A Man Rides Through (100 page)

Sobbing, "Save the Tor!" he grabbed up his mirror.

Master Barsonage was too slow. He was watching the Tor, watching the reinforcements; he didn't react in time.

The young Imager was hardly more than a boy, pushed past his limits. Facing his mirror in the general direction of the opposite glass, he began translating his chasm straight into the huge ridge of rock left by the avalanche; the rock which sealed the valley.

But of course the Master holding the other mirror didn't know what was about to happen. In any case, the two mirrors were no longer properly aligned. There was nothing to stop the tremendous and convulsive tremor which split the ridge and the ground and went on until it hit the end of the other wall and tore apart all that old stone, reducing the opposite glass and everyone near it to rubble.

Under the circumstances, it was probably a good thing that the young Master didn't live long. There was no way to tell how much damage his chasm might have done, if the translation had continued unchecked. And there was no way to tell how he would have endured the consequences of his action.

As matters fell out, however, he was saved by a particularly stubborn Cadwal, who already had his sword up to chop open Master Harpool's oblivious face when an Alend arrow nailed him between the shoulder blades. Falling forward, his upraised arms hit the top of Harpool's mirror. That impact made his fingers release his sword.

As if it had been thrown deliberately, the hilt of the blade snapped the young Master's neck. He, in turn, fell forward onto his glass, shattering it completely.

Full of terrible defeat, Master Barsonage hardly noticed that Master Harpool had somehow contrived to keep his own mirror from being broken. And the mediator's was undamaged. That was less than no consolation; it was almost an insult in the face of the general ruin. Every other glass which the Congery had prepared for this battle was destroyed.

He half expected another violent recoil as the chasm ceased to exist for the second time; but that didn't happen. The previous convulsion had been caused by reversing the translation. This translation, on the other hand, was only stopped, not undone. Vast portions of the piled ridge were engulfed; most of the end-rock of the opposite wall disappeared into the new crevice. Then the rending and spitting of the earth was over.

As a result, the High King's forces once again had access to the valley—a ragged and constricted access, treacherous to cross, like the spaces between rotting teeth, but access nonetheless.

When he saw that there were already men riding at full career in through one of the farther gaps, he covered his face with his hands.

FORTY-NINE: THE KING'S LAST HOPES

Standing near the King's pennon with Terisa, Geraden, and her father, the lady Elega didn't know where to look, or what to feel.

She could watch the struggle down at the end of the valley wall, off to her right, where the Tor had fallen, and where Castellan Norge and his men fought to save what they could of the Masters and their mirrors. Or she could watch the breach where the other Masters used to be, the gap which had been made in the piled ridge of the avalanche by translating the Congery's chasm from only one side.

Riders were coming in through that gap, driving their horses hard. And Prince Kragen was there. From this distance, he appeared to be doing everything at once: rallying his men; finishing off the incursion of Cadwals; searching over the new jumble of rocks for survivors. To her eyes, each of his actions seemed as quick as a thrust, as decisive as a sword; the precision with which he used his men made Norge look like a blundering lout by comparison.

He was worthy—oh, he was worthy! Surely King Joyse could see that. Surely her father in this new manifestation could see and appreciate the qualities which made the Alend Contender precious to her. Prince Kragen deserved—

He deserved to be right.

Almost as an act of self-mortification, to humble herself so that she wouldn't hope so hard, fear so much, Elega forced her eyes to stay on the right side of the valley foot, not the left.

The question of what to feel was more difficult. She couldn't resolve it by an act of will.

Pride and panic: vindication and alarm. Suddenly, as much "out of nowhere" as if translation were involved, the King had proved himself. He had made real the interpretations of himself which until now had been only ideas—concepts put forward by people like Ter-isa and Geraden for reasons of their own. He had shown that he merited the risks she had taken in his name, arguing for him against reason, common sense; he had justified the forbearance she had won from Prince Kragen and the Alend Monarch. In the privacy of her own thoughts, she understood why he had found it necessary to use her like a hop-board piece in his plans, rather than to hazard the truth with her. She was
proud
of him, there beside his standard, blue eyes blazing; as ready as a hawk to strike or defend.

She was proud of him—and afraid that she had failed him.

In a sense, she was playing his own game against him. At her urging, Prince Kragen and the Alend Monarch had made decisions concerning this war on the basis of knowledge and speculation which they hadn't shared with any representative of Orison.

Her purpose—as distinct from Kragen's or Margonal's—had been twofold: to make the forces of Alend
wait,
withhold their siege, long enough for King Joyse's plans to ripen; and to put pressure on the King, pressure which would force him to accept an alliance with Alend. By keeping secrets from her father, she reinforced Prince Kragen's position.

Now, today, here, what she had done came to the test. She would be right, as the Prince deserved—if for no other reason than because he had trusted her. Or she would be wrong.

Mordant itself might stand or fall on the outcome.

She could choose to keep her eyes away from Prince Kragen, away from the riders boiling into the valley on the left; but she couldn't choose to ignore her fear. The more pride she felt in King Joyse and the Prince, the more she dreaded the possibility that she had helped bring them both to ruin.

Maybe that was why she looked her worst in sunlight. The sun couldn't expose her secrets, of course; but it seemed to lay bare the fact that she had them.

Under the circumstances, she considered it fortunate that no one was paying much attention to her.

Unconscious of himself, Geraden muttered, "Get up. Get up." Everyone had seen the Tor go down; no one had seen the old lord regain his feet. For that matter, no one had seen any of the Masters emerge from the rocks. "Get
up.
We need you."

Terisa held his arm with both hands, clung to him. Nevertheless she kept her eyes averted as if she couldn't bear to watch what he was seeing. Facing to the left of the valley's foot, she asked softly, "Who is
that?"

Geraden apparently had no idea what she meant. And Elega was determined not to look. She needed a way to live with her fear, a way to endure her failure when it came.

Abruptly, it became obvious that Castellan Norge was done with the Cadwals attacking the Masters. Shouts were raised, and some of the men relaxed. Bowmen hurried out of the rocks to retrieve their shafts; riders sped away, some to deliver messages, others to help the Prince. Master Barsonage appeared, holding a glass nearly as tall as himself. Behind him came Master Harpool, doddering painfully. Two guards carried the old Imager's mirror for him.

Together, five or six men picked up the Tor's corpse; as gently as they could, they set it in a rude litter. Then they lifted the litter to other men on horseback. Ribuld's body also was put in a litter to accompany the Tor's. Castellan Norge mounted his horse, placed himself at the head of his riders.

In procession, like a cortege, the Castellan and his men came up the valley toward King Joyse.

"My lord," Geraden sighed—an exhalation with his teeth clenched down on it hard enough to draw blood. "My poor lord."

Terisa shook his arm; maybe she was trying to distract him. "Geraden, look. Who
is
that?"

Involuntarily, the lady Elega turned.

At once, she saw that the horsemen attempting to enter the valley were fighting for their lives—

—
fighting for their lives against the forces of Cadwal outside. She had assumed that they, too, were Cadwals; but she was wrong. High King Festten opposed them bitterly: seen through the breaches in the piled ridge, it appeared that he had sent his entire mounted strength to destroy them.

She saw Prince Kragen spur his charger into a gallop, leading several hundred Alends to the defense of the riders; headlong against thousands of Cadwals.

At the same time, King Joyse shouted to the nearest captain, "Get archers down there! I want bows up in those rockpiles! I want an ambush in each of those gaps! We cannot keep Cadwal out, but we can make the High King cautious. We must not allow him to mass his men inside those piles!"

Cupping his hands on either side of his mouth to make his voice ring, he added,
"Support the Prince!"

With her jaw hanging down like a madwoman's, Elega saw that one of the riders Prince Kragen was risking himself to help bore the dull grape-on-wheat colors of the Termigan.

The
Termigan?

What in the name of all sanity was
he
doing here?

"The Termigan!" Geraden breathed to Terisa. "I don't believe it. He came after all."

Elega was too surprised to notice that the catapults were ready to throw again. And she certainly didn't notice that one of them behind her had been reaimed toward King Joyse's pennon. She hardly heard the flat thudding of the arms, or the thin, high scream of scattershot through the air. At the moment, her only concern was that none of the engines could strike at Prince Kragen or the Termigan.

She didn't know how lucky she was when the catapult behind her failed to throw.

Instead of attacking, it leaned forward and toppled crookedly off the rampart, tearing itself to scrap on the rocks as it fell. From the valley rim, a group of Prince Kragen's climbers raised an inaudible cheer, then turned to defend themselves from Cadwals arriving too late to save the engine.

King Joyse, however, seemed to notice that as he noticed everything else. With a glance upward, he said to himself, "Six left. Progress is made, friend Festten. Be warned."

Unfortunately, the siege engines had already cost him hundreds of men, dead or hurt.

Elega held her breath, watching Prince Kragen hurl himself against High King Festten's horsemen. Hadn't Geraden said that the Termigan refused to come? She gnawed the inside of her cheek. Yes, that was what Geraden had said. Yet he was here. She felt a chill, despite the air's relative warmth. What new disaster had he come to report?

Who were those people in the center of his formation, those cloaked figures that didn't fight, that didn't do anything except ride where the Termigan's men took them? One of them seemed ordinary enough. The other was huge—

Echoes brought the sounds of battle to her, the strife of swords and shields. Piled rock hid most of the fighting: Prince Kragen had ventured through the gap and was out of sight behind the debris of the avalanche. He didn't have enough men to oppose that many Cadwals, not nearly enough. Only the speed of his charge could save him, its unexpectedness. But a mixed group of guards and soldiers was almost in position to help him, two hundred horse in the lead, half a thousand foot pelting furiously behind. And when the Termigan had brought all his people into the valley, he wheeled his mount, called most of his strength after him, and returned to aid the Prince.

Together, nearly side-by-side, Prince Kragen and the man who had declared flatly,
I
trust no Alend,
fought their way back toward the bulk of King Joyse's army.

The rough mounds close on either side saved them: all that broken stone constricted the Cadwal countercharge; an abundance of scattered rubble where the chasm used to be prevented riders from moving in tight ranks. And when the High King's forces tried to enter the valley again, archers began loosing their shafts from high up among the rocks.