Diamond Warriors

my teeth against the sounds of silustria tearing through steel and men shrieking in agony. Kane, to my right, with a single sweep of his sword, struck off the head of a captain of the Dragon Guard, then sliced through the arm of a Red Knight trying to push a lance through my side. And then, unbelievably, as if Kane could sense the movement of every man on the field with an impossible precision, he whipped about to thrust his sword's point straight through a third knight's eye.

Close around us, my Guardians fought with scarcely less fury. Their diamond-tipped long-lances drove through the plate armor of our enemy; their kalamas flashed forth, and keen steel edges cut through steel and bone. Founts of blood filled the air, and rivers of pain. Men screamed and died in hundreds as metal clanged against metal and horses collided and whinnied horribly.

Where is Morjin?

There came another moment when all the enemy knights closest to Kane and me either lay dead on the grass or hung back in fear. A brightening of my sword caused me to look uphill again at Bemossed. And there, just beneath the cross where the pack of Blues gathered, I saw Morjin standing and looking down at me. I knew him as I did the smell of death itself. My sword flared even more brightly, and the kirax burned up my blood. Morjin held the Lightstone shimmering like the sun in one hand and a lance in the other. His golden eyes fixed on me, in challenge and in hate.

'Why does he let the Mitreya live?' Joshu Kadar called out. He sat on top of his panting horse, which bore my standard of the silver swan and seven stars. 'Why does he give us this chance?'

Even a child, though, I thought, could see that we had almost no hope of continuing our charge uphill and taking Bemossed down from his cross. The Blues stood in a tight formation and shook their axes at us; more hundreds of Red Knights streamed out from behind the hill to ride up and put themselves between Bemossed and my companions and me. Farther away, toward the Detheshaloon cavalry led by Count Ulanu galloped out to join them, even as his infantry marched forth at double pace to reinforce the Dragon Army's broken line and fall against Ymiru's and Lord Tomavar's men.

'A chance!' I cried out. 'A single chance — if we ride now!'

But even as we made ready to renew our charge, or at least fight our way uphill I felt Bemossed's strength failing him. And Morjin's power grow. Suddenly, high in the air over the Detheshaloon, a black spot appeared. At first I thought it might be the Ahrim coming for me one last time. Then the spot began to widen and deepen, like a whirl of dusty wind eating up sky. I thought I could see little lights twinkling from its inky center.

'So, it is the true Skadarak,' Kane said, pointing up with his bloody sword. 'The stars reach their moment. Morjin opens the way to Damoom!'

From behind us, one of my knights cried out: Sorcery!'

'Illusion!' another said, looking up toward the cross where Morjin stood holding up the Lightstone. 'Morjin is the Lord of Illusions!'

As we attacked the Red Knights and our swords began their terrible work once more, a new enemy rose up before us. With a horrible ripping sound, our kalamas cut through flesh and bone, even steel, but they could not touch the dreadful things that Morjin sent to destroy us. I heard my men scream out that demons had joined our enemy. Sar Kanshar loosed a throwing lance against a monster, half horse and half man, that galloped toward him shooting arrows — or so he said. Siraj the Younger was trying to cut down a Red Knight whose face and limbs were made of sand. I looked on in a helpless rage as Siraj's sword passed right through this phantasmagory even as a very real Red Knight thrust a lance through Siraj's neck. I felt a terror seize hold of my men, not just upon the Owl's Hill, but for five miles all along our desperately struggling lines, from King Hadaru's cavalry in the west to King Mohan and Sajagax's Sarni in the east. I could almost see what my warriors cried out in panic at what they desperately did not want to see: twelve huge dragons appearing from behind the rocks of the Detheshaloon and soaring toward us as they roared out their disdain and spit fire into the air; winged tigers and apes in hundreds that flew after them; a pack of Blues whose faces were those of wolves;

elephants with scales and serpent trunks; and a great beast, bigger than ten elephants, which was spotted like a leopard and had the feet of a bear. Out of each of its seven, lionlike heads there grew ten horns, each of which bore an iron crown set with seven fire-stones casting out black flames. These burned my men, their minds if not their bodies, but not so badly as the worst of the illusions Morjin sent to madden us. It infuriated me to see great warriors such as Lord Jessu the lion-Heart hesitate to strike at our enemy because they perceived the Red Knights as having the faces of their fathers or mothers — or even as Bemossed or me. How long could they go on fighting, I wondered, if they couldn't tell what was real from what was not?

'Don't lose heart!' I cried out.

Beside me, Kane's sword split the helm of a Red Knight who had tried to brain me with a mace. Then he drove his horse into the mount of another man, nearly knocking him from his saddle. With the man unsettled, Kane reached out to grab hold of the joint in the armor covering his shoulder and threw him down from his horse. Immediately, the hooves of Lord Avijan's horse trampled him, and so with Lord Manthanu's mount and many others.

'Let us do our work,' I called to my warriors, 'and the Seven will do theirs!'

Then, as before, the ground beneath us seemed to grow transparent. The wheel of light turning deep within the earth grew brighter. I could almost feel it drawing down the rays of the sun and the much stronger radiance of the Golden Band as the stars and planets approached their moment of alignment. I could almost behold the splendor that spread out across the steppe and drove Morjin's illusions away.

'They are gone!' Sar Vikan shouted with a shake of his head. He suddenly leaned forward to thrust his lance through the face of a Red Knight who had slain Sar Yulmar, who had been Sar Vikan's best friend.

'All gone!'

'No — one of the dragons remains!' Jurald Evarshouted back to him. 'Look! It comes!'

No power of the Seven could cast back the thing of crimson and fire that flew out from the Detheshaloon roaring in malice, for?ormungand was made of flesh and blood, even as were my men. The dragon beat the air with a thunder of wings, and streaked straight toward Maram where he now stood on top of the Hill of Fire.

'So,' Kane growled out with a savage thrust of his sword He had less care for the man he had just killed than for the blackness growing in the sky. 'The Dark One comes, too!'

The Seven likewise could do nothing to stop Morjin from tearing open a great hole in space that Kane had called the Skadarak — certainly not so long as Morjin commanded the Lightstone.

'Let us at least finally kill him!' Kane said to me as he glowered up the hill at Morjin.

Now Kane and I made circles of death around us with our swords. None could stand against Kane's kalama, for in his hands, it became almost a thing of light: spinning outward to cut through a Red Knight's neck; streaking like a ray of the sun straight into another's eye; flashing through flesh and steel as if no man or material thing could withstand it, I wielded Alkaladur with no less terror, for the Sword of Flame burned past my enemy's defenses and cut through good plate armor to strike home death. As the battle drew on and the sun climbed higher in the sky, Alkaladur flared ever hotter and brighter until it shone a hellish fire-white. Men screamed to feel it cutting them open or even just to behold it. In my wrath to slash and slay, the Red Knights began to hesitate and hang back from me, muttering beneath their breaths that I was a demon. So it went with Lord Avijan and Lord Vikan, who battled near me, and with Sar Kanshar and Sar Shivalad and Joshu Kadar and many others. They fought that day, if not like demons, then as lolling angels whom nothing could hold back.

And yet I did not think that we could cut our way through our enemy to reach Morjin. In the thirty yards between us and the hill's top, hundreds of Red Knights now massed and pointed their lances down at us. Those highest up near Morjin had begun dismounting and standing together, shoulder to shield, to form a wall protecting him. Behind them awaited the howling, murderous Blues with their axes. And soon the hundreds of Red Knights still riding out from the Detheshaloon would fall against my warriors' flank and begin working up behind us.

'Damn you, Morjin!' Kane suddenly cried out. 'Damn you and the one you call master!'

Morjin, however, must have feared that we might reach him — or at least fight our way to free Bemossed as Morjin led a retreat down the backside of the hill. And so, smiling at me in utter triumph, he raised up his lance and plunged its gleaming point into Bemossed's side. He twisted it, causing Bemossed to writhe on his mount of wood and to cry out in agony. Blood flowed from the mortal wound torn into his naked flesh. Morjin caught the red stream with the Lightstone, then pressed the golden cup to his lips.

'Every abomination!' Kane thundered up at him. 'Everything that fouls the human spirit!'