. And then it was as if a great wind blew, conjured from his hands to gust against Per Fendur’s magic and drive the flames back
toward the priest. Cullyn gasped as the light died to reveal Fendur again, seated angry on his black horse. He ignored the fallen men, gazing furiously down the slope.

Eben slapped at the embers scorching his robe and shook his head, sending ashes and hanks of burning hair to fall in a cloud around him. “The priest is strong,” he muttered, “but it shall take him a while to recover.”

“And you?” Cullyn rose warily. It seemed to him that Eben was suddenly aged, his already ancient face now haggard.

“I’ll survive. I’ve lived too long to die now. But until that bastard gathers his strength again, it’ll be sword work.”

As if to confirm his words, Per Fendur shouted a command, and from over the ridge came the might of Lyth Keep, a flood of horsemen that thundered down toward the Durrym pavilions, armored and bearing lances, waving swords as the bowmen shafted arrows that pricked men and tents in equal measure.

Cullyn saw a Shahn taken through the throat by a shaft, and ran forward, toward the charge.

“
No!
This is madness!”

He ducked as arrows flew past his head, and turned to Lyandra.

She crouched beside him, holding a shield and her long knife. Three shafts stood upright on her shield; a fourth plucked at her cap, and Cullyn felt madness encompass him. He saw a golden-armored horseman thundering toward them, riders on his flanks, and all charging with couched lances that seemed angled entirely at Lyandra. He sprang to face the assault.

The leading rider held a lance and a shield, all armored in gold, and his horse was kitted with gilded mail. Cullyn saw the lance angled at Lyandra. He chopped it aside, and saw her toppled by the charger’s path even as
he was flung away and the rest of the charge went past in a confusion of hoofs and sound and trampled sod. He tumbled, dizzied by the impact, his head spinning as the lancer brought his horse around in a tightly dancing circle and charged again.

Cullyn glanced to where Lyandra still lay and saw the lance’s point aimed at his chest. He raised his sword, thinking that he was about to die.

Then Laurens was there, swinging a Durrym blade against the horse’s muzzle, against the armor, so that the animal swerved away from Lyandra and Cullyn and came crashing down, screaming in pain.

The rider staggered to his feet, his armor dented and bloodied. He lofted a sword that Laurens smashed aside, then delivered a cut that sent sparkling pieces of golden armor lofting like jewels into the rising sunlight.

He chopped again, a butcher’s game, down into the helmet, and through, and Amadis died.

“Thank you. You saved my life,” Cullyn gasped

“I enjoyed it,” Laurens answered. “I never liked him.”

Then the battle raged about them and it was all survival, parry and cut, hack one man down and avoid the next blow. Cullyn lost sight of Lyandra, who darted limber amongst the Kandarians, her long knife flashing until it was all bloody.

L
ORD
B
ARTRAM FOUND HIS FEET
with difficulty. Shame filled him as he located his sword and sheathed the blade. He caught his nervous horse and, with an effort that seemed to take what little breath was left him, mounted. He turned to Fendur. “I gave no order to attack. We might have spoken with them!”

“With Durrym?” The priest’s face was sallow, his eyes hollow and reddened. “Durrym are only good for slaughtering.”

“And Abra?”

“What of her? Her only importance is that she brought us here.”

“My daughter is no pawn.” Bartram’s sword was suddenly in his hand, as if he were young again. He saw the battle before him, his men and Durrym dying needlessly. He wondered how his daughter fared amongst such carnage, and what betrayal was planned by Amadis and the priest.

“Of course she is,” Fendur sneered, “as are you. Only pawns.”

“I command here,” Bartram growled, and reached for the horn that would call his men back.

“Think you so, old man?” Fendur laughed wickedly. “Your wife sleeps with your captain, and your daughter takes a filthy Durrym for her lover. What command does that leave you? No, I command here. In the name of the Church.”

Lord Bartram raised the horn.

Per Fendur said, “You’ll not call them back,” and stuck his blade into Bartram’s side, between the joining of the pauldron and the breastplate. The horn fell from fingers that were abruptly numbed by the terrible pain that filled the old man’s body. It was as if the horn became filled with cold and heat simultaneously, running down his arm into his throat, his chest, his ribs.

He was dimly aware of his charger prancing beneath him, bucking and shaking its head. The terrain swirled before him and then he was staring at the freshly blued sky, all the breath smashed from his body. He realized that he was dismounted, stretched on the trampled grass, his sword gone. Fendur danced his black horse around the fallen lord, laughing.

“Your time is past, old man. You grew too soft, eh? To contemplate alliance with the Durrym? No!”

He left Bartram and set his horse to moving down the slope, already fashioning a further spell.

“T
HE WOMEN AND CHILDREN?
” Isydrian parried a Kandarian blade and smashed his own against the soldier’s ribs.

“Tended.” Pyris drove his sword’s point into his attacker’s throat and spun to stab into the back of the man assaulting Isydrian. “Mallandra takes them to safety.” He chanced a glance at the burning pavilions. “And Abra, too, I think.”

Isydrian looked toward the river. A pall of smoke hung above the tents, swirling where it met the breeze coming off the water. Folk splashed through the shallows, ushered on by the two women, gathering on the farther bank, where nervous animals watched from the trees.

It was one of those curious lulls that occur in the midst of battle, so that for a moment the two Durrym lords stood alone, the fighting raging bloody around them but they cupped in a moment of solitude.

“You fight well,” Isydrian said.

“As do you.”

“We might be friends.”

“Are we not, now?”

Isydrian nodded, then raised his sword and returned to the combat.

C
ULLYN STOOD
back-to-back with Laurens. Both their blades were sheathed in blood and Cullyn feared
he might vomit. How many Kandarians had he slain, men he might have known in other circumstances?

“This is madness.”

“This is war.”

“Then war is madness.”

“Likely, but …” Laurens brought up his shield as a javelin arced at Cullyn. He caught the missile and hacked off the shaft. “What choice have we?”

“If I could talk with Lord Bartram …”

“I doubt he’s in the mood for talking.” Laurens took a sword blow on his shield, parrying the counter to drive his point hard through chain mail, into the man’s belly. Then gasped as the dying man fell back. “Drak? Is that you?”

Drak tottered, sword forgotten, his shield too weighty now to hold up. For a moment they stood facing one another. Then Drak said hoarsely, “You’ve killed me. Damn that foul priest.”

“Yes, forgive me,” Laurens answered, and stabbed Drak’s throat that he die swiftly. He turned to Cullyn: “I’ve no more liking for this than you. I’m killing men I knew—drank with; men I’d name as friends—but destiny names our paths, and mine runs alongside yours. So …”

He ducked, raising his shield as arrows flew, and then they were again encompassed by the battle and there was no time for further debate: only the business of bloody survival.

L
OFANTYL SAW
A
BRA
and Mallandra take the defenseless ones across the river, saw them gather on the far bank and prayed they be safe.

Afranydyr said, “You fight well, brother. Better than I thought you capable of.”

“I don’t enjoy it,” Lofantyl replied. “This is stupid.”

“The Garm delivered it.” Afranydyr swung his sword as one of the few still-mounted Kandarians thrust a lance at his chest. He knocked the lance away with his shield and ducked to deliver a blow that broke the horse’s knees. The beast screamed and fell, pitching its rider from the saddle. The man landed on his face in the bloodied grass, and Afranydyr hacked at his neck, breaking it, then plunged his blade into the wounded horse that it suffer no longer. “We have no other choice,” he said.

“We might have talked with them. I think they came to find Abra.”

“Or conquer Coim’na Drhu.”

“Even so, we might have spoken.”

“With Garm’kes—”

Afranydyr was unable to finish the sentence because an arrow drove into his throat and his mouth filled up with blood. It spurted from his gaping mouth as his eyes opened wide in disbelief. He coughed gobbets of crimson and dropped his blade as he reached for the projectile that pierced his windpipe.