my own burning desire to end this battle, now, in one blaze of violence that would sweep the field clean. I felt in him as well a deep urge to inspirit others by showing brave. And so he bowed his head to me, and then turned his horse toward two Ikurians thirty yards from him. And he let out a shout of challenge as he lowered his lance and charged straight toward them.
'Yarashan!'
My brother's aim was true, and he speared the first Ikurian knight through the throat. He held up his shield to cover himself from the second knigt's revenge, even as he freed his lance and wheeled about. But this second knight had great skill at arms. He knocked his own shield into Yarashan's, and then slammed his mace into the side of Yarashan's head. My brother died as he would have wanted to, with the eyes of many Meshian knights witnessing his valor.
Then I charged upon this proud Ikurian, and my sword chopped through his upraised arm and then cut the mail covering his neck. I heard Kane, somewhere behind me, let loose a great cheer to see me kill the knight who had killed Yarashan. But the Ikurians on their stamping horses nearby did not celebrate my feat. One of them cried out that their captain had been slain. Then two others cried out their rage, and the three knights charged me from three different directions. I cut through the lance of one of these, but the steel point of his friend's lance slammed into my back and propelled me from my saddle. I hit the ground with a crushing force that drove the breath from me.
'Yarashan!' a voice called as if from far away. And then, louder now 'Valashu!'
I tried to rise from the ground, but I could not. My fierce black stallion stood above me, frantically kicking his hooves at the two knights trying to stick their lances down into me. Then three other Ikurians whipped their horses to a gallop and bore down upon me to take part in the kill.
'Valashu!'
I looked up to see Asaru appear like an angel from out of the hundreds of knights spread across the field. He rode in a full-out fury to intercept the three charging Ikurians. I saw that he had already fought too hard that day. Mace blows had knocked loose diamonds from his chest and back, and he had lost his shield. A sword or lance had cut his cheek to the bone. I could feel the stabbing pain in his shoulder that hadn't quite healed. He was exhausted, anguished, bloody — but he had eyes and heart for only one thing.
'Valashu!'
Just before he closed with the Ikurians, he looked at me. There was death in his bright black eyes, and something more. What is it to love one's brother? Only this: that you would die for him so that he might live.
'Asaru!'
He stabbed his lance through the face of the first knight even as the lance of the second knight split open a bare patch of his armor and drove clean through his body and out through his back. I would never know how Asaru managed to keep his saddle with this great shaft of wood transfixing him. Or how he drew his sword and killed first the knight who had killed him, and then kept the third knight away from me long enough for Maram to come forward and deal him a death blow with his mace. The last wild surge of his heart ripped through me with an unbearable pain, and I cried out in astonishment as he died in utter gladness.
ASARUUU!
I pushed myself up to one knee; just then my faithful warhorse kicked out yet again and struck down one of the knights still trying to spear me. Then Kane rode up and killed the other knight. He reached down, grasped my hand, and pulled me to my feet I climbed on top of my horse. I stared at Kane. There was death in his eyes too, and something more: a terrible joy the wrath he saw building inside me.
Atara and Maram rode up then. My best friend seemed sick with what he had seen. He could hardly bear to look at me. And I could hardly bear myself. The robe of fire had burned me so completely that nothing remained except the fire.
'To me!' a deep voice boomed out from across the field. 'To me!'
Eighty yards away, a score of Ikurian knights gathered around a large, thick-bearded man with ostrakat plumes sticking out of his golden helm. The red dragon leaping out from his golden surcoat was larger than those of any of the knights or captains around us. I took him to be the Ikurians' lord. I hated him upon sight. Although he was not Morjin, in his person, he was all of the Dragon's evil, visited upon my people of his own twisted will.
I touched Altaru with my own flaming will to destroy, and my stallion surged forward into a gallop. Maram, Atara and Kane followed closely behind me. Atara's bow cracked twice as she sent arrows burning into the bodies of two of the enemy knights. And then we were upon them.
Next to me, Kane's sword struck out like the head of a cobra, and one of Ikurians grabbed at his throat and tried to scream. Kane slashed out to the side, cutting through the body of another knight with such savagery that he nearly cleaved him in two. He growled like a great, killing cat as he thrust and parried and lay about him with his long sword. Blood sprayed his wild face; he licked his lips and screamed out all of his old joy in rending and slaying. The ancient Elijin warlord out of legend, in all his wrath, rode upon the reddened field, and he was terrible to behold.
And I, too, that day was an angel — an angel of death. For this, I feared, was also part of the One's design. Altaru bore me into the mass of our enemies, and I whirled about on top of him, left and right, swinging my bright sword in a blaze of death. With every knight that I maimed or killed in vengeance for my father and brothers, I seemed to desire only more killing. My sword flared like pure flame then, and I could hardly hold onto it. It seemed to have a life of its own. And yet I knew that its life was only my life, swelling like the sun, growing stronger and more brilliant every moment as my fury to destroy swept me away. Men screamed before me. I cut them down. Men screamed out my name all arournd me and from farther across the field. They shielded their eyes as from a lightning bolt. The whole world seemed to ay out in agony.
And then, for the moment, there was no one left to kill. I sat on Altaru's back gasping for air. Dead knights lay on the grass all around me. It seemed that I had slain the Ikurian lord, for his great body had been cleaved in half, from neck to groin. Or perhaps Kane had sent him on to the stars, for my terrible friend sat perched on his horse, looking wildly about him as he held up his dripping sword. Maram and Atara pressed close to me on my other side. I couldn't guess how many men Maram had dispatched or Atara had added to her count.
A great fear struck into the Ikurian knights who had witnessed this terror. It passed like a sick heat into the bellies and limbs of their brethren all across the field. Without a word being spoken, ten knights turned their horses to gallop back toward the village and across the Clear Brook. And then twenty more broke, and then a hundred, and suddenly the entire mass of Ikurian knights lost their will to battle and fled the field in a panic to save their lives. A few score of our knights galloped after them. But then I called out to Sar Vikan, and to the other captains, and all the rest of the knights of Mesh: 'Hold! Help our line! Take the enemy from behind!'
To our left, the two wings of our line had now closed in even more tightly upon the elements of the two armies caught between them. Many men, however, were fleeing from this death trap. To the far left, two thousand yards across the once-green pasture near the woods, the Urtuk warriors had given up the battle as lost. They simply rode off the field, and would keep on riding, as I later learned, clear across the Lake Country and through the southern passes out of Mesh. The Galdan heavy horse, those still alive, fled ahead of almost the whole of the Galdan light infantry. But the others could not retreat quickly enough.
Lord Avijan led the charge around the enemy from the left, and I led Asaru's knights against the enemy's rear from the right. We charged around and forward, meeting up with Lord Avijan's companies, and we thrust our lances through the backs of many Galdans and Sakayans. A few of them managed to turn toward us, and these died facing the terrible weapons that laid them under. Only a few battalions of the Galdan heavy infantry had escaped the enclosing Meshian line, and almost none of the mercenaries, Blues or the Dragon Guard. These were caught in a ring of steel a mile wide; they were packed together like cattle. They moaned and screamed like cattle, too, as the ring drew tighter and tighter and we killed them without pause or mercy.
What followed then was sheer butchery. I had no care to stop it, nor did Lord Avijan, nor Lord Tanu, nor any of the other Meshian knights or warriors who had lost friends, brothers or sons there that day. We kept striking our swords into the enemy until our arms grew so tired that we had to rest and let our companions next to us deal out this unrelenting death. The ground beneath us grew soggy, like a bog. Blood overflowed the close-cropped grass, and ran in little, snaking rivulets down to the Clear Brook, turning it red. Hours it took to slay all of our enemy, down to the last man. When the battle was finally over, the sun was an unbearable smear of red raining down fire from the sky.
