The Starfollowers of Coramonde (48 page)

Evergray
harbored more power than even Gabrielle could absorb. She released her Crook,
sinking to the ground, but the giant stumbled back and forth, unable to let
loose of the staff. He couldn’t stop the outrushing of his own vitality. Brighter
and brighter he flared, like a nova. Then the light went out.

He fell,
blackened, the crown-helmet tumbling from his head, no longer fitting him; he’d
shrunken with the loss of his power. The Crook of the Trustee was now a row of
cinders.

Gil lay near,
fighting shrilly for air. Evergray focused on him stuporously. “I truly had no
allies, had I? Nor kin, nor friend, nor any who wished to be.”

The
crosscurrent radiance in his eyes died. Gil, also under Dirge’s sentence, hung
his head down in defeat.

For better than never is late…

Chaucer

“The Canon’s Yeoman’s Tale”

THERE was an explosion on the
plain;
Cloud Ruler
disappeared in a red fireball. Yardiff Bey had
removed his spells from the elemental within it; now that Evergray’s no longer
held it, it burst free. Hovering for a moment, a searing, raging globe, it took
its bearings while those below crouched from its heat, then blazed into the
sky, away from its long imprisonment.

From above,
from all around, a choir of frustration and venom filled the air. The Masters
lamented for themselves, and the Spell ruined by Evergray’s death. Their hatred
rolled across the plain, trembling the tatters of cloth that clung to the
fallen.

Gabrielle
sprawled in the dust by Hightower’s side. The old man couldn’t staunch the
blood that flowed from him, though his clamped hands shook with the effort. She
tried her enchantments, though she knew nothing would reverse Dirge’s malice.

Van Duyn
arrived, with Reacher and Katya. With them came some of the Yalloroon, staring
wide-eyed at the aftermath of battle. Two of the little people had died, along
with the crew of the war-dray in which they’d ridden, when their vehicle was
overturned and overrun by the Dead.

Swan knelt by
Gil’s side as he tried to hold his breath and re-expand his lung by pressure,
hand covering his wound. But the function of Dirge’s magic made it impossible
to seal the injury. He gave up and looked at the High Constable.

“You were
right in Final Graces,” he labored, breath short. “About risk.”

Springbuck
appeared over Swan’s shoulder. His eyes flicked to the wound, then met his
friend’s candidly, holding no hope. Gil tried to smile, but failed. “I know. I
should have listened to you. Forget it. Bey’s still back there in the city.”

Andre had
left Hightower, for whom the wizard could do nothing. Now he led Balagon away
from where the warrior-priest had closed Angorman’s eyes forever. The Divine
Vicar had taken up Red Pilgrim; Andre took it from him gently, handing it away
to Van Duyn, who stood nearest him. Hearing Gil, Andre nodded. “That is no less
than true. There is still Bey. Gabrielle?”

She still
held Hightower’s hand, but said, “The Masters await. There is yet time to act.”

“Are you not
spent?” Springbuck asked anxiously.

“Not so,” she
replied. “I took in a measure of the force escaping Evergray. The rest is fled
at random. The Five’s resources are diminished, but they will draw more to
them, or be given of Amon’s. We have only this moment.”

Hightower
sighed weakly and squeezed her hand in approval.

Their losses
had been heavy. Because some must care for the injured and because the number
of horses was reduced, Springbuck had fewer than seven thousand functioning
mounted troops. He began rapid orders for assembly. Then he halted as an emaciated
mare bore toward him through the drifting smoke and stench. She came to a
stumbling stop and her rider dropped to his feet.

“Ferrian!”
Dunstan flew at him. “Kinsman!” They gripped forearms.

“We are
peculiarly met,” observed Ferrian, eyes sweeping the scene.

Many Wild
Riders came to their former Champion, saluting, pressing his hand in theirs,
but he broke away, and came to Springbuck. When he’d heard what had happened,
Ferrian motioned to Gil and Hightower. “Though Angorman and many others on the
field are beyond help, these two here are not, for in Ladentree I learned many
things. Yonder, east of Salamá some small way, is the hill where the Lifetree
blossomed. Down within it lie those particular waters which fed the Tree, and
would remedy Dirge’s magic.”

Andre was
unconvinced. “Those are for the Lifetree. I doubt any other influence could
summon them forth.”

“Carnage
wrought by ordinary steel cannot be undone,” Ferrian answered, “but these of an
eldritch nature, these might be. It would be ill of us not to try.”

Gil knew a
flash of hope so poignant it stripped him of his stolid resignation, slim as
the chance was, and Swan’s face came alive.

Springbuck
knew he must be the one to say it. “The Masters will not defer that long,
Ferrian. An hour’s delay will be the death of us all.” That same hour would
kill Gil and Hightower. He searched Gabrielle’s face for vindication, desperate
that she understand two lives were balanced here against many, as well as the
fate of the Crescent Lands.

Ferrian shook
his head. “The gods have us on schedules all their own. But there is a third
choice,
Ku-Mor-Mai.
Let those who must press on to Salamá, and let but a
few of us detour, bearing these two comrades to the hill.”

Dunstan
seconded it, saying he would go. Springbuck’s expression showed how welcome
that proposal was. “Well thought on. But how to transport?”

The latecomer
pointed to where the overturned war-dray of Matloo had been righted. Its
tongue-hitch had been twisted and broken, but the team had been recovered, and
hasty repairs made by septmen. “There is the method.”

Springbuck
ordered the dray brought over. Gabrielle took Swan aside. Low, she commanded,
“High Constable, go with them. I hold little more confidence in this than
Andre, but it must be tried.” Swan didn’t conceal her eagerness to obey.

As the dray
was brought up, Ferrian turned to Van Duyn. “You are Gil’s only countryman.
Will you not come too?” The older man hesitated, then murmured that, of course,
he assuredly would.

Katya took
his arm. “We both will go. And Reacher too, will you not, brother?” The King
affirmed it, staring strangely at his old friend Ferrian, his wilderness sense
telling him there was more here than was being said.

Springbuck
asked if they would need a driver from the men of Matloo, or an escort. “No,”
Ferrian answered, “for all danger here will be directed at the deCourteneys.
The last contest will be of magic, and in Salamá; thus we should go
unmolested.” Ferrian thought for a moment. “Still, my kinsman Dunstan is
unarmed. If Andre will not need his sword, perhaps he would lend it to a
weaponless man?” He fixed the wizard with a strange look.

Obeying a
sense of inspired impulse, Andre unhooked the scabbard from his belt and gave his
sword to the surprised Dunstan, commenting, “I wish no one to be… unprotected.”

The dray was
beautifully made, meticulously planed with its joined timbers reinforced with
armor plate, braced and strapped with metal. It was articulated, flexible in
its center, to lend maneuverability. Its port-plates were raised, from combat
against the Dead, and there were red stains on its polished wooden deck and
bulkheads, drying to brown.

For this
ride, the northerners agreed, they needed no Lead-Line Rider. Being lifted
aboard, even by so many careful hands, made Gil wince in pain. Van Duyn knew
that wound was killing his countryman quickly, filling the pleural space with
blood and pressure that had probably started a mediastinal shift, pushing
toward the uninjured side, straining the heart and placing even greater demands
on the overworked right lung. Gil hadn’t gone into shock yet, but that might
happen any second, and against the magic of Dirge, no conventional technique of
aspiration or drainage could avail.

Hightower was
even worse. The steady loss of blood had covered his midsection, and coated his
mailed legs. Gabrielle helped strap him in on one of the benches that ran the
length of the dray, while Gil was eased down on the other. She kissed the
Warlord, patted the American’s shoulder, then walked stiff-spined to her horse.

“To Salamá,”
she said.

Katya and
Reacher rode up, leading Van Duyn’s steed. Ferrian took Red Pilgrim from Van
Duyn and handed it aside to Dunstan, who crouched in the dray. Swan had mounted
Jeb Stuart.

Springbuck
groped for words. “Grace of the Lady upon you,” he finally bade them.

Ferrian
answered, “I bid you good fortune, son of Surehand. Here under the shadow of
the Five, where every word and deed is heard and seen by them, I say it. May the
deCourteneys carry the day.” He climbed into the dray as Dunstan stood to the
vehicle’s armored prow and gathered handfuls of reins.

The men of
Coramonde were drawn up in their squadrons, interspersed with the other
war-drays of Matloo. Behind them were women of Glyffa and men of Veganá, units
of Freegate and gathered clans of the Horseblooded. Springbuck joined the
deCourteneys at the head of them all.

Gabrielle
needed no divination to read his mind. “Would your presence not mean much to
MacDonald?” she inquired. “And to Hightower?”

“The armies
must be led,” he evaded.

“We
deCourteneys have a smattering of talent for that, as has been seen. But you
can do little in Salamá save sit and wait. Go with your friend.”

Andre spared
him further agonizing by shouting the order to ride, slapping Fireheel’s croup.
The big gray sprang aside as the ranks moved by. Joining the others at the
dray, Springbuck found that a weight had left him. Dunstan clucked, flicked the
reins, and started off eastward as the rest fell in behind and beside.

The northern
armies rode through the obsidian arch, a quarter-mile span, that was the
entrance to Shardishku-Salamá. Andre had a small contingent fall out here, to
guard and keep watch on the plain.

Then they
continued, clattering up boulevards hundreds of yards wide, past the vacant
palaces and deserted towers of the city. They met no opposition; the Masters,
guarded by the Host of the Grave, had never thought they would need any defense
but their own powers. Now, after the huge drain caused by the death of
Evergray, the Five were conserving those. They might have made feints, or even
tangible attacks, but that would have cost critical amounts of energy, and the
outcome would have been in doubt. In their own arena, in their own time, the
Five would confront Andre and Gabrielle, whom they held to be the only serious
threat.

The armies
flowed between the soaring structures of the city. In silence, they viewed the
stupendous bas-relief depicting the destruction of the Lifetree. Most of the
residents had fled and others had expired when the Masters, pressed by demands
on the strength left to them, withheld it from their subjects.

The Crescent
Landers drew up before the Fane, its vast curve sweeping out above them. Its
doors had seemed small, in proportion, from the far end of the boulevard. Now
they stretched upward, higher than a donjon, of cold dark metal that gleamed
like onyx. Here the deCourteneys left the massed warriors, telling them to stay
back from the magic that dwelled within. They were well and quickly heeded.

Leaving their
horses, the two spread their arms before the doors. They sensed the might of
the doors, the Masters’ first test.

“Masters of
Salamá,” Gabrielle challenged, “we are for earnest combat. For preliminaries, we
care no more than this!” With that, she spat on the doors. Where it landed,
blue essence of her magic sizzled and popped, spreading to the hairline crack
between the two portals, racing up and down. The doors quaked, caught in the
conflict of wills between the deCourteneys and the Five. Thick hinges rang like
tuning forks. In that first contest, the Masters found that the new Trustee was
indeed worthy of her office. The Five didn’t exert every effort, but let the
deCourteneys put theirs forth. The doors burst open, swung wide.

Andre and
Gabrielle walked together into lightlessness. When they were within, the
cyclopean portals swung shut. No one outside tried to stop that, nor could they
have done so.

Though
Dunstan kept the ride as smooth as he could, the passengers were still swayed
and jounced. Gil was feeling cold, his respiration shallow and fast, his chest
screaming for air. Hightower seemed to have lost consciousness. There was a
yelp from Ferrian who, for some reason, stared back across a flat landscape at
Salamá rather than ahead.

“The glows of
thaumaturgy are there,” the Horse-blooded shouted. Dunstan hauled on the reins.
Ferrian, with a hair-raising Horseblooded whoop, dropped through the rear hatch
while the dray was still rolling. He pointed back toward the Necropolis,
calling jeers to the Five.

The others
looked. Ripples of enchantment and anti-spells disrupted one another, sending
multicolored distortions through the skies over Salamá. Springbuck and the
others turned worriedly to Ferrian, and Dunstan clapped a hand to his shoulder.

“Kinsman,
have your senses fled?”

The other
Rider shook his head, the long tail of his hair flying. “Oh cousin, no. I held
back a secret from you all, for the Masters hear every word and see every deed
here, in their inner domain. But their battle with the siblings deCourteney is
in full career. I will explain all, as I dared not do before.”

They heard
him out in assorted states of skepticism or befuddlement, even Gil, who watched
through the rear hatch. “When I was recuperant at Ladentree, I saw a strange
thing. The Birds of Accord had brought forth hatchlings, yes, a thing they can
do only under influence of the Lifetree. I bespoke Silverquill, the Senior
Sage, and he remembered the Birds had lit on the Crook of the Trustee. We
reasoned the rod of her office was wood of the Lifetree itself.”