Diamond Warriors

to a hail of death.

'Sajagax will hold his own against Morjin's Sarni,' Maram said. 'Ah, he must. And if he does, I suppose it will be our fate to ride against those damn Ikurians again.'

We all waited to see how Morjin would set his order of battle. Soon I watched the black eagles of the Ikurian standard bearers move forward at the head of a great mass of armored knights, who took their places on Morjin's left flank opposite us. Morjin's heavy cavalry, I guessed, would outnumber ours by more than three to one. To the west of these fierce warriors, with their broad-bladed swords and fur-trimmed helms, stood the phalanxes of Sunguru, broken at intervals by fifty great, trumpeting elephants. And then came the impressed soldiers of Eanna who were almost like slaves, and the Sakayans in ranks twenty deep and seventy thousand strong. Their battalions formed just beneath the slopes of the Owl's Hill to their rear. I could not see clearly the army of Hesperu lined up beyond them on a swell of grass farther to the west. But riders brought me a report of the hundred thousand Hesperuk soldiers in bronze, fish-scaled armor. King Arsu, these messengers said, sat inside a kind of castle perched on the back of a great bull elephant with bronze-shod tusks more than ten feet long. Other lords and knights, with archers, rode atop other elephants at the front of the Hesperuk phalanxes. Then came the tiny armies of impressed Surrapam and Alonian soldiers, and the vastly larger army of Uskudar, led by King Orunjan. A horde of Blues with their fearsome axes gathered next to a great mass of more heavy cavalry from various Dragon Kingdoms; these thousands of heavy horse formed the Dragon Army's anchor in the west. As with our army, Morjin's Sarni would range across the steppe on either flank, fighting Sajagax's warriors. Behind our enemy's lines, Morjin had stationed archers and reserves, as had I. Most of these, it seemed, were Yarkonans: some of the very same men that Count Ulanu had led against my companions and me at Khaisham. I knew that Kane longed to take vengeance for the Yarkonans' burning of the Great Library and massacre of the people trapped inside. I did, too, but I had more concern for Morjin and his Dragon Guard. My messengers could not tell me on what part of the field they might be waiting for us. They guessed that they must be hidden by our enemy's lines, perhaps behind the Owl's Hill near the center of the field.

Where is he? I wondered as I set my hand upon the hilt of my sword. I remembered the saying that the silver gelstei would lead to the gold. Where is the Great Beast who stole the Lightstone?

Maram, beside me, ran his finger down beneath the mail covering his neck. His face was sweating, and he seemed to want nothing more than to drink a horn of cool beer. He gazed out at the great multitude of our enemy arrayed upon the Wendrush's trampled grass, and he said, 'So many — if the gates of hell had opened to disgorge a swarm of demons, I do not think there could be so many.'

'They are only men,' I said, pointing out across the field. 'And you are forgetting one thing about them.'

'Ah, what is that?'

'In all their multitude, there is not a single man named Maram Marshayk.'

This caused Maram to laugh, a sound that the warriors around him picked up and passed back and forth along the lines as they recounted the deeds of my best friend. They badly needed such encouragement. Bemossed's desertion, I sensed, had worked at their spirits like a leech draining a body of blood.

My stallion stamped his hoof against the turf, and I reached down to stroke his tensed neck beneath the armor that covered it. And I murmured to him, 'Just one more time, old friend. Just one more charge.'

Kane, to my right on top of the Hell Witch, stared out at our enemy with an immense will to destroy them. And I said to him, 'Such great numbers — not even at the Sarburn did Morjin and Aramesh command so many. I have never stood at a place of such a great battle as this.'

For moment it seemed that Kane's blood ran through his veins as cold as ice water. Then his black eyes flashed in the sun as he looked at me. 'No, you are wrong. For you have stood at the center of the Tar Harath.'

'The Tar Harath?' I said, puzzled. I remembered with a bitter pain that sun-seared hell at the heart of the Red Desert. 'Men do not even go into that place. No battle ever could have been fought there.'

'You are wrong about that, too. For once the Tar Harath was a grassland such as this. And it had a different name, taken after the site of the great battle.'

'What battle?' I asked him. 'So — we called it Tharharra.'

Tharharra, I thought, the Tar Harath. Could it be possible? The Battle of Tharharra, that had been the greatest of all the ages? There, once a time, a host of Galadin, Elijin and Star People led by Kalkin and Marsul had defeated a vast army of Daevas under Angra Mainyu. Marsul had wrested the Lightstone from Angra Mainyu himself, while Manwe and other Galadin had bound the Dark One on Damoom.

'But the verse we heard in the amphitheater,' I said in astonishment, 'told that Tharharra was fought on Erathe, out in the stars!' Kane pointed up at the sun and said, 'We dwell, always, in the stars.'

Then his hand swept out across the grassy steppe east and west as he added: 'This is Erathe. That is what we named our world long ago — long, long ago. I was its king, Valashu. When I was born, the White Mountains stood lower and the Morning Mountains higher. The stars were different, too.'

He looked up at the sky, whose deep blue shimmer hid the great spirals of lights spread throughout the universe. Then he sighed and said, 'But men are not different — and so once again we must fight. But this will be my last battle.'

I turned to meet eyes with him in a silent understanding.

'Your time is coming, too,' he added.

I tightened my grip around my sword to draw strength from it. Then I drew Alkaladur and gave the command to advance. Trumpets rang out. In an unbroken line stretching five miles across the steppe, the men from the Free Kingdoms marched toward our enemy. Our cavalry kept pace on either flank, while Sajagax ordered his Sarni warriors to begin maneuvering for advantage on both wings even farther out across the grass. The terrible jangle of silver bells worn by sixty-five thousand Valari warriors seemed to shiver the air; the thunder of our drums shook the very earth. We drew within half a mile of our enemy, but their massed formations remained unmoving, like immense blocks of bronze and steel upon which we must surely break.

And then, as we narrowed the distance to four hundred yards, there came a great and hideous howl from the Owl's Hill. At precisely that moment, a terrible pain ripped through the center of my right hand, and I nearly dropped my sword. I looked out above our enemy's lines to see a band of Blues gathered upon the hill's top. A second howl split the morning's peace as my left hand, fastened around of the straps of my shield, burned as if pierced with a heated iron. Upon the third howl that fell upon my advancing warriors like an evil breath, I nearly fainted from the spike of agony that tore through the bones of my feet. Then I watched in horror, as did tens of thousands of my men, as the Blues at the top of the hill raised up a lone wooden cross.

'It is Bemossed!' I gasped out to Kane. My eyes burned as I stared across the field, trying to make out the face of the tiny figure nailed up on crossed beams for entire armies to behold.

'I know it us he!'

And Kane, I thought, knew it, too. His jaws clamped shut with such force that it seemed he might have bitten through steel plate; the fire in his eyes and shooting through his trembling body might have caused him to sweat blood.

'So,' he finally growled out. 'So.'

I sheathed my sword and took hold of his arm. I was afraid he might fall into a furv and charge alone straight toward the Owl's Hill. And I was afraid that I might join him.

'It is the Maitreya!' one of my warriors down the line to the west cried out, pointing up and out. 'Look — it is the Shining One!'

There comes a moment when we know that doom is upon us, and cannot be averted. Even so, we try to deny it. As Kane shook his head in bitterness and despair, I sat on top of. Altaru trying to stop tears from flooding my eyes. I did not warn to believe what my heart knew must be true.

'The Mataeya!' hundreds of voices cried out all at once. 'It is Bemossed!'

I called for a halt then, for at that moment a herald bearing a white flag rode out from our enemy's lines across the field. I sent out a herald of my own to meet with him. This man — his name was Sar Garash — soon returned to report that Morjin had requested a parlay,