The Deed of Paksenarrion (192 page)

“Falk’s oath in gold,” muttered Garris, “that’s a gibba.”

“I thought they were hools,” said Paks.

“No—hools live in water, and aren’t so hairy, nor so broad. These are gibbas. And those others—”

Orcs she had seen before, but not the high-shouldered dark beasts that ran with them, like hounds with a hunting party.

“Folokai,” said Lieth quietly. “Fast, strong, and mean.”

“I’ll believe that,” said Paks. “Any weaknesses?”

“Not gibbas. The folokai are night-hunters; they don’t like fire or bright light. But they’re smart, as smart as wolves at least. The best sword stroke is for the heart, from in front, or the base of the neck.”

In moments the dire creatures were charging across the open space. Paks called in her light and rolled onto the red horse’s back, where she could see. The enemy ranks seemed as concerned as their own; she heard shouts in Pargunese and Tsaian both, and screeches from the orcs, who hesitated for a moment between the defenders and one of the Verrakai cohorts. A priest of Liart strode into the Verrakai torchlight, and snapped an order to the orcs. Paks saw heads turn toward them, saw one of the folokai crouch for a spring. She urged the red horse forward, to the lines.

The orcs swung their short spears around, and ran at the defenders. The folokai jumped high, soaring over the first rank to fall ravening on the secondary. But Paks was there, the red horse neatly avoiding the defenders. She plunged her sword into a heavy muscled neck; the folokai’s head swung up, quick as light, and long fangs raked her mail. The red horse pivoted, catching the beast with one foreleg and tossing it away. It reared, threatening the horse with long claws on its forefeet. Paks swung the horse sideways, and thrust deep between foreleg and breast. For a moment the heavy jaws gnashed around her helmet, then its dead weight almost pulled her from the saddle. She wrestled her sword free. Two gibbas had hit the defending line together, and driven a wedge into it. At the point, Lieth and Marshal Sulinarrion fought almost as one, their swords swinging in long strokes that hardly seemed to slow the gibbas at all. Remembering Mal, Paks looked around for someone with an axe. A hefty yeoman in the secondary stood nearby, bellowing encouragement to the front rank, but otherwise free. She tapped his shoulder with her sword, and he swung round, axe ready.

“Come on! Follow me!” She waited for his nod, then forced the red horse through the fight to a point just behind the gibbas. “Get the backbone!” she yelled at the forester, sinking her own sword into the angle of neck and shoulder—a level stroke, she noted, for a mounted fighter. But this maneuver had put her outside the square, and the yeoman as well. She covered his retreat back into the line, then whirled the red horse in a flat spin, sweeping her sword at the orcs who tried to take advantage of the gibbas’ position. Dorrin’s cohort snapped back into position, straightening the line, and Paks was back inside with the king.

The king, meanwhile, was fighting another folokai that had jumped the lines. Garris had fallen behind him; High Marshal Seklis tried to flank the beast, but it was too fast, whirling and snapping at him, then returning to the king. The king’s sword blazed, its color shifting from blue to white with each change of direction. Before Paks could intervene, the king sank his blade into the folokai’s heart, and it fell, still snapping.

More orcs poured out of the forest, this time attacking without hesitation. Now the east flank of the defender’s block was fully engaged. In the darkness beyond the Verrakai front ranks, Paks saw torches moving.

“The Pargunese,” said the king quietly, beside her. “They’ll attack now too.”

“In the dark?” asked Ammerlin.

“Yes—they’ve got torchbearers.”

“How long—?” began Ammerlin.

“Paks,” the king interrupted. “Can you sustain your light for long?”

“I don’t know,” said Paks. “I haven’t tried to hold it and fight both.”

“We’ll fight,” he said grimly. “Give us light, and we’ll fight.”

Even before she asked, her light came, brighter than before. For an instant, she remembered the golden light that hung above Sibili the night they took the wall. Now her own light, unshadowed, lit the narrow valley. The Pargunese cohorts stopped abruptly, then wheeled into position. Verrakaien shaded their eyes, then looked down. She saw the orcs pause at the wood’s edge, throw up their shields, and keep coming: a dark wave. Her light flashed from shifting eyes, from the edges of swords and the tips of spears. She saw a folokai’s teeth glint, then it turned and loped away to the west and north. The red horse wheeled beneath her as her eyes swept the scene. The enemy pressed close, compressing the square into a tight mass. The remaining cavalry mounts shifted nervously, ears back and tails clamped down.

Then the enemy cohorts attacked. Paks ignored the screams, the arrows that flashed by her head, the clangor of arms. With all her might she prayed, holding light above them.

How long she might have sustained the light, Paks never knew. All at once the piercing sweet call of an elvenhorn lifted her heart, the sound she had heard in Kolobia, and never forgotten. She looked east. A wave of silver light rolled down the forested slope, as if the starlight had taken form. Out of the trees rode what none there had ever seen. Tall, fair, mounted on horses as pale as starlit foam, they cried aloud in ringing voices that made music of battle. Rank after rank they came, bringing with them the scent of spring, and the light of elvenhome kingdoms that is neither sun nor star.

The orcs nearest them faltered, looked back, and broke. Before the orcs could run, the first rank of elven knights was on them, trampling them. The flank of the Verrakaien cohort on that side panicked and scattered. One group of elves peeled away, harrying the fugitives; the others advanced in order. At their center rode one not in armor. Paks stared, hardly believing her eyes. She looked away, to see that the Pargunese, deserted by the Verrakaien, were withdrawing in order. Another group of elven knights rode by the far side of the square. The light enclosed the defenders, walling them off from their enemies.

The sounds of flight came clearly through the air—the quick thunder of the elven knights’ horses, the cries, the distant skirmishes. But all around the king a pool of silence widened, broken less and less by voices and movement, and coming at last to completion. Without a word, the front ranks of the square, Dorrin’s cohort, opened a lane for the elven riders. Without a word, the king came forward to greet them.

With the great elven sword still glowing in his hand, he looked a king out of legend. The Lady on her horse bowed to him. He slipped off his helmet, and handed it to Lieth, who had followed him that far. Then he set the sword point down before him, and bent his knee to her.

“Lady,” he said, in a voice Paks had not heard him use. “You honor us.”

“Sir king,” she said, and Paks had to believe now who she was. “You honor us, both our kindred and our land.”

He lifted his head. “You consent to this?”

“Rise, sir king.” She gestured to the sword. “I have seen my daughter’s son defend his own with his own sword. I have heard and seen how that sword answers his need. We came here to greet you in all joy, and we rejoice to greet you in time.”

He had climbed to his feet; now he brought the sword to her side. She leaned from her tall mount to touch his head: one light touch, with a hand that glowed like silver fire. Her voice chimed with amusement.

“Were I minded differently, son of my daughter, the enemies you make would be good witnesses for you. No wicked man could contrive to have all these assault him at once; he would ally with one or another of them.”

The king laughed. “Lady, I thank you for your faith. Surely a stupid man might blunder into this?”

“I think not. Stupid men are too cautious. But, sir king, I have drawn you from a battle unfinished. Perhaps you would be free to finish it? My knights are at your disposal.”

The king glanced back at the defenders. “With your permission, Lady, we will cleanse this valley of such perils for the future.” She bowed, and he returned to them.

Suddenly Paks realized that she was not sustaining her own light. Whether it failed from weakness or surprise she did not know; they stood under the elflight alone. But the king, coming back into the square, commanded her attention. Still bareheaded, his face conveyed a majesty that even Paks had not imagined.

“We will not harry the Pargunese,” he said. “I suspect they were lured here, and the Verrakaien intended to blame them for the massacre. But the priests of Liart, the orcs, and the Verrakaien—these must be accounted for.”

“And you, my lord?” asked Dorrin.

“I will stay, and speak with the Lady, if she will.”

That night the enemy found themselves penned by the forest taig, which would not let them pass, while a line of elven knights swept the valley from side to side. Elflight lay over them, leaving no place to hide. The three Marshals and Paks rode with them, hunting the priests of Liart. By dawn, which added a golden glow to the radiance around, Paks had killed two more of them; the Marshals each had killed one, and the elves found one dead of wounds. A score of gibbas lay dead, and more than a hundred orcs, and a score of folokai. The Pargunese cohorts stood in a sullen lump at the far end of the valley, where trees closed off the escape. The Verrakaien had broken into several groups, all now under guard. The Konhalt archers, having lost more than half their number, huddled together not far from the king’s company. As for the followers of Liart, they had fled pell-mell, and most had been ridden down in the last of the fighting.

Paks rode back toward the king’s company through the blended light of dawn and elven power, still musing over the Lady’s arrival. She joined the Marshals in praying healing for the wounded. When the last one lay resting quietly, she felt a presence and turned.

Behind her stood the Lady, now watching Paks as closely as she had watched the king before.

“Paladin of Gird, I would speak with you. Come.” Paks followed her a little way from the line of wounded. New grass carpeted the ground; every blade seemed to glow with its own light. The Lady led her near the stream, now edged with starry yellow flowers. Here the Lady spread her cloak on the bank, and gestured to Paks to sit with her. Gingerly Paks folded her legs and sat. For a moment, as it seemed, they listened to the singing water, now released from winter.

“We did not come for battle,” said the Lady finally. “I wished to meet Falkieri myself, first, before he came to Chaya.”

“I remember,” said Paks.

“I do not mean to injure your honor when I say that it seemed better to attend to that myself. We had heard you were taken, that you had asked a Kuakgan to rouse the taig in his behalf.” Her gaze sharpened a moment. “If it is a matter of the taigin, Paksenarrion, it is a matter for elves.”

Paks shook her head. “I am sorry, Lady—I only knew it must be aware for him, and the Kuakkganni came to mind.”

“We forgive you. After all, you were healed by one; we knew you meant no insult. But even so, it seemed wise to us to come and greet him. It is true that we knew he might find trouble, but it has been so long since I traveled in these lands that I did not know how bad it was. The Tree grieves, paladin, to harbor such in its shade, and the Singer is mute.” For a moment she was silent, running her hands over the grass as a man might fondle his dog. “Yet the Singer and the Tree joined together in praise, and we came when the time was accomplished. I am well pleased, Paksenarrion, with my daughter’s son; you spoke truly when you said he would be a worthy king.”

Paks said nothing; reft of argument, she could do nothing but stare at the Lady.

“And I am well pleased with Gird’s paladin,” she went on. “We have heard how you entered captivity for the king, in Vérella; we grieved, thinking you surely doomed, and yet you are here, defending him still. Will you tell that tale, paladin of Gird, that it may be sung rightly in our kingdoms?”

Paks looked away, watching the swift water tumble and swirl between smooth rocks. She thought she saw the quick metallic flash of a fish. “Lady,” she said, “I would not dwell on those days—they are better forgotten than sung. Nor can any human tell a whole tale: only the gods know all of it.”

“Would you truly forget your torments? We owe you much, Paksenarrion, paladin of Gird. If you wish we can fill your mind with joy, and erase every scar that reminds you of that pain.”

Paks shook her head, meeting the Lady’s eyes once more. “No. I thank you for the thought of that gift. But what I am now—what I can do—comes from that. The things that were so bad, that hurt so. If I forget them, if I forget such things still happen, how can I help others? My scars prove that I know myself what others suffer.”

“Wisely said,” she replied. “Though an elf need see no scar to know what you are and what you have done. But we must make some song of you, for your service to our king.”

“Let it be imagined from what you know of the Master of Torments: it is much the same, I daresay, wherever and whenever men desire power and the use of power on others.”

“You can tell at least how you escaped, and how you came to be here.”

Paks laughed, suddenly and unaccountably eased. “I could if I knew.” She related, briefly, Arvid’s confused and incredible tale, adding, “Thieves lie, as everyone knows, and tales of wonder grow quickly: but Liart’s brand changed to this—” She touched the circle on her brow.

“But you arrived with a cohort of the king’s own mercenaries, and a band of yeomen—how was that?”

Paks explained about meeting Dorrin in Westbells, and the journey east, and finding the apathetic Marshal in Darkon Edge. When she had finished, the Lady nodded.

“So the servants of evil forged in their own fires a weapon to defeat them—that makes a well-rounded song. Falkieri through all his years took whatever came to him of good and used it well, learning kingship without a kingdom. You did the same, learning what good you could of all you met—even a Kuakgan.” Her smile took the sting out of that. “Truly, the high gods will be pleased with this day’s work, Paksenarrion. The forest taig is clean, from here to Lyonya—”