The Right Hand of God (53 page)

'Yet there is room at my right hand for another. I will have the chosen weapon of the Most High as my own talisman, and it will be brought to me by the boy from your own village. Ah, how this simple plot you are all part of reeks of the Most High! How foolish he is to entrust his will to such as you! The boy is the Right Hand of the Most High, as evidenced by his possession of the Jugom Ark. Soon the circle will be complete; soon he will be mine.'

'How?' Stella whispered as soon as his enormous, irresistible will withdrew. 'How will you do this?'

The Destroyer smiled. Surrender, whether she recognised it or not. 'Come with me: we have a hill to climb. Then you will watch, and you will see.'

The Bhrudwans were perhaps two hours' march from the Falthan walls and trenches. By rights Leith should have been riding among his soldiers, reminding them of the promise of the Most High by lifting high the Jugom Ark, granting them a little courage in the face of what was to come. But his thoughts had turned to his family, and he found himself powerless to prevent his feet taking him to where they were gathered. It was past time, he'd held out too long, hurt and misunderstood, but no time remained.

They were all there, his family and the others of the original Company, taking their midday meal in a green-sided tent capped with the standard of the Jugom Ark fluttering in a rising breeze. Voices were quiet and people moved slowly, as though savouring the food and the company. Instructing his guards to remain outside, Leith stepped into the tent, and silence fell.

Kurr nodded to him, then took the Haufuth's arm and motioned him to follow. For a moment the big man looked longingly at the food spread on the board. Not a snack for the man we knew as our village headman, Leith reflected as he followed the Haufuth's eyes to such poor fare. How has it come to this? But he could not ask the question, so admissive of their perilous state would it have been; and the two men left the tent, leaving Leith alone with his family.

Three figures waited patiently for him to approach the table. 'What will you have, son?'

Mahnum asked him, indicating the food.

'I will have peace between us,' said Leith formally, trying to hold in a whole world of hurts. 'I will have understanding and respect, even if we can never have what we once had.'

'You might be surprised what can be reclaimed from the ashes of misunderstanding,' Modahl said quietly, his arm resting lightly on Mahnum's shoulder. Modahl1. Leith had been sure up until the moment the man spoke that it had been Hal standing there, not his grandfather.

'What do you want, son?' his mother asked him, and at the sound of her voice he could no longer keep the tears inside.

'I want you to be my mother and not the commander of the Falthan army,' he sobbed as she held him tight. 'I want Mahnum to be my father and not the Trader of Firanes, always ready to leave his family in the service of his king. I want Modahl to be my grandfather and not the famous Arkhos of Sna Vaztha.' He took a deep breath and wiped his nose on his sleeve. 'I want Hal to be my brother and not some wild magician with terrible powers who might betray us at any moment. And I want to be Leith, and not the Bearer of the Jugom Ark! I wish I was home in Loulea, not here awaiting the slaughter that will come today, whether or not we win the battle. Isn't that what you wish too?'

His family were all around him, saying things he could not hear through the pounding of his heart in his ears, hugging him tight, reassuring him.

'Go and find Hal,' his mother whispered to him. 'Speak these words to your brother.'

'Where is he?' Leith asked them. They did not know: his brother had left some time earlier.

'He spends a lot of time on his own, since ...' His father did not finish, but Leith knew what he referred to.

'I will find him,' Leith said, and left the tent less burdened than when he had entered it.

Somehow he knew where Hal would be. The Falthan army had camped in much the same place they had used when recovering from the snowstorm nearly four months earlier, and the dell in the centre of the camp was as unoccupied now as it had been then. His crippled brother was there, sitting as still as a statue at the bottom of the depression, and did not move when Leith cried his name. Finally his brother raised his head and looked at Leith with red-rimmed eyes.

'Hal, I. . .' Leith began, his mouth dry and his heart on fire. He had seen much during their journey. He'd witnessed his brother become a stinging insect, inflicting illness on an innocent man; he had heard Hal's voice offering him counsel - not only since they had left Loulea, but all through his life.

'Hal, why is it always me that has to say sorry?' It was not the question he had intended to ask, and he saw his brother's face close up as soon as the words left his lips. He wished he could call them back, but they sped towards their target like arrows from a bow, and with as devastating an effect.

It used to be that 1 couldn't hurt him, no matter what 1 said.

Hal took a deep, settling breath. 'I have cried with you many times, Leith. I nursed you when you were sick, I defended you when others tried to hurt you, I offered you words of comfort and support whenever I could, and received little in return. What have I done to apologise for?'

His brother's voice was thinner somehow, his cheeks hollower than Leith remembered. He drank in the sight of him nevertheless, the one person who had remained steadfast and true when his father was gone and his mother didn't understand. How could 1 have done anything other than love him?

And yet...

'You should apologise for all those things you did!' Leith cried, his shameful, secret self finally exposed. 'For always being right! For always being the voice of reason! For the guilt I cannot shake off! The Most High curse you, Hal! The number of people I have lost since all this began burns in my head, and the very first number is YOU!'

Hal held out his crippled hand. Leith could see what an

effort it was. Had his brother been eating? Had he wounded him so deeply that he refused food?

In an agony of indecision, his own need for release finely balanced against the needs of his brother, he reached out his own hand. Their fingers came close together, touched.

Forgiveness, understanding, love; all in that touch.

A hundred horns rang out, swamping the valley in noise. Both Leith and Hal clapped their hands to their ears as the echoes beset them. Again the horns blew, and Leith knew, without being told, the assault had begun. Later: we can finish talking later. He turned and ran up the sides of the dell, emerging into the central scene from the ceiling of Greatheart's hall.

The Falthans knew the horns would blow to signal a Bhrudwan attack, but the horns had blown far earlier than they expected. Though there was a rearguard, no one seriously thought the Bhrudwans would attack them from behind - but somehow they had appeared in great numbers on the downvalley side. All over the valley companies fought with each other, engaged past extrication. There was no doubt in anyone's mind that the final battle had come, and victory would go to the army that avoided total destruction.

An arrow hissed past Leith and struck a soldier just to his left. The man went down with the shaft lodged in his throat, his hands scrabbling at the thing killing him. Leith poured himself into the Jugom Ark, but even as the Arrow flared into life he knew that it was too late for the man lying dead on the muddy ground. The field of battle rapidly became a confusion of grunts, shouts and cries; and Leith seemed to be cursed, arriving just too late time after time.

There came a tug on the sleeve of his cloak, and he shook

it off in his frustration and anger. The tug came again, and with it a voice: 'My lord? My lord!

It is time! The prophecy, my lord!'

The man with his hand on his sleeve was Sir Amasian. Leith shook his head, but did not succeed in clearing it. All around him the screams of the dying continued to steal whatever clarity he strove for.

'The knights will help us,' the old seer continued, as though Leith had understood him. 'The Knights of Fealty will cut a path to where you must stand. They are ready for this task; it is what they have prepared for ever since the vision came.'

Numbers. The numbers rustled in his head like sheaves of paper falling one on top of the other. Every dead warrior was another number. Where better to count from than one of the hills? In a kind of madness, overwhelmed by events, he pulled away from the knight, but apparently had struck out in the direction they wanted him to go. They rode ahead of him without a backward glance. His guards followed the mounted troop, unsure of their role. Left and right the armoured figures swung their heavy blades, driving the enemy before them, parting the massed Bhrudwan ranks, clearing a path for the Arrow-bearer to meet his appointed destiny.

Soon they came to a narrow path, and here the Knights of Fealty formed a line, parting momentarily for Leith and the seer to pass through. 'Up the path,' Sir Amasian said, wheezing slightly.

Are you sure you can make it?' Leith asked. The bluff towered above them, its crown perhaps a thousand feet above the valley floor.

'I see myself standing beside you. I behold your victory. I will survive the climb.'

The guards made to follow, but found their way barred by the Knights of Fealty.

Phemanderac ran to and fro on the battlefield, searching for Leith. Something was amiss, something clearly wrong. It hovered on the edge of his mind. Something to do with the old man's vision. The Dhaurian scholar had studied the ceiling of the Great Hall of Fealty for a time that evening, had memorised the images, and knew that what he beheld on the field this afternoon was but one image from the centre. Though they seemed to be heading towards defeat, the prophecy told of imminent victory. His mind could find no flaw, but his heart misgave him. His heart misgave him, and he knew that in this matter, if in no other in these days of confusion, he could trust his heart. His heart misgave him, and he could not find Leith to warn him.

The view from the top of the crag was one to rend the heart. The two armies were completely engaged for the first time since the bitter campaign had started, and the restorative power of two months without fighting meant, paradoxically, both forces had energy enough to slay each other more effectively. As the minutes passed, Leith counted the fallen. Already they numbered in the thousands.

He raised his eyes from the scene of death below. From this height he could see along the Aleinus valley. He looked out from the throat of Vulture's Craw, past Aleinus Gates and into the soft distance, where lay the rich heartland of Faltha. To his right rose the rocky heights of the Wodranian Mountains, shoulders thrusting into the grey clouds. Similar hills marched into the distance on the other side of the gut: the Taproot Hills, part of the country of Redana'a. He had

seen them before; they formed the backdrop to the central image of the prophecy. Beside him Sir Amasian stood, wild-eyed and fey as his life folded back on him.

Opposite the bluff on which they stood rose another of similar height, and on the crest of this hill Leith could make out a figure. Two figures. Good. These had also been depicted on the hall's ceiling.

As he turned his attention back to the battle, as he began to wonder what part he would play, how exactly he would summon the efficacy of the Jugom Ark to their advantage, the singing began.

It was harsh, it was bitter; it was sonorous, it was bewitching. It echoed across the valley, swelling well beyond normal volume, sound multiplying on sound until to Leith it might have come from ten thousand throats. It was undoubtedly magical, and it was not of Falthan origin.

Then the singers came into view, marching left to right across the field of battle. Leith counted them without thinking. Thirteen times thirteen was their number, one hundred and sixty-nine grey-coated Lords of Fear finally revealed in all their terrible power. Each a magician of note, and a large part of the strength of their master lay in them. No mere acolytes, these: they were warriors, scholars, wizards all, mercilessly trained, inured to suffering. On they came, passing through the battle as though it did not exist, and their song rose up the valley wall, magnified beyond imagining. Above Leith the very sky groaned in pain with the sound.

Beside Leith, the old knight's hands dropped to his sides and his mouth fell open. 'No,' he whispered. 'It cannot be.'

Achtal fought at the edges of the wagons, as close to Hal as he could be while still remaining in the battle. As the sound

of the Maghdi Dasht reached him, his face turned pale and his great sword fell from his fingers.

Stella lay grovelling on the hilltop, heedless of any danger to herself. The singing touched the pain locked inside her, sending it searing across her body as though skinning her alive. Beside her the Undying Man put forth even more of his power, and the magic that hid his ravaged face fell away, unable to be sustained. He knew this, and yet continued to draw on the combined will of his servants in the cauldron below, sending it up into the clouds.

'Water to quench the Fire!' the Undying Man cried in a terrible voice, his arm slashing downwards.

A few scant moments ago the cloud base had been an unmoving layer of grey; now it roiled and spun like the Maelstrom of the Kljufa River. From the vortex came lightning, crashing to earth with a roar, claiming Bhrudwan and Faithan alike indiscriminately. A heartbeat later came the rain, cascading down on Vulture's Craw in torrents, driven into the faces of the warriors by a sudden wind from the east, blinding them all in a stinging fury.

Hal stood alone at the edge of the dell, perhaps a hundred paces from the ranks of the Maghdi Dasht. Down in the valley bottom their song drowned out even the sounds of thunder and driving rain. It was not a binding like last time, Hal knew; they were creating something with this, something more than an illusion. This was real power, sourced from within the Lords of Fear, who willingly drained their own lives in the service of their master. Their power could not be used directly on the Falthans, but they could shape a weapon that might bring about a victory for the