torpor and death in Zr'gsz venturing too close to the skystone mines of Omizantrim. Now she altered the voice of the gongs until they cried out in the inaudible voice of the Ullapag.
Skyrafts began skidding crazily all over the sky, scattering their passengers like a farmer scatters handfuls of seeds. The relentless advance of the Vridzish foot soldiers in the center and the lizard riders on the right stopped as if it had run into a wall. The riding dragons uttered hissing squeals of fear and fled, their senseless riders dropping from the saddles.
The rout of the Imperial center was stemmed. Even the ranks of the regulars were being disrupted by the panicking conscripts.
With the upper hand already, the left wing cavalry squadrons ran the stunned lizard riders off the field. Fost was shouting and pounding in his saddle. 'You've done it, Moriana! You've won the battle for us!' Oracle noticed the black cloud forming above the battlefield.
'I beg your pardon, Your Highness,' he said to Moriana. Her eyes opened and glared at him. She needed every ounce of her concentration. He pointed to the cloud. Her eyes went wide. 'Get down!' she screamed.
Fost flung himself face down on the sod. His dog bolted and smashed into a silver dome that hadn't been there seconds before. As he lay blinking, he realized the jagged purple lines of afterimage were caused by lightning. The pewter dome above flickered and went out of existence. He looked at Moriana. Her face was drawn and pale. 'I don't know if I can do that again,' she said, her voice weak.
He scanned the line of gongs – or where the line had been. Charred corpses remained behind where humans had once stood. He swallowed hard. Had it not been for Oracle's alertness and the quickness of Moriana's reactions, they would have shared the fate of those feckless pageboys.
'Why is the cloud going away?' demanded Erimenes. 'It could blast our whole army to rubble.'
'The Zr'gsz sorcerer – or sorcerers – must spend their life energies to cast spells, just as I must. They couldn't maintain the lightning cloud.' She smoothed hair back from her forehead. 'Its work was done, anyway,' she added bitterly.
The left wing's pursuit of enemy cavalry ended abruptly in disaster when the deadly vibrations ceased. The Hissers turned back on their pursuers while a living sea of footmen swamped the knights from the side. The dogs began to mill in confusion. Having lost momentum, the heavy riders were doomed. They could work destruction on their foes, but it was only a question of time before the last was dragged from his saddle and slain.
The center gave way to total flight. The Imperial ranks behind began to fall apart as the supposedly invincible regulars joined in the disorderly retreat. Behind them, the men of the border states waited, grim and firm.
When Moriana's force dome winked out, Fost's war dog had run down the face of the bluff where it was intercepted by the picket of Black March bowmen guarding the foot of the hill. 'I'll be back,' Fost promised, and began picking his way down.
Summoning her resources, Moriana began to fling forth spell after spell. None worked as well as the vibrations; that had been their best chance and she knew it. The Zr'gsz magic met her every spell and cancelled it. She felt the deadly frustration her sister must have felt during the battle for the Sky City, when the Heart of the People harmlessly absorbed her most potent magics. But one thing encouraged her. The Zr'gsz magic was all defensive. No lethal conjurations were loosed against the Imperial armies. On the other hand, the Zr'gsz were winning without them.
'Here, Marshal,' a grinning boy said, handing Fost the reins of his dog. Fost nodded, trying to look gruff and martial.
'Thanks, son.' He hoised himself into the saddle. The skitterish beast danced and growled.
The Zr'gsz foot soldiers advanced again, harrying the routed Imperial forces. The Marchers waited tensely, weapons ready, but the Hissers didn't come their way. The green tide swept past their knoll in pursuit of fleeing foes. Fost looked that way and tried not to wince. It seemed the end of the battle wasn't far off.
His dog turned and caught sight of the enemy. Fost's dog was a finer charger, a mount fit and trained to be ridden by a knight. And like the Imperial knights, it was bred to be headstrong, ferociously brave, and as dumb as a stump. The dog charged.
On the hill Moriana sank down sobbing as her legs gave way. 'It's no use,' she moaned. 'I can't go on!' 'Don't give up,' Ziore gently urged.
'Don't you understand? Every spell I try they counter before it's completed. It's over. I'm sorry I brought you into this.'
Hesitantly, Oracle touched her shoulder. She didn't feel it. He couldn't project a tactile illusion this far. He cleared his throat. 'If I might suggest something…' 'I'm telling you, I don't have any power left!' she shrieked.
'Highness,' Oracle said softly, 'that might be so, but you might be able to make them think you still have power. Or rather that another does.'
Moriana looked up at Oracle, the idea germinating in her brain. She slowly smiled and rose. The damned Hissers would never forget this day after she – and another – finished with them.
Fost tried valiantly to stop the animal but his lack of skill in riding betrayed him. His arms flailed wildly and it appeared that he urged on his troops. None heard his cries: 'No, you forsaken son of a bitch! No! Stop! Halt! Oh, shiiit!'
Shieldless, unhelmeted, Fost rode through the surging masses of Zr'gsz. He struck out in truly heroic fashion, left and right in great looping arcs, so fast his blade blurred like a hummingbird's wings. His usual berserker madness failed to take him. What gave Fost such superhuman strength was stark terror.
He swept among the reptile men. His blade lopped limbs, crushed skulls, stove in chests, and Fost did not tire. He didn't dare.
The low caste Zr'gsz were much less intelligent than the darker skinned nobility. They could cope well enough with normal battle situations: Find enemy, kill enemy. Nothing in their limited experience prepared them for anything like this.
The Hissers' front ranks ran up against the lines of Borderland spearmen – and recoiled. The Border Guards and militiamen from the Marches had already stood firm in the face of their own fleeing comrades. Now they met the full force of the Zr'gsz charge and did not yield. But off to their right the surviving wing of cavalry was being pushed back slowly. It wouldn't be long before the lizard riders overwhelmed the knights. Then they would fall on the border men like an ocean wave falling on a sand castle.
A tall noble in whipping black robe and shiny green armor turned the wedge-shaped head of his riding dragon toward Fost and kicked it into a run. Still hewing frantically, Fost saw the lance drop to the horizontal. He had no shield and in the crush of reptilian bodies surrounding his dog he couldn't dodge. He was a dead man.
He stopped the wild flailing of his arms. Immediately, fatigue turned them leaden. He gripped his sword two-handed, trying to make himself believe he had a chance to knock the lancehead aside before it skewered him. He saw the Zr'gsz grin above the rim of the shield, saw the triangular lancehead streaking toward his chest…
With a scream of demonic fury, the nobleman was plucked from his saddle by sudden claws seizing his head from above. His plumed helm fell away. Black blood fountained from his punctured eyes. With a drumming of wings, Ch'rri bore the Vridzish up and away. Fost swatted the riderless dragon across its scaly snout with the flat of his blade. It turned tail and ran.
From five hundred feet in the air, the body of the Zr'gsz warrior plummeted down to smash into the ground not ten feet from Fost. The Vridzish bounced once, limbs waving like a rag doll's. Then it lay still.
The low caste Hissers scattered in all directions. Fost raised his eyes to the terrible apparition hovering above his head. He saluted Ch'rri with his bloody sword. It seemed an appropriate tribute.
But Ch'rri paid him no heed. Her blue slit-pupilled eyes stared toward the north where men of the Empire made their final stand. Fost followed the gaze. He couldn't believe the sight.
Jirre had come.
Tall as the sky she strode across the hills. Her hair blazed golden and her eyes were emeralds. Her flowing robes shone green and gold. In one hand she held a lyre, in the other a sword. Beholding her, men forgot their mortal peril to drop to their knees and worship.
Jirre had come.
Jirre, named by some priests the foremost of the Three and Twenty Wise Ones of Agift, Jirre, of all the gods one of the bitterest foes of the Dark Ones.
Vridzish hissed in dread. 'The devil-goddess! She comes again!' The lower caste foot soldiers knew Jirre and hated her, as they hated all gods of Light.
