Diamond Warriors

across the table from me, told me: 'Your father and I disputed many things, but he was a worthy enemy, and I was sorry that the Crucifier's men cut him down in his prime. If he looks on, from the stars, he would surely say that he has a worthy son to succeed him.'

These words, coming from the great Ishkan bear, made me swallow against the knot of memory tightening in my throat. '

'When I was a boy,' I said to King Hadaru and the others, 'I never wanted to become king, much less warlord. Any of my brothers, I thought, would have been more worthy than I. Even alter the Culhadosh Commons, where each of my brothers. .'

I could not go on, and I listened as my voice choked off into a whisper of pain. I made a fist, and pushed it against the table. I could not look at King Hadaru just then, with his bright, black eyes laying me open, for somehow this hard, hard man seemed to suffer my hurt as his own.

He stood up suddenly, and walked around the table to stand at my side. Then he laid his hand on top of mine, and told me: 'I am your brother.'

'So am I,' King Danashu said, reaching his long arm across the table to cover King Hadaru's hand.

'And I,' King Waray said, also extending his hand.

'And I am your brother,' King Kurshan affirmed.

The wildness of his eyes touched something deep within my own.

'And I,' King Sandarkan said, coming over to us.

'And I,' King Viromar told me.

'And I,' King Mohan said to me with a fierce smile, 'am your brother, too.'

Their hands pressed down upon mine with a weight like that of tens of thousands. Finally, I withdrew my hand and clasped it to each of theirs in turn. I fought back tears as I said to them: 'I am your brother — and I will die rather than let the Red Dragon spill your blood upon this field.'

The kings of the Valari, who feared death no more than any man, smiled at me with great purpose lighting up their faces. The crackling campfires of our army cast an incandescence into my tent. From somewhere nearby, Alphanderry's strong voice carried one of his songs out to the world. I sensed then that each of these warrior kings carried a bright sword, and not a kalama. It was a moment of great, shining hope.

After that we spent the rest of the evening discussing strategy and tactics. We strove to devise an order of battle that would result in few Valari being cut down to the earth, while spilling whole rivers of our enemy's blood.

And then, the next morning, Atara led the whole Manslayer Society into our encampment and provided a good count of our enemy numbers: true to the worst of rumors, Morjin led an army at least half a million strong. And they poured across the grasses of the Wendrush, in rivers of horses, oxen and wagons — and whole oceans of steel and bloodthirsty men.

Chapter 19

For three days, the Red Dragon's army marched toward the Rune River. Sajagax led his Sarni warriors on a long maneuver to circle behind the columns of our enemy and harry them from their rear. But the Sarni under Morjin — led by the Marituk and the Zayak — parried each of Sajagax's attacks and covered the Dragon's advance. In truth, they nearly fell into full battle with Sajagax's warriors. This did not discourage Sajagax. As he told me on a bright Valte day, with the sun baking the grasslands: 'It is as we hoped: our enemy seems short of long-range arrows. And their warriors seem badly led, for I think that each of the tribes' chieftains honors none as a great chieftain, but looks only to Morjin to tell them what to do. And what does Morjin, surrounded by his Dragon Guard and his wagons, know of the contingencies of battle far out on the steppe and how we Sarni really fight? And so I care not that his Sarni outnumber mine.'

Still as even Sajagax admitted, the true test of things would come only when our two armies faced each other in full strength on the field. We could not stop the Red Dragon's men from drawing nearer and setting up their tents in a vast encampment opposite ours four miles to the north of the river. In back of our enemy's line of campfires, the stark rocks of the Detheshaloon loomed like a vast, cracked skull. A much smaller prominence rose up two miles to the south of it and nearer to our encampment. Sajagax's warriors called this mound of earth the Owl's Hill, for one night they had heard a great horned owl hooing from its heights. When battle finally came, I thought, Morjin's armies would advance upon the river and form lines just beneath this little hill. Perhaps Morjin would ride up its gentle, grassy slopes and survey the field from its rounded top. If my warriors prevailed in driving back our enemy, they would have to attack uphill, at least on this one small sector of the field. I accepted this slight hindrance. For we held a much greater advantage in being able to draw up our lines with the river to our backs. In the heat of the day, with the sun beating down upon us like a fire iron, my men would have access to fresh water while Morjin's men would not.

At dusk on the seventh of Valte, with the Dragon army's camp-fires filling the northern horizon with a hellish orange glow, I took a moment to stand outside my tent with Altaru so that I might comb down my huge horse. Joshu Kadar and a few of my Guardians waited in front of one of our campfires nearby — but not too close. They knew that even a king sometimes needed a space of privacy.

'Old friend,' I said to my mount as I drew the brush across his shiny black coat, 'have you had enough grass to eat? Enough oats? Tomorrow will be a hard day.'

I continued working the brush along his flank, speaking to him in low tones. He nickered softly, and I felt the great muscles along his back and hindquarters fairly surging with life as if in anticipation of a great work soon to come.

'A hard day,' I said again. 'Our enemy has no honor, and they will try to pierce you with lances and swords.'

He turned his head to regard me with his great, dark eye as if to tell me that he would never let me down.

'And there will be elephants — they will try to knock you to earth and trample you. The Sunguruns have fifty of them and the Hesperuks at least two hundred more.'

I went on to inform him that we would unlikely to encounter any of the Hesperuk elephants, as we would take our post at the head of the Meshian, Waashian, Kaashari and Atharian cavalry on our right wing, with Sajagax leading half his Sarni farther to the right to protect our flank.

'I am sure,' I said, 'that Morjin will place the Hesperu army at his center to break our center. Other than the Dragon Guard, they are his best men. And so shall place the Alonians and Eannans opposite them, for they are my weakest warriors. The Hesperuks will break though, I think, or at least push the Alonians back. And then, when half of Morjin's army has poured into a space too small, I will send in our reserve and command the Valari to close in from the sides to slaughter them.'

I felt my heart beating in time to Altaru's. I sighed because I had employed a similar stratagem to defeat our enemy at the Culhadosh Commons, and I thought it unlikely to work again. 'Morjin,' I told him, shaking ray head, 'did not take the field at the Commons, but he will have studied deeply on what happened there. And at the Sarburn. Tomorrow, I think, he will make no major mistakes, it will not be a day for brilliance in battle — only

bravery, or not.'

Again, Altaru nickered, and I smelled the thick, fermy scent emanating from him. I stroked the long, muscular column of his neck.

'Are you brave enough for one last battle, my friend?' I asked him. 'Just one more time of the steel screaming madness, I promise you, and then we can rest.'

As the afternoon's last light bled from the sky. I kept working the brush over this great animal. I assured him that there must be a way to victory — but only if each man and horse in our lines fought with a heart of fire. I lamented, for the thousandth time, the smallness of my own heart, which I had too often had to keep closed lest the sufferings of others crush me under. What would it be like, I wondered, not only to give my blood to Altaru and my other friends, but the deepest blaze within me?

I might have stood there ail night whispering my doubts to the world, but just then Atara rode her lithe red mare down the main lane leading up to my tent. Her white blindfold flashed in the deepening gloom. She sat