Black Jade (57 page)

'Father-killer!' the warriors around me called out. 'Sorcerer! Well-poisonerl'

'What else is there to say?' the droghul shouted. It seemed that he had given up struggling against Morjin. 'These men and their kind are well-poisoners! Give them to us that
we
might give them justice!'

Morjin, I suddenly knew, wished to torture out of me and my friends our knowledge of the Maitreya even more than he wished our deaths. If the droghul and the Red Priests got their hands on us, I wondered how they would be able to crucify us to a land without wood? Perhaps they would settle on cutting apart Daj and Estrella piece by piece, knowing that I could never bear this.

'Well-poisoners! Well-poisoners! Kill the well-poisoners!'

What is truth? It is not merely faultlessness and honesty, the uncovering of facts, but rather the urge toward these things, and much more, the primeval drive to bring forth into the light of existence the deepest designs of the real. It is as clear and perfect as starlight, and it blazes with all the fierceness and power of the sun.

Well-poisoner
!
Sorcerer
!
Father-killer
!
Father-killer
!
Father-killer
!

In the black centers of the droghul's eyes, Morjin sat on his Dragon Throne shouting these words at me. Then, at last, I drew in a deep breath of fiery air and shouted back at him: 'My father died defending our land from your armies! My brothers, too! My mother was nailed to wood by your bloody priests! They put my grandmother next to her! You, with your own fingers, tore out my beloved's eyes! I . . . could not stop this! I tried, with all my might, but I could not!'

I drew my sword, and red flames swirled about its shimmering silustria. With tears nearly blinding me, I told the assembled warriors more, things that I did not want to tell anyone, not even myself. I admitted that it was I who had led Atara and my other friends into Argattha, and so shook my fist at the stars. Although I hadn't slain my family I had brought about their deaths through hubris and hate. I loved the world, yes, and wanted to bring an end to war, but even more I hated Morjin and wanted with every breath to thrust my sword into his heart and make him die.

To the judges staring at me with their black, blurred eyes, to Sunji and Yago and all the warriors looking upon me in awe, even to the sky, I told of things simply as they were. There was no

manipulation in this, no calculation to achieve a certain end. I wanted only that my judges, and the whole world, should know. Sorrow tore the truth from me. I held nothing back: all my anguish, guilt and grief came pouring out of me. Al my love, and all my hate. The sun was a fierce thing in the sky, burning with a white-hot light, but this was more terrible, more beautiful more real.

When I could speak no more, Sunji sat on his horse regarding me from beneath the shawl that covered most of his face. His bright, black eyes shone with a deep lucidty
.
After glancing at the droghul, he turned to the judges and told them, 'King Morjin is right - what more is there to say?'

He drew in a deep breath of air as he called out to everyone: 'The well-poisoner,
and
those who helped him, must be served justice. Laisar, what do
you
say?'

Laisar's old eyes grew hard with judgment as he pointed at the droghul and shouted, 'I say that this man, whether he is King Morjin or his mind-slave, is the poisoner!'

'I say this, too!' Maidru called out.

'And I,' Avraym said. 'Let the poisoner be served!'

All at once, the Avari warriors up and down their line began shouting out:. 'Well-poisoner! Well-poisoner! Kill the well-poisoner!'

But the Zuri warriors, trapped between the Avari
and
the rocks where Maram and my other companions stood, kept their silence. It is one thing to hear the truth, and another to act upon it.

All eyes now fell upon the droghul, who held up his hand and cast his dreadful gaze to the right and left. He cried out: 'You must listen to me! The Elahad lies! It is he, not I, who is the-'

'Sorcerer! Well-poisoner! Well-poisoner! Kill the well-poisoner!'

Sunji, having heard from the judges, swept his sword from the droghul to Oalo, and then out to the Zuri warriors as he pronounced their doom: 'You have heeded too well the words of this sorcerer and poisoner, and those of his priests. But we have all heard the power of these words - the power of these lies. I cannot believe that you knew of the poisoner's deeds. Therefore you shall be spared his punishment. Lay down your swords, and you shall be free to go back to your home!'

'We
won't
lay down our swords!' Oalo shouted, drawing his saber. Its polished steel flashed in the sun. 'We wont make it easy for you to slaughter us here!'

'Truce-breaker!' Avraym called out to him, 'Drop your sword now, or die along with the Poisoner and his priests!'

'Throw down!' Laisar shouted at Oalo. He turned to the Zuri warriors and told them, 'All of you - throw down your swords!'

The sixty Zuri warriors hesitated for a moment. They looked from the droghul and Maslan at the center of the field to the four other Red Priests waiting with them in their line. It seemed that they feared these men more than they did Sunji and the Avari. And so they drew their swords and pointed them at the Avari rather than throwing them down.

'Damn you!' the droghul cried out to Sunji as he drew
his
sword. Torment ate at his eyes as he seemed for a moment to struggle against his distant master. But then his face hardened once again as he screamed out, 'Damn you, Avari! I'll poison
your
wells! I'll send armies to crucify your women and children, and make you drink their blood!'

As he screamed out even more vile threats, Laisar, Avraym and Maidro drew in closer to Sunji; with battle now imminent, ten Avari warriors galloped out from the line to join Sunji and the judges. They positioned themselves facing Oalo, Maslan and the droghul, forming a sort of wall protecting Kane, Yago and me.

'This is no trial by combat!' Sunji called out again to the Zuri. 'Throw down your swords!'

The droghul, however, pointed his sword straight at me. Only his hatred of Morjin's control of him, I thought, had so far kept him from trying to ride me down and hack me apart in full fury. But now he and Morjin were as one.

'Damn you, Elahad! You killed my
daughter
!
.
My only girl! I executed your family, and so destroyed your past, but you have taken from me my hope for the future!'

'It was you who took this!' I called to him. 'You killed Jezi when you touched her with your foul hands!'

'Damn you!' he screamed at me. 'This time you die!'

And then, even as the Red Priests goaded the Zuri warriors to attack the advancing Avari line, the droghul spurred his horse straight at me.

Two of the ten Avari warriors that Sunji had called forward moved to stop him. But the droghul, with a thrust of his sword quicker than a striking snake, stabbed one of these warriors through the throat. His sword flashed out a moment later, cleaving the other warrior's skull. Then Sunji, the three judges and the other eight Avari closed in on him.

As the warriors of these two tribes came crashing together in a riot of gleaming sabers and darting horses, it seemed impossible that the Zuri could hold against the Avari. The Avari sat higher on larger horses, and their swords were longer, too. I had never seen warriors wield their swords with such prowess - no warriors except my own people, that is. In each of many individual duels, with saber clanging against saber, an Avari warrior slashed through his foe's defenses again and again. In truth, few of these duels remained individual, for the Avari were merciless and fell upon the outnumbered Zuri in twos and threes. Bright steel sliced through cotton garments, skin and bone. Men screamed in agony. The hardpacked earth of the desert ran red with blood.

I hoped to stay out of this battle, leaving matters to the Avari and Zuri. I sat on top of Altaru, holding back with Kane and Yago at my sides. I waited for Sunji to bring the droghul to justice: either slaying or capturing him. It should have been an easy thing for Sunji and the three judges, backed up by the eight Avari warriors, to cut him down. But two of the Red Priests and six Zuri warriors, with Oalo, rode forward to aid the frenzied, murderous droghul.

And then the droghul seemed to summon up some secret torment from within himself as he cried out in a voice ringing with a fell, new power:
VALARIIII!

I felt a hundred daggers, like ice, pierce every part of me and seize hold of my limbs. So it was with Sunji and the Avari. Many of them lifted them lifted their swords with a dreadful slowness-many more Simply froze altogether in terror.

VALARIIII!

Now Avraym dropped his saber and pressed his hands to his ears, even as Oalo plunged the point of his saber into his back. Sunji could hardly lift his saber to defend himself against the Red Priest attacking him. In the sea of screaming horses and men all around me, it seemed that the Avari were losing their will to slay the Zuri, while the Zuri warriors struck back at their executioners with a renewed fury. I did not know why the Zuri seemed immune to the droghul's terrible cry:

VALARIII!

All across the burning canyon, Avari warriors began dropping their swords or clinging to their horses. Now it was the Zuri who showed them no mercy. Their sabers slashed out like lightning as the Avari's screams became one with the droghul's.

'Damn you, Elahad! Damn the Valariii!'

The droghul cut down the last of the men drawn up in front of me. He ignored Kane, off to my right, who desperately battled two Zuri warriors. The droghul spurred his horse closer, then slashed his sword toward my face. I barely parried it, and its shiny steel clanged against Alkaladur's silustria and struck out flaming sparks. Again and again he tried to cleave me in two. My skin, with no armor protecting it, fairly twitched with a deep, sick fear. I moved slowly, so terribly slowly, as if trying to lift my sword through a raging stream of ice water. I knew that the droghul would kill me, and soon.

And then, from out of nowhere, it seemed, Yago came galloping forward in a whirl of dusty white robes and flashing steel. With perfect coordination, he swerved his horse and closed in just as the droghul raised back his sword to decapitate me. Yago leaned forward in his saddle, and quick as the wind sliced his saber through the droghul's throat. This vicious cut opened up the droghul's windpipe and the great artery there. Blood spurted, and a red froth flowed from the droghul's mouth. Although he could not speak to howl out his paralyzing cry, his eyes remained full of hate. They fixed on my eyes like red-hot nails. They told me that I had murdered
him,
Morjin's droghul, but that I could never touch the one who moved the droghul's limbs and mind. One day, and soon, Morjin would come to take a terrible vengeance. This the droghul promised me in his last moment of life. Then Yago's saber flashed out again, and this time cut clean through the droghul's neck and struck off his head.

After that, the battle did not last very long. The Avari warriors regained their wits and strength. Their terror at the droghul caused them to fall upon the remaining Zuri with great wrath. They killed them cruelly, down to the last man. Sunji himself put his saber through Oalo. Then he went about the field making sure that all the Zuri were dead.

I sat on top of Altaru, gasping for breath and staring down at the droghul's body. The bodies of warriors, Zuri and Avari, lay everywhere, baking in the hot sun. Already the flies had gone to work on their hideous, gaping wounds, and vultures came from afar to circle in the air.

Kane nudged his horse over to me. His black eyes flashed at me as if in joy that we had survived another battle, in one way the worst yet. He asked Yago how it was that the droghul's voice had left him untouched. Yago couldn't hear him. He moved closer to Kane, and threw his hands up to the sides of his head. His fingers dug free two sticky, red barbark nuts. It seemed that at the very beginning of the battle, he had used them to stop up his ears.

'The voice-of that thing,' he said, pointing down at what was left of the droghul, 'could have frozen the sun itself. By what sorcery can a man stop another solely through his voice?'

I had no answer for him, and neither did Kane. The mystery of how the Zuri warriors had fought on beneath the droghul's piercing cry, however, was soon solved. Sunji rode back over to us, and opened his hand to show us a yellowish-white, greasy clot of matter.

'Beeswax,' he said to us, 'taken from the Zuri's ears. They came prepared to murder us.'

He told us that eighteen of his warriors had died in the battle, while another fifteen bore serious wounds. All the Zuri were dead. But one of the Red Priests who rode with them still lived.

'Come, Valashu Elahad, you must bear witness to this,' he said to me. 'You, as well, Kane. And you, Masud.'

We picked our way across the battlefield until we came to a large rock. The captured Red Priest had been bound with ropes and cast back against it. His long, gaunt face, like a living skull, was horrible to look upon. His eyes radiated both fear and hate. Three Avari warriors stood over him with their sabers drawn. Laisar and Maidro stood there, too. Laisar held in his hand a large, green bottle. He showed it to Yago and said, 'Poison - taken from the priest's saddlebags. It is proved beyond any doubt: the Morjin thing and his priests are all poisoners!'

And Maidro added, nodding at Yago, 'Surely they would have poisoned
our
wells, too.'

While the Avari went about preparing their dead for burial and tending their wounded, Master Juwain and Liljana came down from the rocky heights above - Maram and Atara, too. When Yago asked after Turi, Liljana coldly informed him that children had no place on a battlefield; Turi, she said, was safe in the company of Daj and Estrella.