The Right Hand of God (47 page)

to the man's torso, enabling the spear to be pulled out; then the boot kicked the body once and moved on. A man who had set out from Instruere, who had survived the journey through Vulture's Craw, had just become a body, a shell.

And now the hooded figure halted a few paces away. The incantation continued to roll from the man's tongue as he reached up and took hold of his hood, ready to lower it. The sense of menace sharpened.

At that moment someone leaped on to Leith's horse, landing behind him- Heart in his mouth, Leith turned to find Phemanderac. 'We leave this place now!' he cried in Leith's ear, reached forward, grabbed, then shook the reins and dug in his heels.

'Why? What happened?' Leith asked, rubbing his tingling arms through the sleeves of his cloak as they rode back through the ranks of his army. 'I should be seen where the fighting is fiercest!'

'No, Leith.' The philosopher's voice displayed an admirable firmness, betraying nothing. 'You think that you hold some kind of invincible weapon in your hand, but you do not. Yes, it will protect you from sword thrust or arrow shot, but you cannot use it against the Bhrudwans.'

'I know, Phemanderac,' he replied. 'I know!' Why did you wait until now to talk about this?

Phemanderac reined in beside a large rock, helped Leith to climb it, then carried on as though he'd not heard the Arrow-bearer's reply. 'The Bhrudwans are of Water, remember, not Fire like us. You will not be able to use the Jugom Ark to defeat your enemies.'

'I hadn't planned to, though Maendraga said the Destroyer—'

The philosopher kept talking, his voice urgent, his words

hot, his eyes fervid. 'The value of the Arrow was ever its ability to create unity. It does not need any special powers to do that. Without the Arrow of Yoke we would never have gathered this great army.'

'Which is dissolving away even as we speak!' cried Leith. What is wrong with you, Phemanderac? Why can I see shame in your eyes? 'How can I sit here on this rock and do nothing?'

'Because you have no choice; because I won't let you down. Yours are the only hands—'

'I know that! But we are losing! Mine might be the only hands left by day's end!' He shook the Jugom Ark in frustration, and it flared into sudden life, forcing Phemanderac to leap backwards.

'Can you not be more careful, Leith?' the tall philosopher complained as he clambered back up the rock. 'I might not be of the Sixteen Kingdoms, but I am of the Fire. The Jugom Ark will reduce me to a pile of ashes if I'm too close to you when you throw a tantrum.'

'You were supposed to teach me all about this Arrow.' Leith waved it in front of him, causing it to flame again, less violently this time. Still Phemanderac took a step backwards. 'Where have you been these last weeks?'

The Firanese youth and the Dhaurian scholar stood staring at each other on top of the rock, forgetting for the moment the battle raging below them. Falthan soldiers all around the battlefield looked up, saw the Jugom Ark uplifted high and took heart from it, throwing themselves back into the fight. By now all but the most rigorously trained and highly skilled warriors were exhausted, and most man-to-man encounters, if they were not resolved within the first few blows, degenerated into grappling matches; so that the living wrestled with each other amongst the broken bodies of the dead and the dying.

And all the while shrewd eyes watched the field of battle, waiting for the moment to put carefully-laid plans into action.

At some point in the battle Farr discarded his hopelessly notched sword. He now carried a long-handled axe in both hands, with which he hunted enemies. He had received a great deal of training in axe-handling in the past three months, occasioning much mirth, but had not felt comfortable with axes. No choice now. With a song of Vinkullen on his lips he ran from skirmish to skirmish, accompanied by a growing band of Fodhram, Fenni and Widuz warriors. They followed him in awe, recognising their friend was the most sainted of men, one who discovers what he has been born to do.

'Skegox! Skegox!' they cried approvingly as he swung the great blade at a mounted warrior, crashing through his armour and nearly cleaving the man in half. Axehaft assigned three men to keep spear-wielding Bhrudwans away from the battle-crazed northerner. Their task was necessary: a well-placed spear thrust could catch any two-handed axe where the blade joined the shaft, tearing it from its wielder's grip.

There is no prudence in the way he fights, Axehaft marvelled as he watched Farr Storrsen rain down a series of swift, uncultured blows on yet another hapless opponent. And no tired' ness in his arm. It took only four blows this time for the courage to drain from the Bhrudwan lad.

Two blows later the boy lay in a pool of blood, felled like a tree. The axe was ever a weapon of passion, and Farr Storrsen fated to wield it. The Fodhram leader hefted his own axe and met his next opponent. Still a grim business, though.

'Skegox, skegox!1 The cries echoed around Farr as he laboured. A small part of his mind was in shock, having beheld the

effects of his labour, carnage spattered on his cloak and over a wide area of stony ground.

'Skegox!' His friends fought alongside him, he fought for them, every blow making him more worthy of their praise. 'Skegox!'

Here came a nimble man with a broadsword in one hand and a knife in another. Farr read his intention before he even began. Two or three thrusts with the broadsword were supposed to distract him, leaving his left side open for the knife blade. Farr went along with it, but when the man drew back his arm for the throw, Farr hacked it off.

There came a huge man with a mace, whirling it around his head. Again, Farr read the nature of the attack from the way the man-mountain brandished his weapon. Before his opponent had a chance to close he thrust the axe-shaft forwards, upwards, tangling with the mace and jerking the man off balance. Once he was down, Farr buried the axe in his chest, then turned his back on the man and his bubbling cries of rage and frustration.

Here came a group of older warriors with pikes, and the Fodhram decimated them with throwing axes, then left Fan-to harvest them like wheat. And there came another attack, rank after rank of soldiers ordered to the fray to take the place of those cut down. Farr's arms cried their pain, but he ignored them, knowing that a moment's relaxation would mean his doom.

As the afternoon wore on so his weariness grew, adding a sharpness, a knowledge of mortality, to his exultation.

In the middle of the afternoon, two, perhaps three hours after the battle began, the Haufuth managed to find Jethart, who had set up his tent beside the wagons. Without waiting to be announced he entered the tent and confronted the Treikan general.

'What is going on?' he rasped. 'Hundreds - no, thousands - of men have died out there today. I have shouted myself hoarse trying to organise the ragged bunch of fighters I commanded, but still they run off and impale themselves on Bhrudwan pikes as though they could stop the Destroyer's advance by making a wall of their own bodies. I can't stand any more of it! Are we doing the right thing?'

Jethart turned from his hastily-drawn chart of the battlefield, his soft eyes sad and full of compassion. 'We are doing well, for the moment,' he said quietly. 'The large part of both armies has yet to fight, however. Look at this,' he said, beckoning the Haufuth over to the table. 'See here? The Gap is not wide enough to allow more than a few thousand men to engage at any one time. The rest wait their turn.'

'And our losses? I don't want to watch one more boy go down with a sword in his guts unless I can be assured that we are winning!'

As to that, we have no real way of knowing. My tallymen suggest that we are losing two men to their one, which means, based on the numbers of the two armies, we are doing no more than holding our own.' The old man turned and gripped the Haufuth's forearms in his large, rough hands. 'What worries me is not the losses, though I am human enough to realise that each man lost is a tragedy. No, I am concerned that the Destroyer puts forth merely a show of his strength. Where are the dedicated warriors? Where are the fabled Maghdi Dasht? I know they exist, for I have heard tales of the prowess of the Maghdi attached to your own band.

Where are the wizards, where is the magic? I don't understand what is happening. We should have paid for our failure to win the Gap with twenty thousand lives before the end of this day, and yet our death tally is as yet a mere tithe of that. What is the Destroyer preparing? When will he unleash it upon us?' Jethart banged his fist on the table, spilling a half-filled bottle of ink on the corner of his chart. 'Go and find that out for me.

Then we can plan to counter him!'

Early in the battle Mahnum realised his place was not in the front lines. He was barely able to keep himself alive in the initial flurry of attacks, staving off a tall, broad-shouldered Bhrudwan only when the man twisted his ankle on a rock. Why do they not attack in formation? he kept asking himself all through the first hour of the fighting. Why do they spend their men so wastefully?

As soon as he was able he disengaged himself from the battle front and made his way back to the wagons, almost a league from the fighting. There a makeshift surgery had been set up, where the wounded were treated with whatever skill and kindness could be found. Leith should have made more provision for dealing with the infirm, Mahnum thought angrily as he surveyed the pitiful surgery. Yet another reason why he should have involved Hal. The Trader searched through the tents, knowing he would find his wife and elder son trying to help those who were suffering. This is my place for now. Oh, Leith! Why did you turn from your family?

The Lord of Bhrudwo lifted Stella to her feet, then took her chin in his hand. 'It is time for you to truly know the meaning of fear,' he announced, his lips peeling back from his teeth as though he prepared to savour a delicacy. 'The army of your peasant friend is thoroughly prepared. Now I will break them. And, as befits one who abandoned her friends, you will give the signal.'

His compulsion seized her. She called on every particle of

her will, but could not resist him even for a moment. It was as though she had not even tried, so easily was she ensnared. She took his arm and lifted it high; and trumpeters positioned all along the crest of the talus slope blew their horns in a braying that shook the earth, sending stones rattling down the slope in front of them. The Undying Man closed his eyes, focusing his enormous power; and behind him the blue flame roared into life, climbing higher and higher, the hungry eyes and mouth glowing red.

For a few moments nothing happened. Lips pressed together, knuckles white with anxiety for her friends, Stella watched the slaughterfield below, until eventually she discerned movement in the front lines. Grey-garbed figures drove into the Falthan lines in two places. Where they walked, the lines melted like summer snow. Slowly, deliberately, each of the two breaches filled with Bhrudwan warriors, following the grey men. Further and further into the Falthan army the figures penetrated, cutting down their opposition, forming two columns behind each of the breaches. They continued their grisly progress forward, still unimpeded despite the best efforts of those who died opposing them.

What was their objective? Stella searched the battleground in vain, until her eyes rested on a small rock some distance from the front lines, midway between the two pincers that drew around it, enclosing it in a ring of Bhrudwan steel. There were figures on the rock - two figures - and one held the Flaming Arrow in his hand.

For many minutes Phemanderac spoke, driving home point after point with a clarity he had thought beyond him. A clarity born of desperation, he acknowledged grimly. If we are to ever see our homes again, this boy will have to learn how to control the fire in his hand.

'The Jugom Ark is attuned to your emotions,' he repeated patiently. 'Whenever you feel something strongly it bursts into flame, as you have already discovered. But, if you don't mind me saying, of late your emotions have been centred around anger, from what I hear. We have yet to see how the Fire responds to other emotions: hope, joy, love.'

For a moment the philosopher fell silent, then he continued. 'I don't yet know why you can handle the Arrow.' He scratched his head, trying to crystallise his thoughts. 'My study tells me that no Falthan can hold the Jugom Ark unless they have received the Gift of Fire; and that Gift has not been given since the fall of Dona Mihst two thousand years ago. Withholding the Fire is part of the punishment the Most High meted to the First Men. So the records say.' He paused, thinking hard. 'Thus the Most High spoke to the exiles, as recorded in the Domaz Skreud: "You have forfeited your right to the Water of the Fountain, and the Fire of Life will die within you, to be given to another generation. You shall be banished from the Vale, and for many years will have to survive alone in the world ere I visit you again with My Presence." So, unless you are in reality of Bhrudwan or losian parentage, you ought to be susceptible to the heat of the Jugom Ark.'

He turned to the young Loulea peasant boy, the Bearer of the Arrow, with puzzlement on his face. 'Tell me, Leith: I've never understood how you knew you would not be harmed by the Jugom Ark. Whatever possessed you to reach out and pick it up, especially after seeing your Haufuth burn his hand?'

'Wait a moment,' said Leith sharply. 'Those words of the

Most High. I've heard them before. Kurr recited to us from them, I think. Doesn't it say there will come a time when the Fire will again be given to the First Men?'

'Most theologians believe that the Most High referred to the afterlife, where those who have remained faithful go to be with Him. Are you suggesting - do you think that the words might be taken literally?'

'Would the Gift of Fire somehow . .. speak to a person? In their thoughts, perhaps?' The question was asked with an undisguised intensity, drawing the tall man's attention.

'How do you mean?'

'For example, telling them that the Jugom Ark was hidden in a cave in an island in a lake?