gold of the gelstei – of the Gelstei – met cold steel in a shiver of shrieking metal. His sword shattered into pieces, and he stared down in disbelief at the hilt-shard sticking out from his spasming fist.
'Hold!' King Hadaru called out, spurring his horse forward. He motioned to Lord Issur, Lord Nadhru and Lord Mestivan. 'Hold him, now! Let it not be said that we Ishkans are trucebreakers!'
As the Ishkan lords and knights swarmed around Salmelu, grabbing at him and the reins of his horse, King Hadaru himself wrested the broken sword from his son's hand. He spat on it and cast it to the ground. Then he raised back his gauntleted hand and struck Salmelu across the face. And he raged at him, 'Trucebreaker! You have dishonored yourself in the sight of both friend and foe!'
My father, sitting on his horse between Asaru and Lord Harsha, stared at the livid welt raised up on the side of Salmelu's face. He had little liking for this man, but even less desire to see a king savage his own son.
'And you!' King Hadaru said, whirling about on top of his horse to point at me. 'You bring no honor to yourself if you cast careless words at one whom you have already wounded! He who provokes the breaking of a truce may be called a trucebreaker himself!'
'None of my words has been careless, King Hadaru,' I said. 'Your son has called for war with Mesh at the command of the Red Dragon. He was to weaken your realm and my father's. His reward, after the Red Dragon had sent his armies to conquer us, was to have been the overlordship of both Mesh and Ishka – and eventually all of the Nine Kingdoms.'
'No, no,' King Hadaru said, his red face falling white with a cold, deadly wrath, 'that is not possible!'
Although I pitied him, and his pain was like a great, hard knot in my chest, I looked at him and said, 'Your son is one of the Kallimun.'
Now a terrible silence descended upon all those assembled beneath the flapping white flags and spread out like death across the battlefield. For a moment, no one dared to move.
'Who has ever heard a Valari knight speak such evil of another?' King Hadaru said, staring at me. 'How could you possibly know such a thing?'
'Because,' I said, 'one of my companions saw this in Morjin's mind.'
'Proof!' Salmelu suddenly screamed out. 'He has no proofs!'
King Hadaru pointed at him and commanded, 'Hold him!'
Lord Issur and Lord Nadhru, who had their horses pressed up close to Salmelu's, gripped his arms while Lord Mestivan dismounted and pulled him offhis horse. Then three other Ishkan lords dismounted as well, and helped Lord Mestivan subdue the furiously struggling Salmelu.
'There are proofs,' I said to King Hadaru. I gave the Lightstone to Maram to hold, then climbed down from Altaru and stepped over to Salmelu. 'Watch closely.'
I pulled out the bloodstone that Kane had given me. Its dreadful red light fell upon Salmelu's face. And there, at the center of Salmelu's forehead, was revealed a tattoo of a coiled, red dragon.
'It's the mark of the Kallimun,' I said. 'The Red Priests affix it to their own with an invisible ink. The bloodstones bring it out into view. Thus do the Red Priests know each other.'
'It's a trick!' Salmelu cried out, shaking his head back and forth. 'An evil trick of this gelstei!'
'Salmelu's murder of me,' I said, ignoring him, 'was to have been his final initiation into Morjin's priesthood.'
The Ishkan lords murmured among themselves and cast Salmelu looks of loathing.
Lansar Raasharu pressed his horse forward as he stared at him. Then he turned toward me and said, 'But Sar Valashu, this cannot be! I've already told that I saw Prince Salmelu in the woods by Lake Waskaw on the afternoon you say he shot at you.'
Lord Raasharu had told this to Asaru and me, if no other, and it was courageous of him to declaim before two kings what he supposed was the truth – even if it aided Salmelu.
'You did not see Prince Salmelu there as you thought,' I told him. 'When he failed at my murder, the Lord of Lies sent an illusion to the most trusted man in Mesh so that suspicion wouldn't fall upon his priest.'
'What you say disquiets me greatly,' Lord Raasharu said. 'To think that the Lord of Lies could make me see what is not.'
'It has disquieted me, as well,' I told him.
'Illusion!' Salmelu cried out again. His squinting at the bloodstone crinkled the red dragon tattooed into his forehead. 'What you see is surely an illusion cast by this evil stone!'
I put away the bloodstone then, and watched as the red mark disappeared.
'Do you see?' Salmelu said. 'It's gone, isn't it?' I drew my sword an inch from its sheath. I touched my thumb to its blade, drawing blood. Then I pressed my thumb to the middle of Salmelu's forehead. The ink seared into his flesh grabbed at my blood and held some part of it. When I pulled back, the dragon tattoo now stood out red as blood for all to see. 'A trick!' he called. 'Another trick!'
He managed to wrench free his arm, and he clawed his hand furiously at his forehead in a vain attempt to rub away the mark that would remain there to his death. 'Is this a trick?' I asked him.
As the Ishkan lords regained their hold on him, I placed my hand on the dagger at his belt and drew it. I showed it to King Hadaru. Its blade was coated with a dark blue substance that could only be kirax. 'During the battle,' I said to him, 'if you weren't struck down, he was to have touched you with this.'
King Hadaru's eyes locked on Salmelu in disbelief. 'Why?' he asked him softly.
Salmelu, now seeing that his lies would no longer be believed, tried hate and terror instead.
'Because you're a blind old fool who can't see what must be done!' He tried to twist free from the men holding him, but could not. 'All the Valari – fools! Can't you see that Morjin will rule Ea? If we oppose him, he'll annihilate us. But if we serve him, he'll make us kings and lords over other men!'
King Hadaru climbed down from his horse. He drew out his sword and stepped in front of me. Then he raised it up above Salmelu's neck. In his wrathful eyes was horror and hate of his son – and a terrible love as well.
'Hold!' my father called out from on top of his horse. 'King Hadaru, hold! None of us would see a man slay his own son.'
'If not I, then who else?' King Hadaru said. 'My son has earned this death – no man more so.'
'So he has,' my father agreed. 'But let there be no blood spilled here today.'
His eyes met mine in a twinkle of light and then he glanced down at my hand. 'No more blood, that is.'
King Hadaru's sword wavered above Salmelu's neck. I knew that he did not want to kill him. And my father knew this as well. 'May a king ask another king for mercy?'
'Very well,' King Hadaru said. As quickly as he had drawn his sword, he sheathed it.
Although it was he who should have thanked my father, his manner suggested that he had granted him a great boon.
'Let me go, then!' Salmelu screamed out.
'Yes, let him go,' King Hadaru commanded his men.
As Lord Mestivan and the others set Salmelu free, King Hadaru took the tainted dagger from me, then bent and thrust it through the snow into the ground beneath.
He walked over to Salmelu's horse. He grabbed up the shield slung there and cast it to the ground as well. His war lance and three throwing lances followed in quick succession. Then, as Salmelu's cold eyes met the even colder stare of his father, King Hadaru commanded that Salmelu's helmet, armor, and ring be stripped from him. This was done. He stood almost naked in his underpadding before the lords of Mesh and Ishka waiting to hear his father pronounce his judgment.
'This is not yet Ishkan soil,' King Hadaru said, 'and so not even the King of Ishka can banish you from it. But you are so banished from Ishka, forever. No one in my realm is to give you fire, bread or salt.'
'And in my realm as well, Prince Salmelu,' my father said, 'you are denied fire, bread and salt.'
As twenty thousand men watched the badly shaking Salmelu, he climbed on top of his horse. Again he rubbed at the red dragon marking his forehead. And then, kicking his heels into his horse, he screamed out, 'Damn you, Valari!'
And with that he thundered off across the battlefield cursing and screaming. When he reached the Lower Raaswash, he drove his horse in a savage gallop through its swift waters. From the Raaswash to the Culhadosh was a distance of ten miles. And on the other side of that river was the kingdom of Waas.
After Salmelu had disappeared into the woods beyond the Raaswash, I turned to address his father and my own.
