The Gods Return (61 page)

"I am Fallin!" the pirate shouted again.

Cashel straightened the staff into a thrust, left hand leading. Archas brought his swords together like scissor blades on the straps of the butt cap, catching it and stopping the stroke like Cashel had punched the side of a cliff.

The shock hurled them apart again. Cashel's palms tingled all the way to his elbows, and there were blisters on both forearms.

Cashel set the staff spinning, sunwise this time. He was breathing through his mouth. He stepped in again, just moving forward. The tips of the quarterstaff knitted a round of vivid blue before him, like the sky on a cloudless summer afternoon.

He and Archas circled on a featureless black plain. The stars gleamed above, not the familiar constellations but all stars, a universe of stars, each shining with a subtle difference in color.

Archas tapped his sword points against the sparkling blue shield in a pattern as careful as a spider placing the lines of her web. Part of Cashel's mind knew that what he saw—the staff and the swords—wasn't really what was happening any more, but it was easier to imagine it in the fashion he was used to.

Cashel felt growing pressure. His arms ached like he was pushing a board through sand, heaping up the pile in front of him. His shield dimpled with each touch of a sword, and spots of heat swelled behind the dents. He kept walking forward, slower now but still moving. He wondered how long this could last.

Archas' blond hair spread like a halo. His beardless face was smiling, but there were beads of sweat on the pirate's clear brow.

Cashel took another step, as slow as ice creeping down a roof under its own weight. It was like pushing a mountain.

People thought fighting was about how strong you were. That was part of it, sure, but there are other strong people around. Then it came down to timing.

Cashel twisted and thrust like he held a spear. Archas may even have seen the stroke coming—he was that good—but this time he couldn't shift his swords to block it. The butt of the quarterstaff smashed into a blazing blue sun that filled the black cosmos.

It seemed like Archas—Fallin—was screaming, but maybe that was a marsh hawk. Cashel stood on a hill under an ilex tree. There were ever so many sheep in the meadow about him. The sun was bright, and insects buzzed among the flowers.

Cashel stretched, smiling lazily. There was one more thing to take care of before he got back to the regular business of watching his flock.

Still smiling, Cashel strode off to find Sharina. He began to spin his quarterstaff in slow arcs, staying loose for when he needed his strength again.

* * *

Sharina walked toward the cloud-wrapped, thunder-roaring figure Who lashed rain and hail onto the army below. Franca might be god of some skies, but the heavens have many moods. The slashing violence of a storm was only one of them.

Franca's eyes flashed fury beneath His black brows. "Are you here to fight me, child?" he boomed. "Go back to your cradle!"

He extended His arms, spreading His fingers toward her. Lighting rippled from His palms and dissipated in the air between them.

"I'm not here to fight," Sharina said. She smiled at Him. She'd loved thunderstorms as a little girl, standing thrilled in the rain and delighted to be part of their power and flashing radiance. "I'm here to bring peace, for you as well if you'll accept it."

Beneath her, flowers bloomed on the rolling hills. Grasses sprang up to recover the royal army's broad, muddy track; they were a brighter green than that of the meadows to either side.

"Peace?" said Franca, and the land shuddered. "The peace of the grave, you mean!"

His lightning blasted, this time in a continual torrent; ripping from all sides, tearing the cosmos apart in thorny crackling chaos. Sharina's bright comfort met the violence and washed it away like dust sluiced from windows by the spring rains.

She extended her hand toward Franca and said, "Real peace, for you and for everyone. Take my hand."

"Never!" Franca said. He launched another rush of lightning to push her back.

Sharina spread her arms, bringing warm sunlight to the soil. She didn't budge from the spot, but she couldn't advance either.

She thought of the big knife in her belt and smiled in soft amusement. There was a place for violence; but not for her; not now.

"Death!" cried the thunder. "Death and destruction and chaos! Chaos! As it was, so shall it be forever!"

"I might have been able to agree about death," said Ilna. "But not destruction. And as for chaos, if you're so fond of that—we'll send you there."

A net wove itself around Franca. He roared. The world would have shattered, but Sharina sheltered it beneath her cloak of light.

Franca's lightning tore Ilna's pattern, but it rewove even as the blazing edges of His power passed on.

Sharina looked at her friend and thought,
She isn't cruel. But she has no more mercy than the turning stars
. Ilna wore a cold smile, though her pleasure was in the craftsmanship rather than the result of that craft.

Cashel joined them. "This is the last one, then?" he said.

"Cashel, you're here too?" said Sharina. She'd felt peace and contentment, but now joy swept the cosmos.

"Yes, Sharina," he said, smiling but too embarrassed to look straight at her. He stepped a little to the side, his hands spread on the shaft of his quarterstaff. "This is my business, I think."

The net drew tighter. Franca shouted.

"There's peace even for Him," Sharina said. "If only—"

"No," said Ilna; coldly, quietly. "Not this one. End it, brother."

"She's right, you know, Sharina," Cashel said sadly. "She really is."

"Death!" Franca cried. "Death and destruction and—"

Cashel rammed the quarterstaff home. All his strength was in the stroke. Franca disintegrated into dust motes swirling in eternal chaos.

Sunlight and flowers swept across the world. Sharina stood, linking hands with Her friends.

* * *

The shock of the rain and scourging hail stunned Garric for an instant. He felt the soldiers around him hunch also; they were tired, bone tired, and the hammering cold tightened their bruised and strained muscles.
It's too much
.

"
Haft and the Isles!
" Carus bellowed through Garric's throat. Technically it wasn't the right war cry, but it was the right one for this moment. "Let's finish these bloody rats, troopers!"

Garric strode down the slope, swinging for the face of the leading ratman. The beast got its sword up in time, but Garric's long wizard-forged blade sheared it and the rim of the rat's bronze cap on its way to the brain beneath.

The rat fell. The royal army surged ahead—hacking, stabbing and shouting a variety of things. The former cavalrymen used the Ornifal war cry, "Forward the Eagle!"

The storm vanished, driven back on a brisk north wind. In the clear air Garric saw that the slope ahead and the hills beyond to the horizon were covered with swarming ratmen. There were too many to kill, too many even if they'd been a forest of birches and there was nothing to the business but chopping.

The wedge staggered forward, one sword-stroke at time. Garric and the army would go on as long as they could. That was all that mattered. Scholars could discuss the battle in the future, if there was a future for human beings. This was soldiers' work.

A rank odor swept southward on the breeze. Garric chopped backhand to crush a ratman's skull with the pommel of his dagger. The blow missed, because the rat fled with a terrified squeak.

Garric stumbled, twisting left to keep from sprawling. He'd been counting instinctively on the stroke to balance him. He was wide open to the nearest pair of ratmen. They could chop high and low, at his neck and his right ankle, and he could only block one.

But those rats and more rats in a wave spreading southward were running.
All
the rats were running. The dark-furred mass turned like barley bending away from a storm.

Garric fell to his knees. He'd kept going on willpower; his body had been played out long before.

He was gasping. He tried clumsily to push his helmet off without letting go of the dagger in his left hand. He'd forgotten about the chin strap. Even after he remembered, he couldn't force himself to drop either of his weapons.

The rats fled in panic. Their swords lay where they'd stood, and they'd thrown away their helmets and breastplates as they ran. They littered the hillside with equipment all the way to where the Emperor of Palomir and his wizard stood.

Garric looked back. Tenoctris stood on the hilltop, chanting with her arms spread. The smoke mounting from her cart swirled above her into the figure of a giant weasel. The beast's harsh musk swept across the battlefield.

The weasel opened its mouth in a rasping shriek. Despite Garric's exhaustion, the sound brought the hair up all over his body.

He got to his feet. "Come on, troopers!" he croaked. "Let's finish this now!"

Carus chuckled. "
It's never a bad idea to keep a sword in your hand
," he said. He was probably joking; but he was Carus, so maybe not.

Garric started up the hill. Once he got moving, it was bearable. This close to the end, it would've been bearable if he'd been barefoot and running over swords.

He grinned. It felt good to grin, though the rat-blood caking his face cracked and pinched his skin. It wouldn't be long.

The Palomir wizard dropped his athame and turned to run. The emperor leveled his sword at him and said, "Stop them, Salmson! This isn't supposed to happen!"

The wizard shouted, "Run, you fool, it's all over!" He dodged past; the emperor stabbed him through the ribs from behind. He tumbled on his face, coughing bright blood.

"This isn't supposed to happen!" the emperor repeated as he turned. "I am Baray, Emperor of Palomir!"

He wore full armor and he'd been merely watching while Garric and his men fought their way through a landscape of rats. But—

Carus laughed. Garric thrust over the shield and in through the open visor. Teeth clicked as the point drove through the brain of the late Emperor of Palomir.

The sun shone on the grass, and the scent of flowers washed the breeze clean.

Ilna was weaving in shades of gray. The pattern was subtle, perhaps too subtle for anyone but herself to really see, but everyone could feel it.

She smiled: it was attractive, very attractive. And if that was boasting, well, it was
still
very attractive.

"Dear heart," said Chalcus, "you should put in some color. People like color."

Ilna looked at him, though she continued to work. His smile waked a smile from her too, as it always did.

"There's color enough in life," she said. "Here there should be peace, which the living see little enough of."

"Chalcus is right, Ilna," said Merota, snuggling closer as she watched the fabric grow. "A
little
color."

"Tsk!" said Ilna, but she thought about the problem. There were ways to keep the pattern whole but, yes . . . to add a little color. If you were good enough, of course.

"There's never been a better weaver than you, dear heart," said Chalcus.

The Sister smiled as she wove. Her fabric showed touches of color, now; just a little color.

* * *

Cashel stood with his back to the ilex, watching his flock as it wandered. He rubbed his shoulders on the rough bark, then shifted so that he didn't neglect any of his charges.

Duzi, but the silly things some of them got up to! But that was all right; that was what people did. A good shepherd didn't meddle except when he had to. The flock wouldn't thrive if you kept pestering it.

At the end of the day, there'd be Sharina. Cashel smiled wider. There was
always
Sharina.

Until then, if a sea wolf wriggled out of the waves, well, it'd find the Shepherd standing in its way.

* * *

Sharina smiled to think of Cashel as she checked the furnishings of the inn. They were already in order; or anyway, as much in order as they could be with people.

"I wouldn't call it order," said Burne critically. "Tumblers would break their necks if they were as sloppy as most people."

Sharina laughed. "People aren't statues to be set in place and polished," she said. "But they deserve to be treated decently."

She thought for a moment and added, "People ought to be comfortable, too."

The rat sniffed. "Coddled, you mean."

Sharina shrugged. "There might be other opinions on what's a reasonable degree of comfort," she said. "But mine is the one that counts here."

"Well, I don't say but you might be right," admitted Burne. He hunched, then hopped to her shoulder.

Sharina looked the house over yet again, still smiling but with a critical eye. One more thing.

She spread her hand. Flowers sprang up, growing even from the walls. Cashel liked flowers. That would've been reason enough even if she hadn't loved them herself.

The Lady smiled at Her house. She was well pleased.

* * *

"The Serian envoys insists they must speak to his majesty personally rather than through an intermediary," Liane said in a carefully neutral tone. "Even if that intermediary should be his consort Lady Liane or Lord Reise."