11
Invasion
Storms rolled off the leaden sea into the valley, smothering the dawn with a layer of furious clouds. Dahrima spent her second day among the ruins sitting beneath the arch of a broken wall, though it gave her little protection from the driving rains and fierce winds. She kept her eyes on the gray horizon, where sparks of lightning danced above the waters. A tall wave hammered the beach, followed by a second one that sank the reedy delta beneath the bay. The angry sea rushed forward, drowning the beaches and the ruined piers, licking at the base of the shattered city walls. Later the flood receded, leaving dead fish, marooned crabs, and mounds of seaweed littering the strand.
A few hours before sunset the clouds dispersed with unnatural quickness. The ocean calmed and eventually turned to blood as the sun met the rim of the world. No hungry shadows crawled out of the earth that night. Dahrima wore the Sky God’s amulet so they slumbered instead, waiting for the next warm-blooded beings to enter the valley. She did not sleep, but kept vigil on the beach among the stinking piles of seaweed. She saw nothing but moonlight upon the dark waters.
In the first hour of morning the twenty-eight Uduri appeared atop the valley’s western ridge. Their shields and braids glittered bright as gold against a tapestry of purple clouds. The Giantesses lifted their spears in greeting; Dahrima raised her axe in reply. She crossed the fields of tumbled stones to meet them at the riverbank while they waded across. It was good to see their faces again. The legions of Vireon and Tyro must not be far behind them. Dahrima silently praised both the Gods of Men and Giants–the Northern Kings would apparently reach the valley before the invading hordes.
Chygara the Windcaller stepped out of the river and embraced Dahrima.
“Sister!” Chygara’s smile was full of broad, white teeth. “I knew we would find you here. You left your spear when you decided to take a swim.” She offered the weapon to Dahrima, then pulled her own spear from beneath the straps on her back. Dahrima slid the handle of her axe into the iron loop on her belt and took up the lance. The weight of it felt splendid in her fist. She had missed it almost as much as she missed her spearsisters.
“It is fortunate that you arrive here in the sun’s glow,” Dahrima told them. “This place is cursed–haunted by flesh-eating devils that live beneath the stones. It is death to stay here after dark.”
Alisk the Raven nodded. “We were told of the valley’s dangers. Still, this is the place where the Kings choose to make their stand. The Feathered Serpent has returned to them. I’ll wager Vireon counts on Khama’s power to quell these restless spirits.”
Dahrima turned her face to the flat green sea. “I have watched for two days, but seen no sign of the invaders,” she said. “Only distant storms and mighty waves.”
Chygara grimaced. “What you saw was the destruction of the southern fleets.” She told Dahrima of the utter defeat suffered by the allied armada. Even the Jade Isles’ ships had been destroyed, and the Jade King’s isle sunk beneath the waves. There were few survivors; the Feathered Serpent had returned with only a handful of men. Among them were the Kings D’zan and Undutu. “They looked like death, Dahrima. The Mumbazan King is little more than a youth. He wept and howled for his lost navy. They say he blames himself for the slaughter and may die of shame. Only nine of his warriors returned.”
“King D’zan fares little better,” said Vantha. “He is sick with grief and will not speak a word since the rout. There were no Yaskathan survivors save him. Yet both of the conquered Kings choose to ride with Vireon and face the power of Zyung again.”
Dahrima shook her head. “Iardu tried to tell the young Pearl King that he sailed to a futile doom. Undutu was so eager to face death, yet he did not truly understand it. Perhaps now he understands, yet at too heavy a cost. Has Iardu returned from his errand?”
“Not yet,” said Chygara. “Vireon asks for the wizard at every dawn and dusk. I believe the Giant-King fears for his sweet sister. Sorceress she may be, but still he worries.”
Dahrima shoved the butt of her spear into the mud. The wind played through her blonde locks. She had removed her braids to let her hair dry and forgotten to reset them. She must do this before the coming battle. If Vireon allowed her on the field at all. She hoped that she would not have to defy him in order to aid his cause.
Chygara must have sensed her thoughts. “Sister, we spoke with the Giant-King on your behalf.” Dahrima frowned at her. “Listen before you get angry. Vireon understands the nature of the Uduri, yet also that it is not the way of Udvorg women. He knows that Varda took up his own sword and sought your head with it. He wishes you to fight alongside us, despite his condemning your misdeed. He suspends a royal judgment until the warring is done.”
Gorinna the Grin laughed. “He has already lost one Giantess on this march,” she said. “He does not wish to lose any more of us! Not before the battle is joined.”
Dahrima turned her face to the sea again. “So this is why you have raced ahead of the legions,” she said. “To tell me that Vireon gives me his permission to die for him.”
I will if I must.
“What did you expect, sister?” asked Chygara. “The blue witch had it coming.”
The Uduri laughed, filling the quiet valley with the thunder of their mirth. Dahrima could not help but join them.
“Come,” she said when the guffaws subsided. “There are fish in the river. One cannot fight a war with an empty belly.”
Not long after their morning meal, the first of Vireon’s legions topped the ridge.
The Northern Kings had arrived.
The hooves of Tyro’s charger stamped along the muddy riverside trail leading into the wild green valley. Mendices rode nearby, a sodden cloak billowing about the shoulders of his golden corslet. They followed a torn track that used to be a road running from the city to the farmlands upriver. The wind was at their backs, blowing strong from the Sharrian delta. It carried the odors of fish, brine, seaweed, and horse dung. Soon it would reek of blood and death.
Behind the King and the Warlord of Uurz, the despondent Undutu rode at the front of nine surviving Mumbazans, all on borrowed warhorses. Their armor and swords, too, were on loan–the metal of Uurzian soldiers. Undutu had given the nine men leave to return to their homeland, but all of them chose to stay here with their lord. Tyro admired Undutu’s ability to inspire men to die in his name, if not his appetite for rash action.
Let them wear the green and gold, Tyro had decided. Let them fight for Uurz, knowing that if the City of Sacred Waters falls, it will not be long before Mumbaza falls as well.
At the Mumbazan King’s side rode D’zan, looking like a man who had lost his own name. Not a single Yaskathan mariner had escaped Zyung’s wrath. Tyro wondered how D’zan himself had become the exception, but he supposed the Feathered Serpent had plucked the monarch out of the burning ocean, as he had plucked his own King from death’s jaws. The Southern Kings had lost their crowns along with their ships, but at least D’zan had managed to hold on to his greatsword. Legend had it that the Sun God himself had blessed that blade. Its power had guided D’zan to victory over the Usurper Elhathym. Tyro also shared in that glory, for he was the one who had taught young D’zan to wield the big blade eight or nine year ago. He was glad that D’zan had survived the smashing of his doomed navy. It seemed that everyone else Tyro cared for was either lost or dead these days.
What about Lyrilan?
This was no place for thoughts of his exiled brother. Already Tyro’s dreams were haunted by Lyrilan’s face. He could not allow his waking hours as well to be occupied by guilt. For the same reason, he put Talondra from his mind, yet that wound was still raw and stinging. He would lose its pain in the red rush of battle, where wholly greater pains would emerge to drown it. Until he was victorious or dead, he would not dwell on his wife’s tragic demise, or the loss of his unborn son. If he allowed himself such weakness, he would not have the strength to sit atop this horse and drive his sword into the guts of his enemies.
He hoped that Undutu and D’zan were making similar decisions. The Mumbazan’s dark face was empty of hope, as if he was already dead. The Feathered Serpent had spoken with Undutu at length, urging him toward the strength of a King. As for Tyro, it was Mendices who had talked him back from the edge of despair two nights ago. D’zan had spoken to nobody, only nodding his blond head when addressed. He insisted upon riding with the cavalry instead of returning to Yaskatha.
Tyro had advised D’zan to go home and gather his remaining legions for the defense of the southern realms, and he offered the same advice to Undutu. Neither man would listen. Perhaps they both wished to die in the coming battle. A warrior must accept death before he ever raises a blade, but not with the resignation of despair. He must accept death so that he can overcome it, with joy and fury and ruthless determination. Perhaps the Southern Kings would find these things in the heat of battle. It was their choice to ride and fight with the northern hosts.
The green banner of Uurz fluttered above the three Kings’ heads, followed closely by the purple standard of Udurum. Behind them came the combined forces of the two nation’s cavalry. Two Legions of Uurzian horsemen totaled upwards of six thousand riders. Vireon’s horse legions were half that number, but his true strength lay in the Giants who were stationed at the ruined city itself. Still, the riders of Udurum meant that Tyro commanded a blended cavalry force of nearly ten thousand on this day. They moved in two columns along the bank of the Orra to position themselves behind the hills north of the ruins.
“What do you think of the Giant-King’s strategy?” Tyro asked Mendices. He spoke loud enough to be heard above the clattering of horses’ hooves and the clanging of spear, shield, and harness.
The Warlord turned his head, squinted eyes peering from the shadows of his greathelm. “It seems wise enough,” he said. “Let the Giants bear the brunt of the invasion.”
“Are you surprised that Vireon suggested it?”
Mendices shrugged in the saddle. “I am grateful,” he said. “Those behemoths are far harder to kill than Men. Let them face the onslaught of Zyung before we do. Let us hope they succeed in knocking a few hundred ships out of the sky.”
Back in the valley proper, the Udvorg, Uduri, and Uduru were gathered among the stones of the dead city. Nearly three thousand Giants would draw the God-King’s attention. The allied host could not ask for a better vanguard. It was now midday, and Khama’s magic had told the Kings that the airborne fleet would arrive soon. How much chaos the legion of Giants could inflict upon it remained to be seen. Yet the powers of both Vireon and Khama stood with the Giants. This gave Tyro some measure of confidence that Zyung’s invasion would be well met. Perhaps Vireon would grow tall as a mountain, as he had done in the Khyrein Marshes, and snatch the flying galleons from the air with his fists, cracking them like walnuts. Tyro shuddered as the vision entered his mind. What if Zyung and his legion of sorcerers could grow as large? Or even larger? Such sorcery boggled his mind; best leave the details of its working to sorcerers and the sons of sorcerers.
This brought Iardu and Sharadza to mind. Where were they? The Shaper had promised more sorcerers to stand against the invaders. He had told Vireon they would meet him here, but there was no sign of any reinforcements, sorcerous or otherwise. Sorcerers could never truly be trusted. Mendices certainly did not trust Vireon any longer, now that he had seen evidence of Vod’s power in the Giant-King. Yet it was this power that gave them a glimmer of hope against the overwhelming odds the Men of Uurz must face.
On either side of the ruins the valley ridges were lined with twenty thousand archers, more than half of them Uurzian. Behind the bowmen the bulk of the northern forces waited for their signal to rush the lowland. Fourteen combined legions armed with sword, spear, axe, and mace.
With cavalry stationed upriver, archers and infantry above the vale, and Giants straddling the ruined city, the armies of the north were ready for battle.
Tyro chose a wide, flat area of the river basin to assemble the ranks of horsemen and their captains. The Orra raced blue and silver across the grassy tableland, winding between a league’s worth of rocky hills before feeding the delta. This was once a place of fertile plantations whose produce fed Shar Dni and was traded across the Five Cities. Now it was untamed grassland again, save for rotted fences and the fallen timbers of corroded manor houses on the hillsides. How quickly the verdant earth had risen to erase all signs of agricultural development. Eight years of neglect and steady rains would do that to any land. Fear of the haunted ruins downriver kept even the most stubborn farmers from resettling here. There were no more Sharrians in this country, and likely never would be again. Their bloodlines had been absorbed into the populations of Udurum and Uurz.
When the signal came, the cavalry legions would thunder along the abandoned river road and join in the great slaying. Until then, Tyro must wait in the grave company of D’zan and Undutu. Their sorrow seemed as deep as his own, but he dared not speak of their common grief. They were three Kings wrapped in shrouds of pain and loss, ready to spit in the eye of death and take their place among the legends of the world.
Tyro closed his eyes and tried not to think of his dead wife and child.
You will see them again when you enter the valley of death.
Lyrilan’s dream-words echoed inside his skull. His horse whinnied, eager to run and break the tension of stillness. All about him men whispered assurance to their steeds, patting necks, securing lances, loosening blades in their scabbards.
Tyro knew the meaning of his brother’s words.
I will see them again when I die.
Was the dream an omen, some vision sent by the Gods of Earth and Sky? Gods rarely spoke so directly to Men. Perhaps it was simply his own sadness and guilt mocking him. If he had remained at Uurz instead of pursuing the war with Khyrei–a war that was abandoned for the one he now must fight–he might have protected Talondra from whatever it was that murdered her. It could have been only a dream born of grief.
Or was it something altogether different?
Tyro had lied and called his brother a sorcerer to discredit and humiliate him. Could Lyrilan actually be what he was accused of being? Could he have called upon some dread power to slaughter Talondra and send Tyro a warning of his coming death?
Lyrilan was a scholar, not a wizard. He was sitting right now in some comfortable Yaskathan library, probably drunk and over-pleasured by southern whores.
Damn these thoughts…
Tyro shook between visions of Talondra and visions of Lyrilan, both lost to him.
There was nothing to do but await the smoke and thunder of battle, and the signal that would send his legions riding to red glory. He only wished his head would clear and leave him free to focus on the ordeal to come.
Undutu and D’zan sat quiet on their mounts beside him. Mendices rode about the ranks, correcting formations and giving courage to the men. Tyro should be doing this as well. Yet his dark thoughts kept him where he was, watching the riverwater splash over rocks in swirls and eddies as it ran toward the sea, where it would be lost forever, subsumed by the great expanse of the Golden Sea.
There was nothing to do but wait.
High cliffs to the east and west enclosed the great bay beyond the delta. This made the bay and its crescent coastline the most likely place for the sky-ships to dock. So the Feathered Serpent had told the Giants, gliding in gentle circles above their heads.
“The ships and their crews have endured a long journey,” said Khama. “They will be nearing the end of their power and ready to descend. I do not think they are built for resting upon land. They will crowd the bay and the waters outside it, then pour forth their legions to take the valley. We must not strike until Vireon gives the command. Then our battle begins according to the plan of your King. Strike fast and hard, break as many of the vessels as you can. When the Manslayers and the silver sorcerers venture among us with blade and spell, they will see our true ferocity. Remember that you are the vanguard. Others will come to your aid, once you have prepared the way for them. Look to the Giant-King for wisdom and courage!”
The blue-skinned Udvorg stood about the ruins with swords, axes, maces, and spears at the ready. At their very center, a core of pale flesh and blackened bronze, stood the sixty-odd Uduru and the twenty-eight Uduri. Ahead of them all, gazing across their ranks with his glittering black eyes, stood Vireon Vodson. A Giant among Giants, his head rose higher than anyone else. Along the ridges to left and right, thousands of human bowmen crouched, awaiting targets. Beyond them, out of sight of the Giants, the footmen of the north were assembled for charging. Only the sound of Vireon’s horn would bring them pouring into the valley, along with the horsemen beyond the hills.
Dahrima stood among the Uduri, neither greater nor lesser than any of her spearsisters, and admired the proud face of Vireon. He might have been an icon chiseled from stone, sheathed in dark bronze, a cloak purple as the sea flapping about his mighty arms. The hilt of his greatsword gleamed above his shoulder, and the crown of black iron shone on his brow.
“We fight for both Men and Giants this day,” said Vireon. “For the Land of the Five Cities. For the Frozen North and the sun-kissed Southlands. For the wild High Realms and the thundering Stormlands. We fight first today because we are greater than Men, who are brothers to us. My father opened the gates of Udurum to Men because he saw the greatness of their kind. In his wisdom, he believed a better world would arise from the alliance of our races. This is that world, swordbrothers and spearsisters. We come here to defend it. Udurum and Uurz and the Icelands stand together on this day. Our children and our children’s children will speak of this day a thousand years from now. They will say ‘Giants and Men stood together and cast down the Hordes of Zyung!’ Let us make them proud, People of Hreeg. These lands belong to us. Let us show Zyung what that means!”
The cheers of the Giants rattled the valley, and Dahrima smiled at her King. He could not see her, not this far back in the ranks. She had taken this position intentionally, for she would not face him until his judgment was made. She would slay and die for him, but she would not endure his scolding or his scorn. That would pierce her more surely than any spear or blade. She would regain Vireon’s favor only by destroying his enemies. Then he would love her, as she—
“They come!” The Feathered Serpent shouted his warning. Vireon turned to face the open sea, and his Giants did the same. A storm gathered far above his head, gray and black clouds swirling in to fill the sky from every direction. Dahrima did not know if it was Khama’s magic or Vireon’s power that brought the stormclouds. Perhaps both.
Cold rain fell in sheets and the wind rose to howling as the first ranks of sky-ships appeared on the horizon. They flew in a line that stretched from east to west as far as the eye could see, though as they came closer their lines converged. There were thousands of them, floating, flying miracles of varicolored sails and golden wood. Each one sported two sets of wings like those of great, white bats, flapping against the wind. Dahrima had never seen so many ships assembled anywhere, let alone among the clouds.
The vessels grew larger and larger, until the true size of them became apparent. Even the Giants drew in their breath at the sheer scale of the dreadnoughts. Each vessel was large enough for a hundred Giants to board, but they did not engage in such travels. The Uduru and Udvorg must remain close to the earth; they braved neither sea nor sky.
The glinting of spears and armor along the dreadnoughts’ railings became visible, yet their decks were still unseen thanks to their great altitude. The armada slowed as it came closer to the coastline, each row of ships dropping lower to the sea, followed closely by the one behind it. Now their numbers filled perhaps a quarter of the visible sky, stretching back to the flat horizon.
Khama had said there were three thousand of these ships, each carrying a thousand warriors. If each Giant in the valley could bring down a single ship, that would leave only a handful. Dahrima joined them now in hefting great blocks of masonry, clumps of ruined walls, the stems of broken pillars, and other great fragments of earth. The very stones of Shar Dni would be their weapons against the armada. But not yet. They awaited Vireon’s word as the Feathered Serpent glided above, drawing the armada’s attention with his gleaming rainbow of plumage.
Vireon grew even taller as the dreadnoughts drew closer and sank lower. Now the Giant-King towered twice as tall as any other Giant, yet his great fists were empty, the greatsword still sheathed upon his back. The Feathered Serpent, too, grew larger. It hovered above Vireon’s crown, coiling to face the armada with feline head and amber eyes. Thunder and rain filled the valley while Zyung’s armada filled the bay. A flash of lightning flared amid the sky-ships, but struck none of them. Khama had made it clear that the magic powering Zyung’s ships made them in capable of burning, and the sorcerers on board would keep them free of his lightnings. Dahrima saw none of the globes of light that were their primary defense, but she soon learned the reason for that.
A vast flock of winged creatures leaped from the decks of the sky-ships. Some sorcerous signal must have called them into the sky. Armored lancers rode in saddles on the backs of the flying lizards. The long beaks of the beasts gleamed wet and yellow, shod with sharpened bronze, or steel, or some alien metal. The metallic beaks would make them even more deadly, capable of snapping a man in half, or shearing off a Giant’s arm. Dahrima watched the flock fill the sky before the galleons. So this was to be the armada’s vanguard. Men riding beasts through the sky. Khama had guessed as much. She was learning to trust the wisdom of the Feathered Serpent.
Vireon lifted a massive marble pillar from the rubble. He raised it high in both arms as every Giant behind him lifted a section of the shattered metropolis. One shout from the Giant-King’s lips and his people hurled their stones as one. The massive volley flew across the sky, arcing above the ranks of lizard-riders toward the amassing dreadnoughts.
The splintering of wood filled Dahrima’s ears above the storm. Masts, decks, and hulls exploded as the great stones found their marks, tearing through the golden galleons. Many in the front ranks went down immediately, smashed to bits by the fury of Giants hurling earthy destruction. Other ships lost wings, masts, sails, or endured massive holes in their forequarters. Dahrima took great pleasure in seeing at least twenty of the impossible vessels crash into the storm-tossed sea. Yet now the globes of light appeared as Khama had said they would, blinking to life about every ship that was not already lost.
The Giants picked more slabs of marble and granite from the earth, shedding moss and mud as they tossed them high. Yet the second volley was aimed at the flocks of winged lizards, which were almost upon the valley now. The lances of the beast-riders were long enough to skewer Giants, and their reptiles’ great claws would be as deadly as their razor beaks. Dahrima hurled a block of stone at a diving lizard-beast. It crushed both rider and beast at once, sending them into the shallows of the sea. Hundreds of stones flew from Giant fingers, and hundreds of the winged lizards died along with their riders.
Yet now the beasts flew among the Udvorg, passing by Vireon and the Feathered Serpent as if ordered to avoid them. Lances, beaks, and claws struck at shoulders, arms, and heads. The Udvorg struck back with spear and sword, swiping men from the backs of their mounts and cleaving the sky-beasts’ wings and heads. As the winged host descended, Dahrima imagined the Giants as wolves set upon by a vicious flock of ravens. She avoided the plunging lances of two riders and drove her spear through the belly of the nearest lizard. The beast screeched and flew on, trailing a string of entrails. It did not fall from the sky until Vantha’s longspear impaled it, as well as the body of its rider.
In the bay now the glowing galleons were sinking out of the sky to sit gracefully upon the water. As each ship became water-borne two things happened: Its double set of wings withdrew into its hull, and the sphere of golden light protecting it faded. The first rank of dreadnoughts approached the shoreline, sailing on water instead of air.
Vireon blew a single note on the great war horn that had belonged to Angrid. He had inherited it along with the Udvorg King’s crown. Along the ridges ten thousand archers of Uurz and Udurum let their arrows fly toward the flying lizards and their knights. The sky was so thick with them that the archers could hardly miss. Across the breadth of the valley man and beast glided among a hail of black-feathered shafts.
Dahrima laughed as her axe clove a swooping lizard-knight in two, and arrows bounced off her thick skin. The arrows of men could not pierce the thick skins of Giants. Knowing this, Vireon had commanded the bowmen to await his signal. The Giants were impervious to the death raining about them, but the winged lizards were not. Peppered with biting shafts, scores of the beasts fell from the sky. Some of their riders survived the fall; their armor defied arrows almost as well as Giantskin. However, these knights soon found themselves afoot among a legion of Udvorg who crushed them like insects, or sliced them apart before they could raise a lance.
A second volley of arrows filled the valley, and more beasts fell from the sky. Dahrima killed three more lizards struggling to stay airborne, then her axe took the lives of five lancers who fought her on the ground. They were fierce enough warriors for Men, but they could not stand against Giants. No human could, except perhaps a sorcerer.
The legions of lizard-riders were soon routed, and the storm broke overhead. Rays of sunlight poured through the clouds as dreadnoughts crowded the bay. Their broad decks swarmed with silver-mailed Manslayers. A few hundred flying lizards escaped the continuous rain of arrows and the flashing spears of Giants, returning now to their water-borne ships.
The archers along the ridges cheered, and the Giants in the valley laughed. Shafts of sunlight fell across the bay, and the dreadnoughts gleamed bright as gold. The first rank of vessels made the shallows, three hundred of them at least, and a series of ramps sprouted from each middle deck. Manslayers streamed from them like swarms of silvery ants, running up the beach to throw their lives away against the army of Giants.
More companies of Zyungian warriors came rowing to the beach on lean landing craft deployed by the dreadnoughts stationed further out. Hundreds of these lesser boats glided between the massive vessels like canoes through canyons.
The Giants let them come. Vireon stood still at the head of the Udvorg ranks. His legion awaited the onrushing hordes as he had directed them to do. From the decks of the dreadnoughts arose smaller globes of light now, each one with a silver-robed sorcerer floating at its center. The God-King would send the bulk of his forces against the Giants now, including his wizards.
Which one was Zyung’s ship? Dahrima could not tell the dreadnoughts apart. The main sail of each vessel bore the face of Zyung with his eyes of fire. Would the God-King come forth to face the Giant-King himself? Or would he let others do his fighting? She lost count of the sorcerers gliding from the anchored ships into the valley. There were hundreds of them. More ships rested along the base of the cliffs to the east and west of the Sharrian harbor, and more eager Manslayers rowed from them with spears, blades, and shields reflecting the sun’s fury.
They were tall, these Manslayers. Not Giants, but taller than normal Men. From their forward rush and the dark eyes behind their visored helms, she could tell they did not fear the Udvorg, the Uduru, or the Uduri. That meant they did not fear death.
They must be taught fear this day.
The archers along the ridges directed their volleys at the swarming Manslayers. Perhaps one shaft in ten found its mark, while most were deflected by armored plate or shield. Like the sails of their ships, the invaders’ shields bore the face of Zyung, his eyes those of a raging God.
As the first of the Manslayers met the Giants, the Feathered Serpent rose from Vireon’s shoulders and flew into the ranks of gliding sorcerers. Now Vireon blew two more blasts on his war horn, and the Legions of Uurz and Udurum footmen poured down the sides of the valley, twin floods of purple and black, green and gold, to meet the swirling silver of the Manslayers.
Dahrima waded among the Zyungians, turning the wicked blades of their spears with her shield, slicing them neck to groin with her axe, stomping on the corpses of dead men, hewing down one challenger after another.
Now a new kind of rain fell in the valley, a rain of blood spraying from the burst flesh of men as they died. The Giants waded through a sea of rushing Manslayers. They could not kill all of the invaders; the foes’ numbers were too great, and they would not stop flooding into the valley.
Dahrima saw the first Udvorg fall, his eye and brain pierced by a Manslayer’s flashing blade. She hacked her way toward the Giantslayer, but he was lost in the mêlée before she could avenge the blue-skin. She killed five other men trying to reach him. Their blades were uncommonly wrought, made with curling and jagged designs, and at times they hooked and scored her flesh, though none managed to deliver a serious blow. She killed and killed again. Their armor split like the shells of insects beneath her sweeping axe.
The legions of Men blended with the legions of Manslayers, and Dahrima saw Vireon crushing Zyungians by the dozen beneath his colossal feet. Yet his eyes were upon the sorcerers floating and swarming above the battle. Khama was a raging ball of fire, chasing the wizards here and there across the valley. He caught one in his coils and Dahrima heard the wizard’s globe of light shatter like glass above the noise of battle. The Zyungian’s flesh burned away and his bones fell to ash as Khama darted toward the next one. The silver-robes cast burning light at him, but the Feathered Serpent brushed away their power like it was nothing. He belched lightning bolts that shivered and cracked their protective globes.
Vireon grew larger still, towering above the valley. He plucked sorcerers from the sky with his bare hands and squeezed their glimmering globes in his fists until they shattered. The men inside died screaming as he crushed their bones and hurled their remains at the dreadnoughts. Those who avoided his grasp cast bolts of light at him like burning spears. Vireon ignored them as he yanked another sorcerer out of the sky.
The thunder of horses’ hooves joined the clanging of sword and shield. The cavalry legions led by Tyro crashed into the spreading ranks of Manslayers, none of whom had the advantage of horse power. Did they even ride horses on the other side of the world? No, they rode flying lizards. Yet they had not brought enough of those winged terrors.
The valley became a sea of blood and metal and swirling death. The archers along the ridges fired the last of their arrows, then drew their longblades and rushed down to join the mêlée. Still the Manslayers poured ashore from their golden ships. The Men of the Five Cities were outnumbered thirty to one, not counting the legion of sorcerers. Yet the defenders had known this would be the case.
Dahrima fought on, pulling a lance from her shoulder after killing the man who put it there. Every now and then a Giant fell, but it often took several Manslayers to kill even one of them. In such cases the enraged Udvorg fell upon the slayers and tore them to bits. Yet there were always more Manslayers rushing forward to take their place.
She could not see how well the Men of the Five Cities were faring against the Men of Zyung. She could see nothing anymore but a red haze of muscles, entrails, and mangled armor. Broken shields and rolling heads. Severed limbs and howling wounded. Cracked skulls and crushed ribcages. The red rain continued to fall beneath the relentless sun.
There was only killing and more killing to be done.
Dahrima howled in the deluge of steaming crimson.
“For Vireon!”
Tyro was the spearhead at the front of the cavalry wedge that pierced the ranks of Manslayers. The momentum of the charge trampled hundreds of invaders beneath a wall of mailed horseflesh. Skulls and corselets were punctured and crushed by iron-shod hooves. Tyro’s lance punctured a scaled Zyungian breastplate and caught fast in the dying man’s ribs. He cast the broken shaft aside and laid about him with broadsword and spiked shield.
Each of the Zyungian warriors stood head-and-shoulders taller than any man of Uurz. Whether they were drawn exclusively from a race of massive Men, or grown to mighty proportions by sorcery, Tyro neither knew nor cared. His rearing warhorse struck at them with its hooves while he clove their metal and flesh with his heavy blade.
Undutu drove his spear through the chests, necks, and faces of a dozen foes before turning to his longblade. D’zan had not bothered to carry a lance; his greatsword flashed down upon beaked helms and spiked shoulders, wreaking havoc on the flesh beneath. The Yaskathan’s horse was the first to go down, impaled by a trio of Zyungian spears. Yet D’zan fought more fiercely with two feet on the ground, his iron blade spinning in red arcs.
The Manslayers hardly screamed as they died; they grunted and gurgled and sucked in their last breaths like any dying man must, but they never screamed. Tyro pondered this in the calm chamber at the back of his mind, while his sword set blood and brains free of their fleshy prisons. The red fury fell upon him as it always did in battle. He turned the crooked blades of Zyung or stayed them with his shield, searching and finding the small places where his blade could slide home. When he failed to find such openings, he hacked through metal with repeated blows until soft flesh was exposed, and his final strike stole another life.
The formations of horsemen had broken rapidly into chaos. The valley was full of screeching, thundering death. Across a sea of swords and spears Giants smashed Manslayers by twos and threes, pinning them on longspears like insects, sweeping torn bodies into the air with flailing maces and hammers, slicing men in half with greatswords and axes. Beyond the marauding Giants the silver masses of Manslayers continued pouring onto the shore of the bay. Vireon towered above the battle, a bronze colossus snatching Zyung’s wizards from the air like fluttering moths. The Feathered Serpent seethed with flame and light, hurtling among those same sorcerers and drawing their wrath to himself.
Yet so many of the silver-robes flew above the valley now, the majority of them escaped Vireon and the Serpent. A ray of light brighter than a sunbeam shot from a floating sorcerer’s globe, igniting a company of Uurzians and the Udvorg fighting alongside them. The warriors turned to ash in a moment of unearthly heat; even their bones and armor were consumed in the blaze. Men ran now from the path of sky-borne wizards, breaking their formations and spreading panic. Giants hurled spears and chunks of stone at the silver-robes, but these assaults failed to break their glassy orbs. They only defense against the legion of sorcerers was the intervention of Khama or Vireon. And neither Giant-King nor Feathered Serpent could be everywhere at once.
A blazing column of light fell next to Tyro, its heat washing over him like a furnace. He watched those caught directly in the glow, men and horses alike, wither and burn away. Before their bones hit the ground, they too were blackened dust.
There are too many of these lightbringers!
Tyro wanted to shout this in his terror, but he drowned the compulsion and fear by lunging at the nearest Manslayer. A lance ripped through the guts of his horse, pulling him down into the filth and pulped bodies. A silver-mailed brute stood over him, raining blows against his backplate. Tyro rolled over and blocked the curved longblade with his shield. His broadsword was caught beneath the dead mount, and there was no time to pry it free. Another blow clanged off his helm as he pulled a dagger free of its sheath. He rolled inside the man’s next blow and drove his short blade into the exposed sliver of belly between belt and breastplate. It sank deep. Tyro swept the dagger sideways, eviscerating his opponent. Gore and entrails spilled across his shoulder.
Another Manslayer rushed forward as Tyro grabbed the broadsword and pulled it free of the twitching horse’s bulk. He parried a downswing and sent his boot into the assailant’s crotch, tipping him off-balance. He drove the blade upward, into the flesh below the chin, where the straps of his enemy’s helmet were the only protection. Tyro grabbed the man’s belt and used the corpse’s backward fall to pull himself upward. On his feet now, he freed his blade from the dead man’s skull and spun to meet a new attacker.
The baroque blades of the invaders were marvels of design. While contending with a Manslayer, foiling any major blows, a man could be cut a dozen times by the curling lesser blades or the barbed fringes of their hilts. The Zyungians wore scalloped metal gauntlets and arm guards not only to protect them from enemy blows, but also to avoid injury from their own spinning weapons. Tyro endured more small cuts than he could count as the battle raged, but he also learned how to avoid those lesser cuts with certain lunges and feints. The Men of Zyung were teaching him a new dance.
Still the annihilating bolts of light fell across the legions, killing entire squads of men at once. Only those who were deeply mingled with the ranks of the Manslayers were safe from the sorcerers’ killing lights. Tyro guessed that their power could not discriminate between ally and enemy when it fell, and the silver-robes must be under orders not to send their own Manslayers to ash. Tyro shouted this knowledge to all those about him, and drove deeper into the ranks of bloodied silver. Better to die at the end of a man’s blade than be reduced to nothingness by a sorcerer’s deathlight.
Once again he caught sight of Undutu, who somehow had remained upon his horse. The Pearl King could fight. Tyro was impressed. He drove through the scarlet fray toward the Mumbazan, but found himself stayed by a forest of blade and shield. Up ahead the blond locks of D’zan were visible, slinging blood like rainwater. The black blade rose and fell, rose and fell. Then he saw no more of the Yaskathan, as the Manslayers closed on him from left, right, and behind.
A column of deathlight flared beyond Tyro’s immediate foes. He saw the rearing steed of Undutu caught in the rush of white heat. Undutu’s dripping blade was raised high when the sorcery fell upon him. The Mumbazan had killed so many Manslayers that a wide ring of bodies lay about him, separating him from the fray as his steed tried to find level ground. Tyro realized too late that this bit of open space was what killed the Mumbazan. The withdrawal of Zyungians from any sector of the field was a signal that they needed a sorcerer’s aid. They had receded from Undutu and opened him to assault from above. His flesh curled into strips and wafted away. For a timeless moment his skeleton sat whole upon the raised saddle, proud as a living warrior, blade clutched in fleshless fingers of bone.
Then the bones of man and horse fell together into spinning clouds of dust.
Tyro’s blade stole an arm, then a head. He dipped beneath a spear meant to pierce his back, so that it skewered his armless foe instead. He whirled, hacking deep into the spearman’s armpit. The man fell, and Tyro finished him with a downward thrust beneath the visor. The blade sank through skull and helm into the muddy earth below.
Undutu is gone. Like his proud and mighty fleet before him.
There was no sign of the nine Mumbazan soldiers. Tyro hoped they were as good with a blade as their King. He fought his way toward D’zan now, Uurzians and Udurumites gathering about him. They needed to stay deep inside the Manslayers’ ranks to avoid the sorcery that killed Undutu. If Tyro could reach the Yaskathan King, the two might drive forward and reach Vireon’s shadow, where there was at least some defense against the throwers of deathlights.
Three more Manslayers died beneath Tyro’s blade as he hewed his way toward D’zan. Along the way he saved the lives of two Uurzians and a man of Udurum who were overmatched by the invaders. The men about Tyro formed a wedge and drove toward the King of Yaskatha, whose battle cries rose above the fray now.
All color drained out of the world, replaced by crimson. The ancient reek of death choked Tyro as his own blood flowed to mingle with that of his enemies.
He drove his blade deep into the groin of a fallen foe and raised his eyes to see Talondra.
She stood in a pocket of calm as the carnage raged about her. The splashing blood did not touch her; she was unstained and clean. Her sad blue eyes flashed at him through the red torrent. Her hands were on her swollen belly. He called her name, but his voice was lost amid the ringing of sword against shield.
You will see them again when you enter the valley of death.
She could not be here, not in the midst of this great chaos. None but Tyro could see her there, or she would have been sliced to ribbons in an instant. He raised a dripping hand toward her, his cheeks ripe with tears among the sweat and blood.
My wife and my son.
Talondra smiled at him, but it was a sad smile.
Her eyes turned toward her pregnant belly.
A blade sank between his shoulders, slowed only by the metal of his corslet. The pain awoke him from the spell of his vision. He swirled about and killed the man who had stabbed him. He was lucky the blade had not reached his heart. Yet the sight of Talondra had pierced it as surely as an arrow.
Tyro took off another rushing Manslayer’s head, then turned back to find her gone.
Only a vision. A mirage of battle.
He fought on, ignoring the spike of pain between his shoulders. D’zan was not far away now. Men and Giants died in blazing fury all about him. None of it mattered. He must reach D’zan and they must reach Vireon.
A light flared above him, only for a moment. He expected the deadly heat to fall upon him now, but instead a shadow intervened. The Feathered Serpent glided above him, a mammoth viper that grabbed the sorcerer’s globe in its fangs and took the blast in its gullet. Khama swallowed the deathlight and vomited it back at the wizard who created it. Globe and sorcerer were reduced to cinders.
“D’zan!” Tyro killed another man and found himself only yards away from his fellow monarch. “Undutu is dead!” he shouted. “We must make for Vireon!”
D’zan nodded and raised his blade to counter a blow. His helm had been lost, like his crown, and he bled from a dozen wounds. Tyro marveled that the Southern King was still able to fight with such terrible rents in his flesh. Then he remembered the wound in his own back and cut down a man rushing at D’zan. A ring of Uurzians gathered about the two Kings. They stood deep amid the ranks of Manslayers.
Tyro thought of Mendices. He hoped the Warlord had maintained his command position on the slope of the nearest hill, where he could dispatch orders and command troop movements free of immediate danger. Then he remembered the flying sorcerers. If Mendices and his cohort stood in open view, then they were a prime target for the deathlights. He could not see the hill now, so dense was the battle. There was no patch of ground left to stand on in the valley. They fought balanced on the bodies of dead men, or atop the hills formed by the carcasses of winged lizards.
Suddenly night fell across the world, though it should have been hours away. It did not come as a creeping cloak of darkness, but all at once. Tyro’s stinging eyes sought the sun and found only a disk of darkness surrounded by a corona of brilliant flame. He looked away, nearly blinded, and endured a stab in the shoulder for his distraction. The Manslayers were not fazed by the loss of daylight, yet the Men of the Five Cities knew a sudden confusion.
Tyro had seen eclipses before, but they had lasted only a handful of seconds. This was no natural event. It must be Zyung’s sorcery, stealing the light and forcing them to battle in the gloom. Now the only lights were the blasts of annihilation falling from the airborne sorcerers.
Tyro’s legs were caught now in an iron grip. Clawed arms of solid darkness emerged from the blood-soaked ground, wrapping about his lower body, tearing at his skin. All about him men suffered the same fate. Devils of shadow poured from the cursed earth of the valley, tearing at throats, chests, and necks. A cold mouth latched over the wound in Tyro’s back, sucking out his blood like a great leech. The shadows clutched at his arms, digging fangs into them as we