Black Jade (108 page)

'Valariii!'

Salmelu's horse and mine drove their hooves against the slick, reddened grass, fighting for purchase and advantaged they whinnied and snorted and pushed at each other. For a while we

exchanged blows, each of us fighting desperately to find an opening. Salmelu seemed sure of himself - sure that his defeat in our duel two years before had been just bad luck. I knew it was not. I knew, too, that I had slain many men in the time since then sword to sword, and that I could slay Salmelu now.

We clashed swords, once, twice, thrice; we feinted and thrust, parried and slashed. Desperation ate at Salmelu's inky eyes. Then, finally, he stabbed his sword at my throat in a lightning thrust. I moved my head aside just in time to keep from being torn open, then thrust
my
sword at his shoulder. The point of it drove in just deep enough to split the muscle and score the bone, which caused Salmelu to cry out and drop his sword. I might have finished him then if Lord Mansarian hadn't screamed out in a terrible agony. I turned to see Morjin jerk his bloody sword free from Lord Mansarian's belly. This gave Salmelu time to whip his mount about, and go galloping from the field.

'Val!' Kane shouted to me. He parried a vicious blow that Ra Zahur dealt him, then chopped his sword through Ra Zahur's neck, cutting off his head. 'We must get to the house!'

But we had no time left. Even as I drove Altaru forward and cut down the last enemy knight attacking me, Morjin resumed his charge toward the cottage. Six of his knights still covered his front. A bowstring cracked, and an arrow whined out and buried itself in one of these knight's chests - and now only five men rode with Morjin. Maram fired off another arrow with a similar result, and then there were only four. And then, before Maram could nock another arrow and aim it, the four knights and Morjin thundered right up to the cottage.

Aiyiiyariii!

'Bemossedl' I cried.

I felt Morjin's hate shriek out toward this gentle man who must be the Maitreya. I knew that he would soon kill him, either with his voice of death or with his sword. I could do nothing to stop it. I galloped back toward the cottage with Kane covering my side, and the wind burned my face. I could not believe that we had come this far only to lose Bemossed to the ravening beast who flung himself at the cottage's wall even as he continued howling out his hate.

'Val - help me!' Maram cried.

But I could not help him. I could only watch in horror as Morjin leaped off his horse and onto the top of the wall in one incredibly graceful motion. He struck down at Maram, and Maram fell, back behind the wall. Then Morjin leaped into the cottage, and the wall obscured the sight of him falling upon Bemossed and my other friends. A terrible scream split the air.

A few seconds later, Kane and I reached the cottage. We came down from our horses and ran toward the doorway. I pushed through it first, stepping over the bodies of two knights there whom Atara had killed with arrows. She stood holding her bow, with a third arrow pulled back toward her ear. I shouted at her, 'Atara,

it is me!'

She immediately lowered her bow. I turned to see Maram rising up off the body of the knight who had gone over the wall before Morjin had. Maram bled from a gash on his forehead. Morjin -impossibly - lay near the knight dead.

'What!' I cried out. I looked at Bemossed gathered with Master Juwain and Estrella over by the horses. 'What happened?'

Liljana, who stood over Morjin's body holding a sword, quickly explained things: It seemed that Maram had clashed swords with the first of the knights to assault the wall and had killed him as he tried to scale it. The second knight he had also destroyed. Morjin, though, jumping down into the cottage, had smashed the pommel of his sword into Maram's forehead, stunning him and causing him to fall. Morjin had then tried to cut down Liljana to get to Bemossed. But Daj, squatting down behind the shelter of the wall, had thrust
his
sword through Morjin's belly, straight up through Morjin's insides into his heart. It was nearly impossible to kill one of the great Elijin with a single blow, but it seemed that Daj had accomplished this great feat.

'I hid,' Daj told me. He proudly held up his bloody sword. 'As Lord Morjin forced me to do in Argattha, I hid, and then I killed him. He
is
dead, isn't he?'

I knew that he was dead, and so did everyone else. To make sure of this, however, Kane came forward and slashed down with his sword to cut off Morjin's head. He cut off the black gelstei fixed to it. He gave this stone to me. Then he clamped his fingers in Morjin's golden hair, and held up his head high above the cottage's walls for all to see.

'Death!' he roared out. 'Death to the Beast and all who follow him!'

I stood with Kane behind the wall. I looked out across the bloody, corpse-strewn field. The sight of what Kane showed everyone caused the remaining knights to cease their combats and stare at him in horror. 'It is Lord Morjin!' one of the red-caped knights cried out. 'Lord Morjin is dead!'

'Lord Morjin!' a second and a third knight cried. 'Lord Morjin!'

I took a quick count, and determined that Lord Mansarian's knights had indeed prevailed against those remaining loyal to Morjin, for only twenty-three of these red-caped knights still kept to the field on top of their horses, while some forty men now looked to Captain Atuan to command them. It seemed that Morjin's knights had no one to lead them.

'The Maitreya is dead! The Maitreya is dead!' - this call passed from one defeated knight to another.

Then Arch Uttam rode forward from as out of nowhere. He tried to rally the knights, calling out, 'Vengeance! Kill the errants, and avenge Lord Morjin!'

The red-caped knights, however, paid him no heed. Two of them turned to ride away from the cottage, and then three more. Then the rest suddenly broke, making their way across the grass toward the hills in all directions. Seeing that his cause had grown hopeless. Arch Uttam called out a curse to us, and then galloped off after them.

Captain Atuan, who had indeed now taken command, rode slowly about the field with Captain Roarian and other knights looking for survivors. He showed the vanquished mercy, for only an hour earlier, they had been his companions. Those of the wounded who wore a red cape and could still ride were put on horses, and then driven from the field; those who could not ride and would die anyway were put to the sword. Captain Atuan's own wounded he treated the same way. This proved a great problem, however, as one of these turned out to be Lord Mansarian.

'He is dying,' Atuan called out to me as he rode up to the cottage. 'He calls to the Hajarim to ease his pain before he goes on.'

Bemossed, showing no fear of Atuan's remaining knights, who had terrorized the north of Hesperu for so long, walked out of the cottage. So did we all We crossed the field, and came to the place where Lord Mansarian lay dying on the grass. Someone had taken off his armor and cut back his underpadding. It shocked Atuan and Roarian and the other former Red Capes to see Bemossed set his hands around the terrible wound splitting open Lord Mansarian's belly. Lord Mansarian shook his head at Bemossed as if to tell him that healing him would be hopeless.

'Let me be,' his heavy voice rasped out. 'Let me thank you for saving Ysanna's life. I never thanked you, did I, Hajarim?'

In answer, Bemossed only smiled and looked down at him.

'I never learned your name, either. What is it?'

'I am called Bemossed.'

'Bemossed,' Lord Mansarian said, smiling back at him. 'It is a good name.'

And then, before Bemossed could work his magic upon him, he closed his eyes and died.

'It was his time,' Bemossed said, taking his hands away from Lord Mansarian. His face shone with a strange light. He seemed not at all dismayed that he had lost the chance to heal him. 'Let us bury him.'

After that, in the remaining hours of the day and late into the evening, we worked with Captain Atuan and his men digging graves for Lord Mansarian and all those who had died there. We buried poor Taitu and the vile Ra Zahur - and even the remains of the being who had called himself Morjin.

When the moon rose over the earth and cast its silver light upon the many mounds we had made upon the field. Captain Atuan bade us farewell. He stood over the grave of Lord Mansarian, and he said to us, 'We have lingered here longer than we should have, but we must go.'

I looked through the wan light at the forty battle-weary knights standing near their horses. I said to Atuan, 'But where will you go?'

'To our homes,' Atuan said. 'To gather up our families and flee into the forests. We will be hunted now.'

'So will
we
be hunted,' Maram said. 'Perhaps you should ride with us as far as the mountains.'

Atuan shook his head at this. 'I do not think that any of our former companions will come after you. They will surely ride back to King Arsu's encampment and make a report of what has happened here. You have time.'

He then told us of a secret pass through the mountains into Senta that lay closer than the Khal Arrak.

'Go back
to your
homes,' he told us, 'or wherever you will. But go carefully, I think there will be rebellion throughout the length and breadth of Ea, now that Lord Morjin is dead.'

And with that, he mounted his horse, and so did the knights who had remained loyal to Lord Mansarian. They rode off into the night, and disappeared around the curve of the hill to the south. My friends and I stood in the moonlit graveyard in silence for a few more moments. And then Daj said to me, 'Is Lord Morjin
really
dead?'

I opened my hand to stare at the piece of black jade that Kane had cut from our enemy's. forehead. It seemed to pulse with a malevolence and murmur with a soft, fell voice that cursed me even as it called to me.

'No, he is not dead,' I told Daj. 'Morjin would never have risked his life coming to Hesperu, much less pursuing Bemossed and storming the house. It was a droghul you killed.'

'He whispered a strange thing to me just before he died,' Daj informed me. 'He said: "Tell Valashu I am free."'

I closed my fist around the black jade, with its sharp facets. I walked back toward the cottage, where I found two good-sized stones. I set the black jade on the flatter of these. Then I used the other stone as a hammer to smash the fragile gelstei into pieces.

'What shall we do
now?'
Daj asked, coming over to me.

I looked at Bemossed holding Estrella's hand in the strong light raining down from the heavens, and I smiled at Daj. I told him, 'Now we will go home.'

I turned to mount Altaru and begin the long journey back toward the lands from which we had come.

We rode only a couple of hours after that, for we were all exhausted and the ground soon grew even hillier and more rocky. We wanted, though, to place a good few miles between us and the cottage in case any of the Red Capes
did
return. We finally made camp in a cluster of rocks above a stream flowing down from the mountains. Although the ground was almost too hard for sleeping, sleep we all did - all of us except Kane. He stood guard over us with his bow strung, watching the moonlit swells of ground below us. But nobody pursued us that night, not even in our dreams.

When morning came, the sun rose in the east, all golden and glorious. So, it seemed, with Bemossed. He moved with a new purpose, and he smiled more, as if all that he looked upon pleased him. His eyes shone with a new light. In the coming days, I looked for it to fade, but it did not.

Just before we set out for the secret pass, as Master Juwain was changing the dressing of the wound in Maram's chest that had never healed, Bemossed came over to Maram. He set his hand directly upon the raw, red wound, and Maram cried out as the salts of Bemossed's skin burned him. Bemossed left his hand there even so, for a long time. And when he took it away, Maram's flesh had been made whole again.

'Oh - oh, my Lord!' Maram shouted, pushing out his chest to the sky. 'I am healed!'

He hugged Bemossed to him in a crushing embrace, and then began dancing about the rocks half-naked. He whooped for joy, and then said to Bemossed, 'You
are
the Maitreya, truly you are, and nothing is impossible now!'

This, however, proved not to be so. Bemossed proceeded to lay his hands over Atara's face and then Estrella's throat. But even after an hour of great effort, Estrella still could not find words to speak, and Atara's eye hollows remained empty.

'I'm sorry,' Bemossed said to Atara. He bowed his head to Estrella. 'I've failed you.'

Despite Atara's disappointment, she clasped his hand and told him, 'You could never fail me. There must be many things beyond the power even of a Maitreya.'

She smiled at him, sadly and wistfully, and yet with great gladness, too. She seemed happier than she had been in a long time.

'What could be beyond the power of the Shining One?' Maram exulted as he thumped his chest and gazed at Bemossed. 'The perfect power of a perfect, perfect man!'

Bemossed blinked his dark eyes as his lips tightened with anger. He said to Maram, 'Whatever power passes through me might be perfect, but I certainly am not.'

Maram, though, only waved his hand at the sunlit rocks and the green grass all about us, and said, 'Today,
everything
is perfect!'

Bemossed rolled his eyes in exasperation, and couldn't help smiling at him. Then turned to me and said, 'You understand, don't you?'

I gazed at him, and his face gleamed with all his kindness, goodness and his bright, soaring spirit. But the deep light that filled him now also illumined his restlessness, obstinacy and his anguish of life - and all his other flaws. And the more brilliantly it shone, the clearer and sharper these flaws seemed to be.

'Give it time,' I said to him, clapping him on his shoulder. I looked from Atara to Estrella. 'My brother, Asaru, was the finest knight Mesh has ever seen, but even he didn't learn to wield a sword all in one day.'

Bemossed considered this. It was strange, I thought, that even in the depths of a dark, brooding silence, something inside him seemed to sing with light.