Diamond Warriors

'But even supposing we break through, when the Red Dragon perceives our objective, surely he will give the command to slay him.'

'No!' I shouted again. 'Anything might happen in battle. We might throw the enemy into confusion. Morjin himself might be killed, or wounded, and the command never given.'

Maram wiped the sweat from his face, and said to me: 'But can't you see it's a trap? That is just what Morjin will want you to think, and do!'

'It can't be helped, Maram.'

'Can it not? Morjin uses Bemossed just to get to you! And if we lose you, we lose everything. Don't let him kill you! If you must attempt this madness, choose another to lead the charge!'

'No,' I said to him, shaking my head, 'it must be me.'

At my obduracy, Maram looked at me in anger and frustration as tears filled his eyes. Kane, staring up at Bemossed, said to me more tersely: 'So — it is a trap. A terrible chance.'

'It is our only chance!' I said to him. 'Will you ride with me?'

At this, Kane grimly nodded his head. So did Lord Sharad, Lord Avijan and Lord Noldashan — and others. And then, finally, so did Maram.

'Into the Dragon's jaws,' he muttered to himself. 'Well, my friend, I suppose I always knew this would be a day for fire.'

After sending messengers galloping to speak with Lord Tanu and Lord Tomavar, I gave the command for my army to renew its advance. Now, up and down our lines, our war drums began booming out their dreadful thunder. On our far right, out across the steppe's wind-rippled grasses, I saw that Sajagax had already begun the battle. Companies of Kurmak and Adirii warriors, with the Manslayers, rode upon the Janjii, Mansurii Zayak and Marituk tribes loosing a hail of arrows. It was no easy work of logistics to cut out my Meshians from our other cavalry massed too near the enemy Sarni. It took some precious minutes of horses whinnying and stamping, and men shouting in confusion, to reform them behind our lines. And then, even as our thousands of foot marched upon our enemy and the tinkling of millions of tiny silver bells rang out into the air, I led my eight hundred knights back behind the advancing Atharian and Waashian infantry toward the center of the field.

Our enemy, however, remained unmoving. Phalanxes of pike men packed twenty ranks deep and locked together shield to shield do not easily advance in good order over uneven ground across a front of five miles. Why should the Dragon army move forward when they had only to wait for my warriors to impale themselves on the acres of steel-tipped pikes sticking out from a long wall of shining shields?

Soon our army came within range of our enemy's archers. Clouds of black arrows, with an unnerving whining, streaked up from behind our enemy's lines and fell upon my advancing warriors. At this distance, most broke upon or glanced off their armor with a clatter of steel against diamond that was dreadful to hear. A few shafts split the diamond seams and penetrated through the underlying leather to skin and flesh beneath. Men cried out and fell; others hurried forward to take their places. Our archers, keeping pace behind our lines, paused every half minute to stand and loose volleys of their own. A great number of their arrows found their marks, punching through the poorer strip armor worn by the soldiers of Sunguru and the Eannan's thin mail. The screams of wounded and dying men merged with the cacophony of trumpets, drums, shrieking elephants and jangling bells into a single, terrible sound. I rode quickly along, at the head of my companies of knights, whose heavily-amored mounts beat at the ground and churned up the earth. I looked to my right, at the glittering ranks of the Kaashans closing the distance to the great Dragon army. Through the gaps between my men, marching in loose formation, 1 could now see the faces of the front rank of our enemy. Thousands of pairs of eyes stared out in dismay at the approaching Valari warriors. I felt their fear like a wave of sick heat emanating from them. Although they badly outnumbered us, they must have heard the stories told of the Valari's long, steel kalamas and the pitiless men who wielded them. My warriors' spirits held true and strong, though I felt how keenly Bemossed's torture grieved them. Spirit, in battle, was always such a delicate thing. A man's urge to risk his life for those of his companions could become a dread of death; the natural fear that caused one's heart to send streams of blood shooting like an elixir through mind and limb could easily explode into a full panic.

'The Valari!' I heard someone from within the Sakayan phalanxes cry out. 'The Valari come!'

Just as our army drew within javelin distance of our enemy, another of the Sakayans called to him in answer: The Dragon will burn them! Let the Dragon burn all the Valari!'

More arrows streaked down from the sky. One of them clacked off the armor covering Altaru's neck; another broke against my shoulder's steel reinforcement. At last, my knights and I had come up behind Lord Tanu's battalions. Meshian javelin men darted forward between our lines, hurling their spears at our enemy, javelins in hundreds struck deep into wooden shields with a great thucking sound. As our lines drew even closer to the massed phalanxes, warriors in our front ranks loosed spears of their own; almost all found their marks in the long shields that covered the Sakayans' bodies.

'Death to the Valari! Let the Dragon burn the Valari!'

Then, from Lord Tomavar's fourth battalion, one of my warriors let loose a cry of alarm. He stood some thirty yards ahead of me, and although I could see only the side of his stricken face, I felt sure his name was Garadan of Lashku. Sar Garadan thrust his spear into the air in the direction of Morjin's army, and he cried out, 'A dragon! A dragon has come to earth!'

I turned to gaze up toward the great, looming rocks of the Detheshaloon. So did ten thousand of my men. A black spot above the massif blotted out a tiny bit of blue in the sky. In only moments, however, it grew larger as it flew straight toward us like a flock of crows. But the thing that loosed a terrible cry into the air like a crack of thunder could be no bird nor bat, nor any other of the world's flying creatures, for it was not of the earth. 'A dragon!' hundreds of my warriors cried out. 'A dragon is come!'

Now I knew what dread thing Atara had warned me of. 'Oh, Lord!' Maram muttered, pointing out and up. Just before my army closed with our enemy, the dragon — for such it truly was — bellowed out again. I could now see it clearly as it streaked closer, beating the air in quick whumphs with its leathery

wings. It must be nearly forty feet, i thouht, from its iron-like snout to the knotted tip of its tail. Red-black scales covered every inch of its massive body; its great, golden eyes gazed out with what seemed a desire to burn and rend. A long, sinuous neck turned its huge head right and then left as if the dragon was searching for something.

'Yormungand!' Maram suddenly cried out from beside me. 'The dragon's name is Yormungand!'

His distress caused me to call for a halt. I stared at Maram in amazement. So did Kane, Lord Avijan, Lord Sharad, Joshu Kadar and the other Guardians closest to us.

'But how do you know?' I asked Maram.

'Because I can feel his mind burning my mind!' Maram told me. He shoved his long lance down into its holster, and with his free hand, he grabbed his head. 'The dragon is looking for me!'

'So,' Kane growled out, staring up into the sky.

In Argattha, Kane had destroyed the six dragon eggs that we had found in Morjin's chambers. But Daj, I remembered, had warned us that Morjin kept seven eggs as an assurance that the dragon who had laid them would do as he commanded.

'Morjin must have hatched Angraboda's seventh egg,' Maram said, sweating. And raised Yormungand, he added, on human flesh and an inhuman hate of Morjin's enemies.

'Yormungand wants revenge for his mother's death,' he told me. He glanced down at my sword, which I had struck through one of Angraboda's weakened scales into her heart. 'Yormungand is looking for you, too, Val.'

Just then the dragon reached a space in the air above our lines. He opened his jaws to reveal rows of great pointed teeth, nearly a foot long. Then he coughed out a stream of a reddish liquid called relb. This thick, sticky substance burst into fire as it touched the air, and rained down upon the men of Lord Tomavar's third battalion. Most got their shields up quickly, and so protected themselves from the worst of the dragon fire. But at least ten of them screamed out as if they had been drenched in boiling oil.

'Yormungand,' Kane said to me, 'is looking for much more than revenge, Val. Dragons like to kill.'

Then Yormungand suddenly dove down toward the ground with a thunderous beating of its wings. It fell on top of Lord Tomavar's third battalion with a crash that crushed men screaming to the earth. Other men tried to put their spears or swords into Yormungand, but their weapons broke against the dragon's rock-hard scales. Then