The Starfollowers of Coramonde (46 page)

“Dunstan,
c’mon; you’re sprung.”

The
Horseblooded shielded his eyes from the orange light. He leaned weakly on the
edge of the passageway. The gaunt face, like a sad clown’s, achieved joy and
sorrow at once. “The words you needed must have come to you.”

“I made a few
points, but he’s not convinced. Wants to talk to you.”

Dunstan stood
upright, gazing at his hands. “I heard a voice call my name, and I was whole
once again. Do you suppose I was never truly part of the stone? Perhaps Bey
only made me see and feel what he wished. Mayhap I was imprisoned by what I
believed, and could have walked free at any time.”

Gil had been
working with his tongue at a tooth that had been loosened in the fight. He spat
it to the floor with a gobbet of blood and saliva. “What’s it matter? You’re
free now.”

That fact
penetrated at last. “I am free!” He threw back his head, crowing his triumph.
He leapt into the corridor and began a jig, hopping, stamping his feet. The
music of the Masters swelled, but he used it for his fling, locking elbows with
the protesting American, swinging him do-si-do. And what matter if the tune was
played in demon’s tri-tones? He laughed and sang, clicking his heels in the
air, his long horsetail of hair flying; Gil’s objections went unheard.

Then he saw
the red stains on Gil’s hands and clothes, and how he had his arm clamped to
his side, feeling as if some of his ribs were cracked. Dunstan stopped. “What’s
happened? What have they done to you?”

“That’s what
I’m trying to tell you! Evergray sent me to get you, but Flaycraft tried to
stop me. It was him or us, so it was him.”

Dunstan’s
face was bleak again. “Almost, I could hate you for that. Simple death was ten
thousand times easier than he deserved; it was damnable largesse.”

“Give it
over; the clock’s running out. Evergray’s got to go back to the Masters for his
last session any time now.”

“Come, lean
on my arm.”

“I’m okay.
I’ll fill you in as we go.”

But when they
re-entered the gallery, Evergray was standing beside the torturer’s body, with Yardiff
Bey nearby. In the Scion’s hand was a greatsword nearly his own height.

And that’s
the end of it,
thought Gil. Evergray no longer showed a smooth, emotionless
face; now it was taut with righteous anger. He saw the two.

“Mad
creatures, this was my friend,” he boomed, his voice hurting their ears. “He
was my teacher, my companion, my guardian, my servant. What have you done?”

Gil didn’t
evade. “Only what he would’ve done to me,
tried
to do to me.”

“Of course
you did, MacDonald.” Yardiff Bey transferred his calm stare from the mortals to
his progeny. “I knew it as soon as I happened upon the corpse. It is in his
free-will nature to slay and maim, and bring suffering without thought or
pause.” Gil glowered, knowing his appearance must suggest the red-handed
butcher Bey was making him out to be. “How many lives have you taken,
MacDonald? You murdered in those first seconds that you were in Coramonde. You
have been murdering ever since.”

“Shut up,
Bey! What about
you?
For God’s sake, what about your killings, centuries
of them?” He floundered, unsure that it was any defense at all.

The
sorcerer’s tone stayed calm as a tranquil river. “I? When have you seen me
kill?” He knew the American had been too dazed at the Isle of Keys to note the
death of the Trustee.

Gil couldn’t
find a retort. For all the deaths with which Bey was connected, Gil could cite
no time when he’d seen the Hand commit murder personally. As he’d told Dunstan,
Bey was smarter, smoother. The sorcerer spoke to his creation again.

“Understand,
child of my arts; free-will beings are treacherous and ungrateful. I knew that
when I besought you to arm yourself. It will be no loss when the memory of free
will is wiped away forever before the glorious New Order. There is death in
everything they touch, just as there is ruin implicit in that tarot MacDonald
wears.”

Gil broke in.
“Spare the tears, Bey. How many people died to suit your plans? Quit splitting
hairs; you’re just as guilty as—”

Insight came
to him. “Oh,
right!
You’re not here by accident, and neither was
Flaycraft. You bastard! You set me up again, didn’t you?” It was clear now,
Yardiff Bey had used Gil one last time, to dissuade Evergray from his
stubbornness about free will. The sorcerer had arranged the fight.

“Evergray,
don’t you see what’s going on? You, me, Dunstan, Flaycraft; Bey’s played us all
off against each other. If Flaycraft killed me, fine and dandy; I’d have looked
erratic and everything I’d said goes out the window. And when I won, it was all
the same: You still end up hating mortals and going along with the Masters.
It’s fail-safe.”

“He is mad,”
Bey intoned placidly, “and the mad will claim anything.”

Gil snarled
furiously. In the back of his mind, something had been yammering for attention.
Then he had it.

“Bey, what
did you just say, something about the tarot I wear? Flaycraft took that from
me. Why did you think I was wearing it again,
unless you saw me take it off
him?”

He grabbed
the ragged front of his shirt and tore down the rotting sealskin. Flaycraft’s
toothmarks were all he exposed. Bey was nonplussed. “He arranged it all. He
must have watched from somewhere up there in the dark, one of those balconies.
Evergray, he witnessed the fight. Yes, I took the Ace, and he saw it and left
to get you. But he wasn’t there when I came back and left it here.”

The sorcerer
had composed himself. “It was only misstatement. No minor confusion of mine can
palliate what you have done—”

He was
drowned out by the American, screaming to Evergray: “Roll Flaycraft over!”

The giant
brushed the squat body over with one hand. The Ace of Swords lay in a red
puddle. Yardiff Bey’s disclaimers stopped. Evergray clenched his fist,
shrieking into the air. The other three clapped hands to their ears, their
hearing jeopardized. He pointed a long finger at the sorcerer.

“My one
companion, my only friend. His life mattered not at all to you. Now hear my
troth: Your plan will never come to pass!” His head snapped around, listening
to his Masters. At the top of his lungs he bellowed, “Never!”

He pointed at
Gil and Dunstan. “These death-lusting mortals are unfit to shape their lives.
In like wise, the Masters are worthy of no godhead.” A circle of radiant,
crackling energy sprang up around the horns and projections of his
crown-helmet. “There is only one entity with the power and sanity to bring
order to the world, and he is Evergray.
I
am the synthesis of Might and
Right. Both sides will be abased to me. To me!”

He faced
Yardiff Bey. “Stand aside. The armies of the north are engaging the Host of the
Grave, but I shall take them under my command. The Spell of Spells will be
stopped, and all will yield to me.”

The sorcerer
stood to stop him, half-drawing Dirge. “What my magic has made, my magic can
unmake.” Evergray raised his own weapon. Bey hesitated, seeing it. The Scion
snatched Dirge from the sorcerer’s grasp, handing it aside carelessly. Gil took
the deathblade with all caution. Bey’s fingers flew to the ocular he wore where
his left eye had been.

Evergray set
his feet firmly, his aura crackling brighter. “Use that last desperate resort,
father, but be warned; if you do, your life lies upon it.”

Knowing
Evergray was filled with the energies of the Five, Bey let his hand fall from
the ocular. His shoulders drooped. Gil stooped and snatched up the Ace, shoving
it into his waistband. It had brought him a convoluted turn of luck; he was
unwilling to abandon it. Then he stood, Dirge in hand, to face Yardiff Bey.

But a tempest
came up in the sorcerer’s mansion, the Masters’ efforts to stop their Scion’s
defection. They’d put too much of their power into him though, and he defied
them. Wind and lightning broke around him, but didn’t touch him. The fury of it
drove Gil, along with Dunstan, into the shelter of Evergray’s magic. When the
American looked again, the sorcerer was gone.

“Come!”
Evergray commanded over his shoulder. The two fell in close behind, having to
trot to keep up with the aroused giant while the wrath of the Five crashed
around them.

Evergray led
them out onto the balcony, to
Cloud Ruler.
No guards appeared to
interfere; if the Masters couldn’t halt Evergray, no show of arms would. He
spoke a syllable, and the flying craft’s hatch rolled open. They boarded.

Inside, Gil
and Dunstan gazed around at the rich appointments of the command chamber. The
giant seated himself before an enormous lens, straddling the command chair
which was too small for him. He put his sword aside, set hands on knees, and
went into deep concentration, breaking the vessel free of Yardiff Bey’s
control.
Cloud Ruler
shuddered, belched flame and lifted off slowly.

The
demon-ship rocked turbulently for a moment, then steadied again. Evergray
laughed. “He tried to liberate the fire-elemental entrapped in
Cloud Ruler’s
bowels, but I contained it again instantly, by my arts. I am mightier than the
Hand of Salamá!”

Gil peeked
around Evergray at the lens. Salamá shrank in its convex fish-eye. The American
could see dark masses moving on the desolate plain. Off in the distance was the
hill where the Lifetree had bloomed.

One lone figure
came out to stare up from the balcony. From this height, Bey looked
insignificant, almost pitiable. After all the centuries, Yardiff Bey had made
his greatest error. Eager to summon Evergray and accuse Gil, he’d left the
gallery too soon.

The only
time you’ve ever been careless, Bey, and now it’s all coming unglued.
The
American found he couldn’t savor the irony. The tiny figure was barely visible.

Don’t go
away; we’ll be back.

The glories of our blood and
state

Are shadows, not substantial
things

James Shirley

“Death the Leveller”

ON the desolate plain, swords
rushed in ritualistic curves, approaches and interplays of war. With no effort
to defend themselves, the Dead attacked relentlessly.

Springbuck’s
first match was definitive. The dead soldier came at him, eyes glowing, skin
decayed, armor corroded. It swung a notched sword; the
Ku-Mor-Mai
blocked with his shield and responded with Bar. In a moment, they were trading
strokes. The corpse-warrior wasn’t particularly strong, nor certainly a clever
swordsman, but its offense was ceaseless.

Springbuck
and his opponent wheeled around each other, angry Fireheel setting his shoulder
against the spectral mount’s. The
Ku-Mor-Mai
saw the Dead would be as
avid to fight, unwearied, an hour or a day or a year from now as at this
second. His army could match any mortal opponents, but how long could they
stand against these insatiable foemen?

He caught the
sword on his shield and got a blow in. Bar dug deep, severing an arm. The
specter dropped its shield and plucked a rusty mace from its saddlebow, coming
on again. Springbuck intercepted the mace, the blow numbing his shield arm, and
buried his blade deep in the corpse’s side. The dead man twitched with the
impact, but lifted its mace again.

The
Ku-Mor-Mai
tugged wildly to free Bar. The mace fell with unflagging resolve. Springbuck
was able to hold up his battered shield long enough to ward it off. The
Obstructor came loose; he cut again. This time the hand that held the mace
dropped, parted from its arm. The corpse fought on, grinning, ghastly, clubbing
with the stumps of its arms. Springbuck caught its rotting harness and pulled
it from its saddle. It crashed to the ground and began to flail its way to its
feet. The son of Surehand leaned low and struck off its head with one slash.
The head rolled in the gray soot, but the body continued to struggle, losing
balance and falling, never stopping.

Springbuck
backed Fireheel out of the way, to see what was happening. Up and down the
front, it was the same; the Dead couldn’t be stopped short of dismemberment.
The northerners were cutting their horses or their legs from under the enemy,
or literally disarming them. Sometimes it worked, and sometimes not.

Springbuck
saw Angorman not far away, leading the Order. Red Pilgrim whirled and cut
around him, felling the Dead with its steel mandates. By Angorman’s side,
Balagon swung
Ke-Wa-Coe,
the broadsword he’d consecrated to the Bright
Lady. The Order and the Brotherhood, select champions of the Crescent Lands,
hacked and hewed. In their section of the battle, the Dead made slow headway.

Rank after
rank waited to fill gaps in the line of the Dead. They would triumph by
attrition; the northerners were far too few to carve them all. Springbuck could
order a withdrawal, but to where? The Host of the Grave would run the living to
the earth.

Engaged along
a wide front, the Crescent Landers met enemy after enemy. The war-drays of
Matloo careened through the fight, hub-blades threshing through the Host.
Heavily plated Lead-Line Riders guided the armored teams on; the crews licked
out with their long, two-handed swords. The Dead fell in rows. The Yalloroon
crouched inside the wagons, their terror outweighed by their awe of the
outlanders for daring challenge Salamá to come out and fight.

The other
northerners were falling back as they battled; they couldn’t stand their ground
with severed arms clawing at their horse’s shanks. Springbuck was thankful his army
was mounted; infantry would have been engulfed. The living sustained losses;
the Dead fought and silently fell only to be replaced by other uncaring,
animate corpses.