Diamond Warriors

of sixteen kingdoms and six Sarni tribes gathered for battle. But I, as their warlord, could. At least I could pass the word to the kings who followed me to order their captains and company commanders to make a search. Such was the virtue of an army.

The sun was rising over the steppe in the east as their reports came to me: no one seemed able to locate Bemossed, not my Meshians near the center of our encampment, nor anyone else from the Ishkans in the west to the Atharians in the east. And then, even as our enemy's great war drums began booming out the challenge for battle. Lord Tanu came into my pavilion with five sentries: Gorvan of Lashku; Sorashan; Vikadar, son of Ramadar; Barshar of Ki; and Karathar Eldru. It seemed that they had been stationed ten paces from each other along a picket line to the north of our encampment. Lord Tanu's sour face grew bitter as he informed me: 'All of these men were found sleeping at their posts! They tell that Bemossed gave them coffee to help them stay awake — and that the coffee must have been poisoned with a sleeping potion! They remember speaking for a while with the Maitreya, and then nothing more!'

Kane, who stood listening to this report along with my other friends and the Seven, ground his jaws together and then growled out, 'Bemossed employed the same stratagem in Hesperu to make me sleep and so escape into the wilderness.'

'Well, then,' Lord Tanu said, 'it seems that it is no fault of my men that he has escaped his duty on the eve of battle.'

And Bemossed's duty, according to Lord Tanu, was to inspirit the warriors to face what would soon come. Although he did not quite call Bemossed a coward, the word seemed to hang upon his tongue like a curse.

'But where did he escape to?' Maram asked. 'If he wished to flee, why did he poison the sentries to the north of our encampment? why not flee across the river to the south, or east, away from our enemy?'

'Perhaps,' Lord Tanu said, 'he has gone over to the enemy — though I would not have wanted to believe that of him. But then the Lord of Lies has a way of turning men, doesn't he?'

I too, feared that Bemossed had crossed the broad strip of grass separating our encampment from Morjin's. But I found myself hoping with a blood-pounding desperation that he had, in fact, gone off into the steppe because he could not bear to face the horror of another battle.

'I have asked Sajagax,' I told everyone, 'to send out riders to search for Bemossed. If he did flee, he cannot have gone far.'

As the sun rose even higher, however, and my warriors finished their breakfasts and gave a last polish to their armor, Sajagax's outriders returned one by one to report that they had been unable to find any sign of Bemossed. It seemed that he might really have gone over to the enemy — either that or simply vanished into the grass.

Finally, Sajagax himself, accoutered for battle and clutching his great bow, strode into my pavilion and announced to me, 'We cannot find him! And the word of his desertion spreads among the men like a plague. What are we to do, Valashu?'

'What can we do?' I said. The distant tattoo of our enemy's drums seemed to boom out with even greater force. I thought I heard the sound of trumpets blaring along the wind. 'Let us form up for battle.'

I clasped Sajagax's huge arm, and told him that after he had driven off or defeated the Sarni tribes arrayed against him, I would meet him upon the center of the field over Morjin's corpse. Then he struck his huge fist against my shoulder and stormed out to gather up his warriors.

All along the river, our trumpeters began sounding the call to assemble. The Valari — along with the warriors from Thalu, Nedu and the other Free Kingdoms — began crowding between the rows of tents in thousands as they took their places in their companies and battalions. Just before we marched out away from our encampment, I lingered inside my pavilion to say farewell to the Seven, and to Liljana, Daj and Estrella.

'Promise me,' I said to Abrasax, 'that if the battle goes ill, you will flee with the children before it is too late.'

I repeated my request to him that the Seven should try to take refuge in one of Ea's Vilds, where Daj and Estrella might possibly live out a good part of their lives even if Morjin destroyed the rest of the world. Although Abrasax would make no promises, he at least nodded his head in acknowledgment of my concern.

Just before I donned my great helm, with its crest of white swan plumes, I bent down to embrace Estrella. Her warm, dark eyes seemed to reach out to hold onto me. I knew that she would choose to remain here and die by my side if we were defeated. This lovely child who had journeyed so far with me through so many dangers seemed suddenly not so much of a child at all. I felt within her a great movement, as with a mass of charged air before a storm. I had always marveled at her deep and — mysterious accord with life. Could she now foresee, I wondered, her own death? Or mine? It had been prophesied that she would show the Maitreya, and I wished that she might now point the way to where Bemossed had gone and tell me that he was safe from harm.

'Take care of the children,' I said to Liljana. I kissed Estrella's forehead, then clasped Daj's hand. 'Do not let them out of your sight.'

I embraced Liljana, and kissed her, too. And then it was time to go.

I led the way up from the river at the head of a column of the Meshian knights. Our horses' hooves beat against the earth, and the morning sun set our diamond armor on fire. Kane kept pace by my right side, with Maram at my left, followed by Lord Avijan, Lord Sharad and hundreds of others. We rode east, just past the hill where I had crossed swords with Kane only hours before. Slightly to the north of this little hump of ground, we met up with the mounted knights of Athar, Kaash and Waas, led by King Mohan, King Viromar and King Sandarkan. We massed together in long lines of stamping horses bearing warriors with long lances and gleaming shields. The rest of our army formed up with us as their anchor point: to our left and west, stretching out across the golden grasslands, the foot warriors of Athar took their places in glittering ranks five deep, followed by those of Waas, Kaash and Mesh. The white-haired giants called Ymaniri, led by Ymiru, framed the Alonians and Eannans at our center with the Thalunes farther to the west. Then came the Valari of Taron, Lagash, Anjo and Ishka. At the end of our lines, King Hadaru gathered with the combined cavalry of those same four kingdoms to anchor our army in the west. The distance from the swan and stars that my banner-bearer held aloft to the flapping red cloth showing the white bear of Ishka, as I estimated, must be nearly, five miles. Behind our lines, in two groups, stood our archers; between them waited the scant reserves from Nedu, Surrapam, Delu and the Elyssu. Beyond the lines of foot and cavalry — spread out over the steppe even farther to the west — the warriors of the Niurui, Urtuk and Danladi tribes assembled in one of the much looser and more flexible formations favored by these horse archers. So it was with the Kurmak, Adirii and the Manslayers just to the east of my cavalry. I saw Sajagax on top of his stallion a few hundred yards away waiting at the head of eight thousand warriors; Atara, her white blindfold flashing in the sun, led more than three and a half thousand women of her Sisterhood.

'It will be a hot day,' Maram said from beside me as he looked up at the sun, 'if we have to wait too much longer to engage. This is the part of battle that I hate most of ail the waiting.'

Even as he spoke, the drums of Morjin's army thundered with even greater force. Trumpets blared, and the cries of war elephants bellowed out across the steppe. So did the eerie howls of the Blues. I watched as, more than a mile away, our enemy formed up for battle. So many men, howevex could not so quickly assemble into their lines.

'Half a million men,' Lord Sharad said from off to my right. He shook his head, encased in a shining steel helmet. 'Let us see if Morjin packs them twenty ranks deep.'

'Or extends his lines,' Lord Avijan said, 'miles to either side of us.'

For a few moments, they reopened the debate that we had argued during our councils. Lord Noldashan, with Lords Manthanu and Jessu the Lion-Heart farther back, sat on their heavily armored mounts listening to them speculate. So did Joshu Kadar, Siraj the Younger, Sar Vikan, Sar Shivalad and my other Guardians. Sar Jonavar, I thought, would not be able to lament after today that he had missed the greatest of battles. Farther along the front line of our cavalry, I saw King Sandarkan and King Viromar waiting to see how things would fall out. King Mohan, sitting beneath the standard of the blue horse of Athar, also looked our way.

'So,' Kane growled out into the warm morning wind, 'Morjin has enough men to build his ranks ten deep and to flank us.'

But so long as Sajagax's Sarni could rove the grasslands on either of our flanks firing their long-range arrows, as Kane observed Morjin would be unlikely to extend his lines too far and so expose them