Diamond Warriors

He said this with a seething glee, then turned to stare at Atara. She sat on her red mare, gripping her bow and remaining quiet behind the white blindfold that bound her face.

'And You,' Arch Uttam said to her, 'this time we will flay you alive. We will make a puppet of your skin to display in Lord Morjin's hall!'

Arch Yadom, who looked almost like Arch Uttam's evil twin, had been the chief of the priests who had tortured my companions in Argattha. He smiled at Atara and added, 'But you, unfortunately, will not be able to watch as we strip you to the meat.'

His cruelty proved too much for Yrniru, who stood behind me gripping his borkor in the only hand that remained to him. He raised up this fearsome weapon, and shook it at Arch Yadom as his huge voice boomed out: 'This, to you, if we meet again on this field, though you be no warrior and hide behind your ugly robes. And you be mistaken if you think you will ever return to Argattha. It belongs to the Ymaniri, and it be a hroly place. After your master surrenders, we will wash it clean with fire and build it anew!'

Now Count Ulanu, who called himself King Ulanu, took his turn to speak Morjin's spite. He glowered at me and snapped: 'It will be you who surrenders — and right now, or we will slaughter all of you, as it was with the Librarians at Khaisham!'

Before I could respond to this, Kane called out to him: 'Have you wondered, Ulanu, as you stared into the mirror, what you will look like without any nose at all? If a woman could disfigure you, what do suppose an army of Valari warriors will do?'

I could feel the blood pounding through Count Ulanu's face and flushing it purple. And he shouted to Kane, 'I am King Ulanu! And I, myself, will cut off Liljana Ashvaran's nose — and her ears, eyes and evil mouth! And carve up the children she now protects, as well!'

Kane stared at him as if regarding a piece of offal. 'A king who takes pleasure in massacring innocents is no king but only a butcher.'

'Do you remember the Kul Moroth?' Count Ulanu snarled at Kane. 'It was with pleasure that I had my Blues chop down your minstrel and crucify him! And even greater pleasure, after you fled the Library, that we took his body out of the crypt where you had deserted him. I gave his liver to — '

'Every abomination!' Kane suddenly shouted out. 'Every degradation of all that is human!'

For a moment, Count Ulanu watched Kane carefully as he might a chained tiger. He glanced at Morjin, in confidence that his master would somehow keep Kane from springing at him. And then he continued his taunts: 'Some parts of your minstrel's body I gave to my Blues to do with as they would. But I put his head in a jar of wine, that I might look at it from time to time. After Lord Morjin crucifies you, it will be my pleasure to show it to you.'

Kane's eyes blazed black as burning pitch; for a moment I thought that, truce or no truce, he might draw his sword and fall upon Count Ulanu. But he surprised me, for an icy calm came over him like clear air in the deep of winter. In a strange voice he said to Count Ulanu, 'One man thinks he is the slayer and another man the slain. But both might be wrong, eh? When you die, though, Ulanu, I think you will truly die.'

None of our enemy seemed to know what to make of his mysterious words, not even Morjin, for he must not have learned of Alphanderry's return to us. The Red Dragon waved his hand at Count Ulanu as if brushing him aside, and he said to Kane: 'A cat has nine lives, and how many have you had … Kane? You must know that you have lived your last one. I, however, shall give it back to you on the sole condition that you persuade your friend to surrender.'

As Morjin turned to look at me with his dreadful red eyes, I wondered yet again why he had called this parlay. It could not be, could it, just that he hoped to strike terror into my men and weaken them for the coming battle?

One of those, at least, who had ridden with me, would not be terrorized. King Hadaru had lost all patience with such talk. He drew himself up straight on top of his horse, then he patted the hilt of his sword and called out: 'Why do we waste words? We all know that there will be no surrender — before the battle. And as for after, when the Valari's kalamas have done their work, let us see who still stands to call for surrender!'

'It will not be you!' Salmelu shouted at him. He sat within his red-tinged armor glaring at the man he had once called father. I had always thought Salmelu, with his great beak of a nose and weak chin, almost as ugly in his person as in his soul. 'And when you stand no more, Lord Morjin will give me Ishka to rule, and I shall sit on your throne in the Wooden Palace!'

I felt a great sadness, like a shadow across the moon, come over King Hadaru. He would not speak to his son, nor even look at him, for to him Salmelu had long since joined the dead. And so instead, he said to Morjin, 'I should have burned my palace before I marched from Ishka. As on the Raaswash I should have slain the one you turned away from me.'

'Do not despair, King Hadaru,' Morjin told him. 'When all is done here, we'll march east and I shall burn your palace — and all the Nine Kingdoms, as I did Tria. The lands of the Morning

Mountains, I will then give to my faithful priest, Arch Igasho, to build anew and rule as king.'

At this, Salmelu beamed like a boy given a prize at a fair. Could he not see, I wondered, that Morjin lied to him? That even the Great Beast hated a traitor, and after the battle had been fought, would not give Salmelu even the dirt clotted to his horse's hooves?

'He will use you,' I said to Salmelu. 'After you have helped fight your own people, he will cast you aside like a broken arrow.'

Salmelu's gauntleted hand clenched into a fist, which he shook at me as he cried out, 'It was only evil chance that my arrow did not pierce you to the quick! But you still feel the burn of the kirax, don't you?'

I stared straight into his beadlike eyes as I told him: 'What I feel is nothing against the shame of seeing a Valari prince serve the Red Dragon.'

His hand clamped onto the hilt of his sword. 'It was evil chance, too, that you cut me in the circle of honor. But when we next meet in battle, I shall serve you with cold steel!'

At this, Maram whipped free his red gelstei and said, 'Not if I serve you with fire first!'

I wondered if he had forgotten his vow never again to use his firestone against human flesh? More likely, I thought, he counted on Salmelu — and Morjin — not knowing that he had made such a vow.

At the sight of the ruby crystal, Morjin's face tightened in fear and hate. With a peculiar edge to his voice, he said to Maram, 'Let us see who burns here today.'

I couldn't help gazing up at Bemossed, naked to the heat of the waxing sun and the anguish ripping through his body.

'Surrender,' Morjin said to me, 'and I will give you the slave.'

'No,' I told him, shaking my head. 'You will never do that.'

'Surrender to me, Valashu, or I will make you my slave. Here and now, as we speak.'

'No — you do not have that power.'

'Don't I? I will make you my ghul — the most beloved of all those I command. And the first thing you do will be to kill that vixen you call your woman!'

At this, he turned his poisonous gaze upon Atara, sitting quietly on the back of her horse.

'No,' I told Morjin, 'you are mad.'

'Am I, Valashu?'

'Let Bemossed go,' I said, looking up at the top of the Owl's Hill. 'Perhaps he can help you.'

For a single heartbeat of time, I wished this impossible thing that I had said might be true. I could feel Morjin feeling this desire within me. It caused his face to contort with rage, and he snarled at me: 'I will help him to die in agony!'

Yes, I thought, he would. How long will he try to keep Bemossed alive?

'As I will make you die,' Morjin cried out to me, 'this very day!'

Atara nudged her horse a few feet closer to Morjin, then turned her face so that she seemed to look him