As she held high the Staff, she caught the early sunlight. Her hair shone about her like an anadem, and the golden Ranyhyn bore her up like an offering to the wide day. For a moment, she had a look of immolation, and Troy almost choked on the fear of losing her. But there was nothing sacrificial in the upright peal of her voice as she addressed the people of Revelstone.
'Do not mistake. This peril is severe-the gravest danger of our age. It may be that all we have ever seen or heard or felt will be lost. If we are to live-if the Land is to live-we must wrest life from the Despiser. It is a task that surpassed the Old Lords who came before us.
'But I say to you, do not fear! The coming battle is our great test, our soul measure. It is our opportunity to repudiate utterly the Desecration which destroys what it loves. It is our opportunity to shape courage and service and faith out of the very rock of doom. Even if we fall, we will not despair.
“Yet I do not believe that we shall fall.” Taking the Staff in one hand, she thrust it straight toward the heavens, and a bright flame burst from its end. “Hear me, all!” she cried. “Hear the Dedication in Time of War!” Then she opened her throat and began to sing a song that pulsed like the stalking of drums.
Friends! comrades!
Proud people of the Land!
There is war upon us;
blood and pain and killing are at hand.
Together we confront the test of death.
Friends and comrades,
remember Peace!
Repeat the Oath with every breath.
Until the end and Time's release,
we bring no fury or despair,
no passion of hatred, spite, or slaughter,
no Desecration to the service of the Land.
We fight to mend, anneal, repair—
to free the Earth of detestation;
for health and home and wood and stone,
for beauty's fragrant bloom and gleam,
and rivers clear and fair
we strike;
nor will we cease,
let fall our heads to ash and dust,
lose faith and heart and hope and bone.
We strike
until the Land is clean of wrong and pain,
and we have kept our trust.
Let no great whelm of evil wreak despair!
Remember Peace:
brave death!
We are the proud preservers of the Land!
As she finished, she turned Myrha, faced the watchtower. From the Staff of Law, she sent crackling into the sky a great, branched lightning tree. At this sign, Lord Loerya threw her bundle into the air, and Lord Trevor pulled strongly on the lines of the flagpole. The defiant war-flag of Revelstone sprang open and snapped in the mountain wind. It was a huge oriflamme, twice as tall as the Lords who raised it, and it was clear blue, the colour of High Lord's Furl, with one stark black streak across it. As it flapped and fluttered, a mighty cheer rose up from the Warward, and was repeated on the thronged wall of Revelstone.
For a moment, High Lord Elena kept the Staff blazing. Then she silenced her display of power. As the shouting subsided, she looked at the group of riders, and called firmly, “Warmark Hile Troy! Let us begin!”
At once, Troy sent Mehryl prancing toward the Warward. When he was alone in front of the riders, he saluted his second-in-command, and said quietly, to control his excitement, “First Haft Amorine, you may begin.”
She returned his salute, swung her mount toward the army.
“Warward!” she shouted. “Order!”
With a wide surge, the warriors came to attention.
“Drummers ready!”
The pace-beaters raised their sticks. When she thrust her right fist into the air, they began their beat, pounding out together the rhythm Troy had taught them.
“Warriors, march!”
As she gave the command, she pulled down her fist. Nearly sixteen thousand warriors started forward to the cadence of the drums.
Troy watched their precision with a lump of pride in his throat. At Amorine's side, he moved with his army down the road toward the river.
The rest of the riders followed close behind him. Together, they kept pace with the Warward as it marched westward under the high south wall of Revelstone.
Thirteen: The Rock Gardens of the Maerl
TOGETHER, the riders and the marching Warward passed down the road to the wide stone bridge which crossed the White River a short distance south of the lake. As they mounted the bridge, they received a chorus of encouraging shouts from the horsemen and raft builders at the lake; but Warmark Troy did not look that way. From the top of the span, he gazed downriver: there he could see the last rafts of Hiltmark Quaan's first two Eoward moving around a curve and out of sight. They were only a small portion of Troy's army, but they were crucial. They were risking their lives in accordance with his commands, and the fate of the Land went with them. In pride and trepidation, he watched until they were gone, on their way to receive the measure of bloodshed he had assigned to them. Then he rode on precariously across the bridge.
Beyond it, the road turned southward, and began winding down away from the Keep's plateau toward the rough grasslands which lay between Revelstone and Trothgard. As he moved through the foothills,
Troy counted the accompanying Hirebrands and Gravelingases, to be sure that the Warward had its full complement of support from the
Trell.
The powerful Gravelingas kept to the back of the group, but he made no attempt to hide his face or his presence. The sight of him gave Troy a twinge of anxiety. He stopped and waited for the High Lord. Motioning the other riders past him, he said to Elena in a low voice, “Did you know that he's coming with us. Is it all right with you?” High Lord Elena met him with a questioning look which he answered by nodding toward Trell.
Covenant had stopped with Elena, and at Troy's nod he turned to look behind him. When he saw the Gravelingas, he groaned.
Most of the riders were past Elena, Troy, and Covenant now, and Trell could clearly see the three watching him. He halted where he was-still twenty-five yards away-and returned Covenant's gaze with a raw, bruised stare.
