The Dark Queen (2 page)

And the armiesthe irresistible armiesat the outskirts of Istar. Oh, what Takhisis would
not give to destroy this Plainsman hero and his few hundred followers! The upstart rebel
was little more than a gifted escape artist noweluding and fighting the slavers in a
desert that his advisors, his oracles, and his own common sense told him not to leave. But
five years from now, when his strength and judgment had matured, when his numbers had
increased by thousands and he stood at the gates of Istar, liberating the countless slaves
and conquered peoples, his power would be grown so mighty that not even a goddess could
stop him. The salt flats of the southern desert lay a mile from the boundaries of the
Que-Nara's firelight. Called the Tears of Mishakal since the Age of Light, it was an alien
landscape to Plainsmen, to barbarians, even to the nomadic desert bandits who skirted its
edges with muttered prayers to Sargonnas or Shinare. Legends had it that those who strayed
onto the salt flats rarely found their way back, but wandered the faceless landscape
forever. Those same legends claimed that often the unwary traveler was drawn there by the
song of the crystals, the contorted, glassy growths that rose from the heart of the flats,
through which the desert wind chimed a faint, bizarre music. None of the Plainsmen camped
close to the salt flats, nor did the sentries patrol its borders. Its landscape extended
to the blank horizon, as original and pure as it had lain during the Age of Dreams, and
the eyes of the Que-Nara, turned north toward the grasslands and the distant Istarian
threat, failed to notice a stirring in a nearby cluster of crystals, a twisted, sparkling
tree of salt that began to sway and turn. In the blended light of the three moonsthe
white, the red, and the unseen black moon, Nuitari the crystals boiled and blackened, as
though an unbearable heat passed through them, welding facet to adjoining facet until the
branching facets melded and slowly took on a new shape. As faceless as the salt flat,
anonymous and half formed, it was nonetheless human ... Or humanlike. For a moment it
hovered between mineral and life, between salt and flesh, as though something in it warred
between sleep and waking, stasis and movement. Then hands and fingers branched from the
glossy arms, and the features of the face took sudden shape, as though an unseen sculptor
had drawn them from the stone. The woman moved, and the desert shuddered. She was
beautiful, dark and curiously angular, and naked in the black moonlight. The woman knelt
and scooped up a handful of salt. It poured black through her fingers, shimmering

thin like silk, and she wrapped herself in the new, cascading cloth. Magically, her
features softened, her skin grew supple and pale, and her amber eyes glittered under
heavy, sensuous lashes. But the hearts of those eyes were black, slitted vertically like a
reptile's. For a moment the woman stood still and practiced breathing as though it were a
new and odd sensa- tion. Then she stretched lazily, the silk riding soft and translucent
up her pale, perfect legs.

“Oh, too long away,” she murmured, and there was a chiming echo trapped in the depths of
her voice. “Too long away from Ansalon and from the little world ... ”If I cannot be opal
yet, I shall be salt." She walked out of the Abyss, out of the dead valley and into the
pathless desert, the massive weight of her delicate feet crushing the sunbaked mosaic and
parting the winds in her passage.

Six hundred and more of thc sack-robed rebels crossed the northern stretch of sand, the
horizon shimmering purple and green in the midday heat. Twice the scouts shouted forth a
warning, sending a nervous flurry through their column. The miscalls were forgivable.
After all, the lads were young, masterful on horseback but new to reconnaissance. Mirages
they would have ignored a week ago boldly deceived them now. Towers, they told Stormlight.
Towers made of water at the northern edge of sight.

The elf smiled at their rashness, their excitability. On horseback, hooded against the
desert winds, he shielded his eyes and looked to the horizon, where the scouts beckoned
and pointed. “Illusion,” he told them. “False light.” He sent them back in the column for
refreshment, for shade. They complied unwillingly, insisting that they had seen the great
colored spires of Istar. Stormlight knew better. The city was thirty miles away, across
mountains and the expanse of Lake Istar. Furthermore, Fordus the Prophet had no plan to go
there. Not until he could walk through those gates in triumph. That would be years and
many followers in the future. For now, there was the Kingpriest's army to reckon with.
Stormlight stared across the tawny grassland, toward the north where the bright red star
of Chislev rode low over the bunched backs of the mountains. It was easy in the desert,
where he and Fordus read the faceless terrain much like deep-sea naviga- tors decoded the
swell and tilt of the waves. It was Stormlight's nature to do sothe sympathy with water
and rock that was his inheritance. However, the fancy, soft generals of Istar had had
little chance in the shifting sand and merciless heat. Remembering it gave Stormlight a
savage pleasure. In late autumn, the Kingpriest had sent an irritated legion south into
the desert, with orders to uproot the bandit, Fordus. That expedition had lasted two weeks
in the blowing sand, with never a clear sighting of the quarry. Led by a few old fire pits
and wisps of hope, the Istarians trudged south to the borders of Balifor where, short of
water and exhausted by a dozen nights of fruitless searching, they were easy prey for
Fordus's rebel force, which was half their size. Twenty-seven Istarian soldiers were still
missingtheir helmets, shields, and bones scattered for miles among the dried, branching
riverbeds the Lucanesti knew as the Tine. The rest of the unit had returned to the city
with tales of a wolfish, wraith-like commander who could be in three places at once, who
moved over sand like the wind and carried a thousand throwing axes on a belt at his waist,
all designed by a mage who had vowed that never would a cast miss its target.

Twenty-seven Istarians and a mythology. Small payment for a hundred elves enslaved in the
dark undercity, Stormlight thought bitterly. At least Istar would think twice before
venturing into the desert again. This, however, was a new placethe yellow grasslands south
of the city itself, as promising as they were dangerous. It would take a full day of
riding across their open expanse to reach the foothills, the mountains, and finally the
outskirts of Istar. It was unknown country, treacherous and vague, and Fordus had been
forced to leave behind more than two hundred of the Que-Nara, devout and basically
peaceful Plainsmen whose gods had forbidden them to leave the desert in any act of
aggression.

Still, close to four hundred Que-Nara remained with the rebels, proceeding against the
warnings of their clerics, and the rest of the invading force was a ragged assembly of
bandits and barbarians only lately come to the cause. Now, somewhere between these rebels
and the dark foothills waited two proper legionstwo thousand members of the crack Istarian
Guard: crossbow, spear, and sword units, along with a cavalry famous throughout Ansalon.
Enemy enough to strike fear in the most daring commander.

Yet there was no fear, no hesitation in Fordus Fire-soul, the pale-eyed Plainsman, Water
Prophet and Lord of the Rebels. Stormlight set his face in approval. No fear was good.

After all, had not the Prophet routed the Istarians four, five times in the past? Easy in
the saddle, his translucent skin mottling with glittering green and orange flashes of an
early opalescence, Stormlight watched the first shadows or the peaceful blue evening
stretch across the level grasslands. No fear was very good. He cast aside his darker
speculations. In a small advance party not fifty yards away, Fordus the Prophet, on foot
as usual, dropped to the ground in midstride. Behind him, two lieutenants and the bard
paused and did likewise, Larken muffling the variegated head of her drum with the flat of
her callused hand. “Istar approaches,” the commander whispered to them, with no more drama
and moment than if he were observing the color of a horse or a strange cast of light in
the clouds. The tiny bard stared toward the foothills, straining to see what Fordus saw
through the patch of knife-edged grass. Nothing. But he knew. Fordus always knew about
water and armies. “If indeed it is two legions, we'll know it by nightfall/' Fordus
continued. ”We'll count the lights of their campfires, like they want us to. Then I'll
send Stormlight and six men to scout them closely and part the flesh from the shadows. If
they've set enough fires for four legions, they're even more afraid of us than I've
reckoned.“ And tomorrow? the bard signed with one hand. Fordus lifted his eyes,
anticipating her gesture, her question. ”They'll want to meet us in the open fields,
Larken, to use their numbers and horse to advantage.“ The Prophet rose to a crouch,
drawing a line with his finger along the sandy ground. ”When they see our ragtag troops,
only Que-Nara and bandits and a handful of Balifor crossbowmen, they'll think those are
all who stand with me." The lieutenants nodded, oblivious to the softly plodding hooves of
Stormlight's horse some distance behind. Long ago they had learned to give their entire
attention to their commander, to wait before they spoke. Stormlight dismounted silently,
bade the horse to lie down, and slipped through the circle of squatting ..rebels. He knew
well his old friend's ways. The plan would be simple, direct, and clean. Fordus was the
type who'd take a sword to a knot rather than suffer a second more to untie it. Yes,
simple. And as always, successful. Fordus was no tactician, but in his hands, the most
basic maneuvers blossomed to brilliance.

“The desert is with me, wherever I go,” Fordus concluded quietly, his gaze focused on a
distant place. “And we will bring them the desert, bring them sand and wind and mirrors of
air, the deception of birds in the high grass.” One of the lieutenants, a young archer
from Bali-for, shifted his weight and stifled a cough. It was always this way when the
Prophet spoke in riddles.

But that was where Stormlight's task began. The elf let the Prophet's words settle on the
assembled officers, then hooded his eyes with the white, translucent underlids of his
people and stepped slightly away from the circle surrounding the chieftain. “Second eyes,”
the Plainsmen called themthe white lucerna of the mining elves. Through that milky film,
legacy of their race, the Lucanesti could see gems in dark tunnels, long veins of water in
the heart of the sand ...

Could see other things as well. The vein of truth in the subtle strata of words and
images. “The Prophet has spoken!” Stormlight proclaimed quietly, standing to survey the
wave of mystified faces. The lucerna lifting, he raised hands that glittered purple with
reflected light. It had come to him again, as it always did, in the midst of murmuring.
Like lightning, the meaning of Fordus's cryptic poetry had struck his second in command.
“We'll hide half of you on the flanks,” Stormlight continued, “and close around the
Kingpriest's army when they charge. Gormion will command the southernmost troops, and when
the Istarian lances contact her lines . . . the rest of us will spring out of the grass
behind them. And may the axe of Jolith cleave through their ranks! There will be such a
storm of sand and wind as never they have seen, and it will not touch us. The powers
gather already.” He pointed into the distance, where a rising cloud of dust marked the
southern horizon. A hot breeze began to blow from the same direction. The sterim. The wild
desert storm that raced up into the Istarian mountains, gathering speed as it coursed over
the plains, blinding and fierce in its fury. The elf's eyes glazed over, the brilliant
lucerna closing once more, this time protectively against the anticipated wind. Fordus's
lieutenants nodded. These words they understood. As always, the plan was simple and ele-
gant and practicalthe poetry of war translated by the strange, exotic Stormlight. It would
work. They would “bring the desert to the Kingpriest,” and his army would fall. It did not
matter if they understood all of the words of the prophecy. They would win the battle.
Excitedly, brandishing their weapons and murmuring boasts and promises, the lieutenants
dispersed into the ranks of the rebels. Only three remained: Fordus, Stormlight, and the
bard. “Where is the enemy now?” Stormlight asked, crouching by the commander. “What does
the hawk say, Larken?” The bard held his odd gaze for a moment and then motioned with her
hands. Three miles to the north, Stormlight. Lucas says they are three miles to the north.
That's all you need to know. Stormlight and Fordus exchanged puzzled glances as the girl
trotted away to join the receding column of troops. “Larken hates me, doesn't she?”
Stormlight asked, a crooked smile pleating his smooth and ageless face. The commander
shrugged. “Of course not, Stormlight. She's just poetic and high-strung. And you know she
can only sing. It is a frustrating and sad thing when your hands must speak for you.” He
looked off over the northern plains. “Temper or temperament, it's all the same,”
Stormlight concluded, following the commander's gaze into level, grassy nothingness. “But
the Kingpriest is at hand. There's no time. The wind is rising.” The night passed in a
haze of hot wind, and few of them found sleep in its discomfort. But they were ready.
Shortly before dawn, Stormlight crouched in the high rustling grass, watching as the
Istarian commander signaled to raise his battle standardsthe white tower on the red banner
in the weak morning light. The elf slowed his heartbeat, his breath shallowing until he
stood motionless, his skin collecting sand and ash from the passing wind, crusting and
knotting. Serenely, he sank into a stony quietude, indistinguishable from a thousand
stones that littered the rubble- strewn edge of the desert.

When the Istarians had passed, he would slip from the stone disguise, appear in their
midst with surprise and havoc. The elf rises out of the ground ... His company of
followers, the Que-Nara, hid in the high grass behind him, their faces painted brown,
black, and yellow to match their flowing robes, the hard shadows, and the first slanting
rays of the sun.

He was the rock amid the reeds. He was the stony heart of the army. The left flank of the
Istarian infantry passed not fifty feet from where Stormlight and his party lay hidden.
The horsemen spread out before the advancing army, a dark-haired Solamnic Knight in the
vanguard with three of his subordinates. It was just as Fordus had predicted. The desert
storm had gathered; a huge cloud of sand and hot blasting wind scoured the edge of the
battlefield, seeming to await his command. The Kingpriest's army consisted of two thousand
infantry, five hundred archers, and five hundred cavalry, among those a division of
Solamnic Knightsthe most formidable cavalry in the world. And yet the expected army looked
curiously dwarfed, diminished, as though half its number had deserted in the night.
Stormlight stood serenely in the howling storm as the horsemen passed and the legion
followed, heads lowered against the harsh, corrosive wind. The sterim had allied itself
with the rebels. Whenever an army arrayed itself against Fordus, it seemed that even the
weather plotted to shape the fortunes of the day. Fordus stood on a rise, in waving
knee-high yellow grass, and faced the advancing Istarians. Bran- dishing a vicious-looking
short axe, he shouted to his troops, challenged the approaching Solamnic cavalry... Then
he ducked and vanished. The Solamnic outriders gaped and scanned the ranks, but Fordus was
gone, true to his ghostly leg- end. Almost at once, a volley of arrows and stones rushed
to meet them. Raising their shields against the onslaught, they forgot all about the rebel
commander. Meanwhile, Fordus slipped and dove through the high wind-driven grass. He moved
swiftly, in a crouch, racing through the no-man's-land between the armies into the midst
of the Solamnic horse. He weaved almost soundlessly amid churning legs and huge equine
bodies, bound at unnatural speed for the western wing of his armyLarken's wing, waiting in
hiding along the right Istarian flank, with the bard's hawk spiraling above like a
solitary predator. Running with uncanny, sure instinct, he sidestepped the first Istarian
legionnaires, the blare of their trumpets canceling his soft footfalls on the dry ground.
It was the moment of battle he loved, the first confusion in the enemy ranks, when he
reveled in his fleetness of foot, his gift from the gods, his greatest deception, racing
from one place on the field to another far-flung outpost with the speed of an antelope or
the leopard that pursued it. He ran so swiftly that survivors would claim that Fordus
Firesoul was in two, three places at once. That he was not even human, but a phenomenona
prince of the air and the shifting weather. Crouching even lower, nearly tunneling through
the rustling waves of grass, Fordus raced by the last of the cavalry so closely that his
shoulder brushed against the white flank of a Solamnic mare. Into the far field he rushed,
and suddenly two shadowy forms emerged from the nodding undergrowth. Istarian infantry.
Swordsmen. In one immaculate movement, Fordus plucked a throwing axe from his belt and,
scarcely rising from a crouch, launched it with a whirling sidearm motion at the head of
the man on the right. The blade flashed neatly beneath the Istarian's chin, and, wheeling
through the air in a bright red spray, embedded itself-in the other man's back. Both
soldiers gaped and fell to their knees, their arms jerking grotesquely at their sides. As
their eyes glazed over, the rebel passed between them and recovered his axe with no
further resistance. Just as Fordus reached his troops, he heard the Solamnic war cry from
behind, answered by a