'It flares!' Daj cried out, pointing at Maram. He kept back from Maram with Lord Avijan, Sar Shivalad and others. 'As it did when Maram scorched the dragon, it flares!'
The thousands of warriors held up back around the curve of the mountain must have wondered at these unexpected fireworks.
'All right then!' Maram cried out. 'Stand back! Stand back, I say!'
He, himself, could not heed his own warning. He planted himself at the edge of the shelf, gripping his firestone in both hands as if holding on for his life. His crystal brightened to an almost blinding crimson color as fire continued to pour out of its point in what seemed a dense and incredibly hot stream. Maram directed it against the mass of the rockslide. Mud and stones, in nearly an instant melted and ran down the slopes in a glowing orange lava. The water in the ground heated into steam and exploded up into the air like a boiling fountain. It carried with it tons of hot grit and ash, which the wind and rain washed back upon us. All standing upon the shelf soon found themselves coated with this grime. The very earth seemed to hiss, crack and scream as Maram directed his terrible fire at it.
So thick did the cloud of ash and steam grow that he had to cease his efforts occasionally to let it subside — else we would all have choked to death. And Maram would not have been able to see where to lay his flames. Three times these flames nearly got out of control and threatened to consume us all in an explosion that might have sundered the very mountain. Such, the ancients warned, was the power of the firestones. But all the while that Maram swept his red crystal back and forth along the mountain's slope, Kane stood by him holding in his hand his dark crystal. It damped the worst of the firestone's burning light and kept it under control. For just such a purpose, as Kane had told us, the ancients had fabricated the black gelstei.
At last, after some hours, Maram lowered his red stone and looked out upon his work. After the rain had swept the air clean, we could all see the channel he had cut along the mountain's side. It seemed a path made of solid rock.
'Behold!' Maram's voice boomed out like thunder. 'Behold and rejoice: Sar Maram's Passage!'
He seemed well-pleased to name his creation, and even more pleased with himself. We all rejoiced then, as he had suggested. We gave thanks, too, for the driving rain, which sizzled off the hot rock along Maram's newly- made track, even as it cooled it enough so that men could move down it without burning their feet.
So it was that Maram cleared the way for our army to continue on around Mount Ihsan and come out behind the Waashians at the Rajabash — if only we could now drive ourselves to march quickly enough.
Chapter 13
It is impossible for a man, burdened by more than fifty pounds of armor, weapons, clothing, water and food, to run more than a short distance. Even so, I pressed my warriors to such a fast walk that others might have called it a run. For all the rest of that day, I led my army around the slopes of Mount Ihsan. We had some good luck when the rain stopped in the late afternoon. We must have covered ten miles of some of the Morning Mountains' most rugged terrain by the time dusk fell upon the world. When we came out into the forested hills northwest of Harban, we were all so exhausted we were ready to crawl off beneath the trees and drop onto the bracken. But we could not sleep just yet. The Kaashan and Waashian armies would meet on the battlefield early the next morning, and we still had another fifteen miles to march in order to reach it.
The track that we had been following, as Lord Zandru told us, found its end in Harban. From there, a good road led down along the Rajabash to the proposed battlefield. But we could not set out on this route, for surely King Sandarkan would have left warriors behind in Harban to secure his rear. Therefore we needed to march cross- country — and now at night.
Lord Zandru found a woodcutter who knew of a track that would take us a good way through the forest toward the battlefield. When the moon and stars came out, we had just enough light to make our way through the ghostly trees. Lord Zandru, after dropping back to observe the heavy motions of Lord Tanu's and Lord Tomavar's warriors as they trudged along, said to me, 'Your men are already spent, and even if you come to the battlefield in time, they won't be able to fight.'
'They won't
Lord Avijan, hearing this as we rode along through the starlit trees, turned to Maram and said, 'If the warriors cannot lift their shields and work their spears, then you can strike down our enemy with that sorcerer's stone of yours.'
I commanded my army to halt only once that night, for a break of half an hour. It was a dangerous thing to do, for it seemed that no one could remain awake to rouse the others when the time came I no one, that is, except Kane. I wondered for the thousandth time at his inexhaustible vitality. He seemed no more tired by our mountain's passage than he would have been after a walk in the woods.
Just after dawn, we came out into the pastureland along the Rajabash, below Harban but to the north of the battlefield. Now that we marched in the open, I commanded Lord Tanu and Lord Tomavar to keep a tight formation and to be ready to deploy from columns into lines at a moment's notice. We hurried across the rolling, grassy ground full of sheep and cattle. I sent outriders ahead of us. King Sandarkan's scouts would probably spot them, as they surely would our thousands of warriors before we drew up close enough to fall upon the Waashians' rear. But by then it would be too late.
I led my army's vanguard down along the Rajabash River, gleaming an icy blue off to our left. Our hundreds of horses churned up the dew-damp grass. Behind them marched Lord Tomavar's and Lord Tanu's warriors, now wearing their ankle bells again. The tinkling of silver spilled out into the cool morning air.
At last, I urged Altaru up and over a hummock, and saw the battlefield spread out below us. About two miles away, King Talanu had drawn up his army into glittering lines that stretched from the Rajabash across the pasturage, where he had anchored them against a wooded hill. A half mile closer to us gathered the Waashians. Their diamond armor gleamed as brilliantly as did that of the Kaashans and my own warriors. But King Sandarkan had arrayed them in an unusual and desperate formation: as a huge, open square, fronted by perhaps three thousand foot and as many on each of the other three sides. He had posted cavalry on each point of the square, and the most forward of these knights faced the Kaashans while those in the rear had their lances pointed toward us. In short order, I saw to it that my army deployed as did the Kaashans, from the river in the east to the hills in the west. I rode with the vanguard to the right, pressed almost up against the hills; the rear guard took up its post to protect my army's left flank along the river. Then we advanced. Our drummers beat their great war drums and added to the thunder that the Kaashans' made; the jangle of thousands of silver bells spread out across the valley. Our warhorses, eager for battle, let out terrible whinnies. Yard by yard we moved down the meadow closer to the Waashians. In truth, we closed in upon them like a jaw of diamond and steel that would soon tear into them and grind them against the Kaashans' lines.
The battle, however, never took place. King Sandarkan now held an impossible position; his army's square formation gave evidence that his outriders had indeed warned him of our approach — but too late for him to retreat. And now, when he beheld my men's numbers, he must have realized that it would be hopeless to fight. As I had intended as far back as Mesh, he would have no choice but to surrender and ask for terms. If he did not, he and his entire army would be annihilated.
It did not take long for him to send out a herald holding up a white banner of truce. I saw another such gallop out toward the Kaashans' lines. 1 halted my men to receive the herald. We spoke for a few moments, and then I sent him back to his king — and sent one of my own to King Talanu, as he did to me. In this way, with heralds racing back and forth across the battlefield, we arranged a parley of the three kings and their captains down by the river.
I asked Lords Avijan, Sharad, Tanu and Tomavar to come with me, as well as Kane and my other friends. I asked Bemossed and the Seven, too. And, of course, Lord Zandru. It would be an unusual company for such a meeting, but these were unusual times.
