turned in Turko’s arm and so once again gripped onto Shadow’s saddle. This time I gripped with both hands.
“They have reached the second missal, Dray.”
“Then — loose! And Opaz have us in his keeping.”
The noise of the battle I could hear; the sounds of the combat within the stone chamber remained cut off. In two places at once, I fought.
The battle I could hear and smell but not see roared on as our archers and slingers loosed and the Tenth stepped into view to block the ravine and entice Hangrol on. The combat I could see but not hear or taste flowered in the stone chamber as the clansmen smashed on to strike down the Krozair blade and have done. The battle was of vital importance to the welfare of the country. The combat was of excruciating agony for me, for through wizardly powers I sought to save the life of Drak.
“They go on! They go on!” roared Turko.
I switched the Krozair brand in a blur and chopped and sliced and thrust.
“Their cavalry, Turko?”
“Cannot maneuver for the shafts pinning them.”
“Tell me when they charge — if they charge.”
“The Hamalese have dismounted and are formed — the skirmishers run like rasts — our fellows are in among them now-”
A clansman dropped to a knee and brought two blades, a broadsword and a shortsword, up in a cross of glittering steel. That was a cunning and brave trick, for he sought to trap my blade in the neck of the cross and so wrench it free. With supple Krozair skill the longsword looped and hummed and the clansman fell back, silently.
Hangrol had over twice our force. We had to remain in cover and shoot and shoot. The Tenth Kerchuri did not entirely fill the width of the ravine where once a river had flowed. The Hakkodin spread out and the Chodku of archers shot with their comrades along the bushy heights each side. Turko kept up a ceaseless flow of reports and I swirled the Krozair longsword and, by the Light of Opaz, did not move a hairsbreadth!
The trumpeter of the Second Sword Watch on that day was Vardon the Cheeks. I said, “Bid Vardon stand ready.”
Turko yelled, and then said, “The Hamalese are formed, their shields are up. They advance. They charge!”
“And the ground between?”
“Cumbered with dead men and fugitives still running.”
“The cavalry?”
“They mill. It looks as though they will recover in a mur or so.”
“And the skirmishers and their mercenaries?”
“Some press on with the Hamalese. Some wait the outcome.”
Three clansmen came for that disembodied longsword together and now two of them swirled cloaks in a valiant effort to entrap that ghostly brand. I sliced and — without moving! — leaped away and so launched myself at them from the side. Quienyin’s powers flowed through my arms and fists and the Krozair brand slashed in a vivid bar of light.
“The distance left?”
“Five hundred paces, no more, and narrowing all the time,” Turko’s voice rasped. “But the bowmen bring them down.”
‘Tell Vardon the Cheeks to blow the Tenth Kerchuri Prepare.”
The silver notes ran out, swirling and skyrocketing in the air. And the clansmen drew back a space, panting, and their weapons glittered in the light of the slanting rays of the suns. Two murs, three…
“Bid Vardon blow, Turko. Blow the Charge!”
“Quidang!”
And over the field and floating free and lilting with blood-quickening urgings, the Charge blew in ringing imperative.
As the clansmen came on again and the Krozair brand leaped and flashed I could imagine I saw the Tenth Kerchuri. I could see their pikes come down, down, pointing, their sharp steel heads a bristle of menace. The crimson shields would all slant together. Down would go the bronze-fitted helmets. The plumes would ruffle bravely. And then the brumbytes, formed, solid in their crimson and bronze, would charge. Blind to that sight, I could yet see it all, and hear and taste and smell the blood-thumping excitement of it.
Yet the clansmen would not leave off their attacks upon this eerie sword that floated in midair and chopped them as they charged.
“They meet!” yelled Turko. “By Morro the Muscle! You have created a veritable weapon in this phalanx, Dray!”
Very little can stand and survive in the path of a charging phalanx. We had proved that before. I had not really believed. But here, in what came to be known as the Battle of Ovalia, the pikes in their steel-crested fervor charged and overthrew the iron legions of Hamal. Raging, like a bursting dam that spills destruction in the path of its waters, the Tenth Kerchuri swept everything away before that intemperate onslaught.
And I did not see it!
Raw, green, they might be, these brumbytes wielding their pikes. But their helmets were down and their shields were slanted and their pikes went in and they rolled on and on and nothing could stand before them.
Silda was standing now, gripping her rapier. She had overcome the first tremor of horror when swords swirled with no visible hands to wield them. She stepped forward. I brought the longsword across in a vicious defending blow and smashed a clansman away.
“Stand clear, Silda!” I shouted.
“What?” Turko’s voice reached me, alarmed. “What’s that, Dray?”
“How goes the battle?”
“The Hakkodin are in among their cavalry and the cavalry do not like it — they run — they flee…
“Blow for the churgurs — blow for everything! General Advance!”
The General Advance rang out over the roar of the battle.
The Tenth would be rolling down the ravine like a tidal wave of destruction, and now the sword and shield men would rage from the bushes crowning the slopes and hit the bewildered enemy from both flanks. And, all the time, I knew, the archers and staff slingers would be loosing into the huddled masses. Kapt Hangrol had been sucked into the thorn-ivy trap. And now he was paying the price. Many clansmen littered the stone floor. Their blood ran greasily in the cracks between the flags. And still they sought to pass that disembodied sword and slay the Prince Majister of Vallia. The next Clanner struck at the sword seeking by main force to beat it down. The enormous leverage exercised by the Krozair two-handed grip brought the sword in a neat curve around the clansman’s blade. The longsword twitched and the clansman’s broadsword struck it square. I felt the shock, like liquid fire, jolt all up my arms. By Zair! Slow — slow and weak… With a spurt of passion I slashed the clansman away and swung to the next and his blade clashed down on mine. I felt the shock, shuddering through me, and I smashed back. I knew what was happening. Deb-Lu-Quienyin was weakening. What he had accomplished already was a miracle. But his kharrna was not limitless. The fight raging in the stone chamber became fraught with its inevitable end.
With the sounds of a greater battle ringing in my ears, I faced defeat in this contemptible little fracas, and knew it to be by far the more important, the vital, of the two — for with Quienyin’s exhaustion the Krozair brand would fall, and Silda would hurl forward with her rapier blurring, and would die and then would die also my son Drak.
Still Quienyin upheld me. Still I continued to battle.
Turko yelled that the pikes rolled on like the millstones of the gods. The churgurs welted into the flanks of the foemen. Our irregulars were in there, smiting and dodging and smiting again. Drooping now, the Krozair brand, drooping like a victim of the black lotus-flowers of Hodan-Set. Useless my exerting all the bestial and savage power pent within me by civilization. I fought only through the wizardry of gladiomancy. With the slipping away of Quienyin’s powers so dropped away all the Krozair skill.
The longsword slashed and slashed again, and at every blow I could feel the lessening of force. The chamber blurred, the stones merging as though melting in some supernal heat. The stone flags of the floor pitched beneath me like the deck of a swifter. I knew I was grasping onto Shadow’s saddle with fists in which the knuckles ridged
