The Starfollowers of Coramonde (41 page)

With the
Horseblooded, Glyffan lancers and other light cavalry buying time and hampering
the enemy advance, the allied armies had dashed south, determined to keep the
schedule of the Trailingsword, though it had meant letting themselves be bottled
up, away from the sea. By the time they’d gotten to Condor’s Roost, their
pursuers had been no more than a day behind them; it had cost many lives to win
even that little lead.

As they
tallied it all up, assembled in the fortress’ officers’ mess, the various
leaders who didn’t know one another came to do so. There were stories ancillary
to it, told in brevity, but one that was recounted in full was the fall of the
Trustee of Glyffa, illustrating Bey’s increased prepotency and the Masters’
feelings of invulnerability. Gabrielle had already cried all her tears; she
listened to it now, unflinching.

When Andre
had done he turned to Swan. The High Constable still wore her white-winged,
mirror-bright bascinet, and the blue cape of her office, but her armor had seen
so much use and damage that she’d appropriated an Occhlon general’s, a fine
suit cut from the scaly skin of a giant wastelands serpent, all sinuous browns
and blacks and grays. She rose now, with the Crook of office the Trustee had
carried since the old woman’s adepthood, covered with sigils and scrollwork of
Power. Swan bowed, and put it into shocked Gabrielle’s hands, saying, “Now the
daughter takes up what the mother has bequeathed. Glyffa attends your words, oh
Trustee.”

Gabrielle
took it, and it was as if her mother were near. Much of her grief fell away;
the Crook felt familiar in her white hands. She looked to Swan, whom she’d
never met, but whose name had reached her in her mother’s communications. “I
will need all support, to employ this well.”

Swan clasped
her hands behind her back, as was her habit, thinking of all that was left to
accomplish both in Glyffa and the Southwastelands. “Your legacy will be human
weal, and fulfillment.” A tear caught in the long lashes; she repeated the
pronouncement, “And your name will live forever.”

Gabrielle
made no remark, but was willing to wager Swan could play a demanding game of
chess; the Trustee had chosen her lieutenant with typical perception. Even
Katya, who’d had her frictions with the sorceress, beamed cordial approval.

Springbuck
thought one of the more notable events of the gathering went unnoticed; Balagon
and Angorman sat side by side, and if they weren’t overly friendly, at least
they had put their animosities to rest. On the weary, perilous ride south,
their two sects of warrior-priests had, of necessity, come to the mutual peace
of allies. A reconciliation of the two leaders seemed only logical; the two
accepted it in the Bright Lady’s name.

All courses
were locked in now. The
Ku-Mor-Mai
said, “Gathered, we may, at the
minimum, have the satisfaction of confronting the Five. But it will only be if
we go with greatest haste.”

Andre
replied, “Speak with more hope. The Trailingsword conjoined us in this certain
time, under precise circumstances, by the Bright Lady’s ordination. Salamá has
much to fear from us, even without the Lifetree. As for their armies, the
Occhlon and the others are kept together by fear of the Masters; if we can
diffuse the power of the Five, Southwastelander alliances may well unravel.”

Andre tried
to feel as hopeful as he sounded. Reacher had mentioned that phrase the Occhlon
general had let slip, the Host of the Grave, but no one recognized it.
Hightower thought it might be another name for the huge armed array now
following them south, but Andre privately doubted that.

Van Duyn was
considering the news of Gil MacDonald. Somehow that made the scholar feel
tired; he’d very much have liked to be back in the Highlands Province, building
a life.

They moved through
the pass that evening, after stripping Condor’s Roost of whatever provisions,
water, weapons, horses and fodder and feed they could use. Crews worked through
the night, reblocking the pass with every rock they could pry loose. Word came
down to discard all excess burdens; Mother Desert had taught them her lessons.
The first Southwastelander scouts were seen coming into the far end of the
valley by the last men to come down off the heights.

In the area
they entered there was more greenery, and more water. They cantered along past
fields and irrigation ditches, meeting no resistance, but abundant eye-popping.
Many workers ran for their lives, but most stared in undisguised astonishment.
Defended by Mother Desert, they’d never seen an invading army before, only
their own men riding out to serve Salamá.

The army went
quickly, no longer troubled by the hardships of the wastelands. Springbuck kept
outriders, mostly prowler-cavalry and Horseblooded, far in advance and wide on
either flank, and maintained a well-manned rearguard. They kept strong security
when they bivouacked, but no attacks came. The country had been drained of
virtually every man able to bear arms. Now it was the very old and very young
men, along with the women, who kept life going in the Southwastelands.

Gabrielle
seemed a different woman now. She rode with the Sisters of the Line around her,
the Crook of office in hand, conscious of the weight of responsibility that had
fallen to her. She kept intimate company with no one now, not the
Ku-Mor-Mai
or his Warlord either. And when she spoke of Salamá, there was a light in the
sorceress’ eye that belonged in a hawk’s.

Swan kept
close, to advise or assist her. The Constable’s horse, cleaned and curried now,
was recognizable as Gil MacDonald’s chestnut, Jeb Stuart. Springbuck, who’d
heard something of her involvement with his friend, made it a point not to
bring the American’s name up, unsure if she thought of him as dead or alive.

They came to
the end of the thriving farmlands in a week, having passed through the eastern
corner of them, and entered an untilled, arid stretch, unpopulated and
frequented only by the occasional vulture or jackal. Springbuck became nervous,
and stepped up his patrol activity.

But when
they’d been in the badlands for four days, disheartening word came from the
rearguard. Southwastelanders had pursued them down through the fertile regions,
closing much of the lead the northerners had gotten at Condor’s Roost. The
desert hordes were less than a day behind, outnumbering them badly.
Springbuck’s allies were split into two schools of thought. One espoused by the
Snow Leopardess, urged that a portion of the Crescent Landers stop and hold
back the southerners while the remainder went on to Salamá. The other faction,
led by the deCourteneys, said every man and woman might be needed in the
Necropolis; splitting up their force would invite ruin. The
Ku-Mor-Mai
held this the wiser course, to push on and strike with full strength at the
Five. Reacher concurred, and Hightower and Swan. Katya accepted it, though
she’d meant to command the delaying action herself.

They picked
up their pace, hoping the enormous corps behind them would be slower. Rearguard
scouts reported that the gap was closing, though; the Southwastelanders had
stripped themselves of all their slower elements. Within another day their vast
dust cloud was visible.

At the end of
the arid stretches, the northerners came to a plain that extended as far as
they could see, like the bottom of a dry, dead sea carpeted with gray ash, hot
and still. Banners hung limply, and the moisture on their skin and in their
mouths was cooked away as soon as it formed. Looking up to estimate the time,
Springbuck saw the sun was gone. The sky was light, but as monochrome as a bowl
of lead.

Gabrielle
said, “We are come to the precincts of Shardishku-Salamá.” Andre’s hand felt of
the scabbard of Blazetongue.

The
northerners rode out onto the plain, but as soon as the last of them had come,
they all heard a sustained skeletal rattling, as if uncounted bones were
clacking together. Not even the deCourteneys could guess what it meant. The
Crescent Landers went on, but they’d passed beyond day and night. Here, it
never became dark, although no special spot of light in the gray canopy
indicated the sun.

In their
wake, many hours later, came the hordes of the Southwastelands. The desert men
drew up before the desolate plain, spent from their chase. They looked among
themselves, arrogant Occhlon, aristocratic Baidii and wily Odezat, having
followed as far as they dared. This place was under the direct scrutiny of the
Masters, prohibited to all. The rulers of the Necropolis would exact punishment
now, and doubtless show displeasure to their lapsed guardsmen, the
Southwastelanders, as well. It would take much penance and sacrifice to appease
them.

The desert
men reined around and went back the way they’d come. There was nothing else to
do; in their minds, the intruders were already dead. No one could survive or
escape from the lifeless plain where lay Salamá. The southerners passed back up
into the arid regions at a lesser pace, sparing their beloved horses, but
anxious to be gone. When they’d left, and their dust had settled, a single man
led his weary mount out of concealment. He’d come south behind them, unable to
pass them and their patrols to join the northerners.

He climbed
tiredly into the saddle, his horse bravely summoning what reserves she had.
Ferrian, once Champion-at-arms over the High Ranges, patted her dirt-encrusted
neck. He’d had to steal her, last of the many horses he’d ridden since he’d
come, late, to the Southwastelands. She’d carried him courageously, but he
wasn’t sure she had the stamina to overtake the other Crescent Landers. He had
long since stopped regretting that Wavewatcher and Skewerskean hadn’t overtaken
the Mariner fleet before its troops had disembarked. He couldn’t think of
setbacks now, though; the final remnant of the Lifetree had gone in beneath the
umbra of Shardishku-Salamá.

In the rose
garden of the Library at Ladentree, Silverquill looked up. His mouth fell open.
The Birds of Accord gathered in a great flock, circling the Library.

As he
watched, they turned south, called by their ties with the Lifetree. The Sage
shaded his eyes, watching the Birds vanish to mere specks, and whispered the
most earnest prayers he knew.

The plain was
dead, antiseptically so, without so much as an insect to be seen. The
northerners came to feel they’d left the world of the living altogether. With
no way to take bearings, Springbuck was given directions by the deCourteneys,
who appeared to sense where they were going. He lost count of the rests the
army had taken, and had no way to measure progress accurately. Water supplies
dwindled steadily, and everyone began to show signs of exhaustion except
Reacher, Gabrielle and Andre.

A crunch
under his hoof made Fireheel flinch. The
Ku-Mor-Mai
flicked at the ash
with the tip of his sword. A length of brittle bone, a human femur, was there,
broken by the gray’s step. Springbuck stared at it for a moment, then stirred
up the soot around it. The rest of the skeleton, unguessably old, lay among
scraps of harness and bits of metal trapping. Hightower had come up and his
horse, too, snapped bones beneath its tread.

They’d
wandered into the last resting place of a slaughtered army. Probing the soot
with lances and swords, they exposed rotted shields and corroded armor. One
skull was still circled by a gleaming fillet, holding a big black pearl to its
white brow.

No one was
inclined to scavenge. Springbuck got them moving again; for more than a mile
they wended their way among remains, hearing the fragile cracking of an army
they took to be a kind of predecessor. Once beyond the relics, the
Ku-Mor-Mai
took his followers a long way beyond the bonefields before he let them stop
again.

Andre was
first to notice it, an indistinct irregularity on the horizon. As time went on,
it became a serration-line of silhouettes, eerie designs difficult to discern.
The still air made distances deceptive, and their approach toward that outline
seemed to take days.

Then they had
their first sight of Shardishku-Salamá, the city taking on definition of a
perplexing, somehow distorted sort. Some of the structures there were lit with
wavering flame.

A dark line
had appeared, extending across their route, between them and the city. Some
began to say it was a treeline, end of the desolation. Springbuck couldn’t make
it out, but Hightower could, saying he thought it no treeline. In time, they
realized it was another army, nearly spanning the horizon, coming closer.

They gaped in
disbelief at the sea of foemen. Numbly, they groped for shields and donned
armor once more.

A half-mile
separated them when the opposing force halted. They flew no banners, and there
was no sound of horns or challenges. Springbuck could see little, except that
his force was outnumbered overwhelmingly. He called for Hightower and a
standard-bearer, and rode up. Reacher fell in beside him, and the
Ku-Mor-Mai
was glad for his company. He felt a chill despite the hot, stagnant air.

No parleying
group came from the other side, so Springbuck rode on. He heard a sharp
inhalation from the herald, and his own caught in his windpipe. His nerves,
trapped between the primal need to run and a firm decision to go on, threatened
to fail him. Drawn up before him in their terrible ranks were those who could
only be the Host of the Grave.

They
stretched away to either side, as far as he could see, eyes glowing in black
sockets. They waited in perfect silence with nothing to say, nothing to fear,
desire or question. Severed forever from happiness or grief or thought, they
waited, ideal household troops of Shardishku-Salamá, like so many statues of
slate.

Springbuck
summoned up saliva, licked his lips. “Do you contest our passage?”