"Lord Daeghrefn?" he called, tugging on the scorched sleeve. "Father?"
Daeghrefn stared blankly at the northern sky.
Propped against a sturdy young vallenwood in the foothills, Robert had watched the plains below through the swirl of smoke and moonlight. By the red light of Lunitari, his eyes had followed Verminaard's path through the ogres to Daeghrefn, the mace-wielder untouched by the scattering ogres. And as the druidess set and splinted Robert's shattered leg, the seneschal had seen the new battle begin, the moon darken and the deepest of shadows pass over the battlefield.
She had told him to close his eyes then, and he had done so. But still he felt a breathless, sweating dizziness, overwhelming nausea, and the sudden, brief impulse to run.
Indeed, he would have run, had his leg allowed it, the rough old seneschal thought bitterly.
"What was that shadow, Lady?" he muttered, but the druidess shook her head. Her auburn hair shimmered in the faint moonlight, and for a moment, Robert was again breathless.
"Not yet," she cautioned. "The world is not yet ready to see it, nor even to hear again the stories and rumors."
"But it… it laid out half of 'em!" the seneschal protested. "Put most of the ogres to flight! What in the-"
"'Tis the Awe, if my guess is right," L'Indasha Yman explained cryptically. "The creature inspires the Awe in most mortals. They break, panic-stricken, for safety, or else they are frozen dead."
"Then Daeghrefn's boy must be a god," Robert replied in perplexity. "Not that I ever fancied him one. But did you see how he didn't run? Didn't freeze? Why, he stood alone against it!"
"He's no god," L'Indasha replied with an ironic smile, "but that mace he carries will give him illusions of it."
Robert lowered himself painfully to the ground, lifting his battered leg onto the litter the druidess had fashioned of vines and fallen limbs. "He had illusions to begin with, Lady. Right curious ones, of runes and hocus-pocus."
The druidess laughed softly, musically. "Rest now, loyal Robert. You have earned this brief holiday."
"We need help here, Verminaard," Aglaca insisted. Come down from your horse and help us lift Tangaard."
Judyth and Aglaca struggled with the dazed cavalryman, a man noted in his company for strength and bulk. Between the two of them, they had scarcely the strength to lift the enormous soldier to his feet, much less to hoist him over aiiorse's back.
The others, however, were ready to be carried into Nidus. Daeghrefn and his surviving soldiers lay draped across the saddles of their horses, and Aglaca's wondrous little mare, still shaking from the shadows across Solinari, was pawing the earth, ready to guide the lot of them into Nidus.
"Verminaard?" Aglaca called again, but the lad sat astride Orlog, staring out at the fading fire as though he, too, had been paralyzed by something in its depths. "Verminaard!"
Verminaard turned, regarding Aglaca with a wild, exuberant stare.
"Help?" he asked, his strong hands shaking on the stallion's reins. "Oh, rest assured I'll help, Aglaca. While you take them into the castle, I shall cover our escape."
"Cover our… I don't understand."
"Quickly, Aglaca," Judyth urged. "Before the ogres waken."
She glanced nervously at the circle of monsters. Nine ogres remained after the darkening of the moon and the panic and flight of their comrades. Stunned by the Dra-gonawe, they lay stiff and scattered like tomb effigies in the forsaken field.
"Carry our comrades in, Lady Judyth," Verminaard commanded, a strange note of hilarity in his voice, "and let the banquet be called to celebrate our victory over the assembled ogres and the powers of the enemy."
Aglaca and Judyth glanced nervously at one another.
"As you say, Verminaard," Aglaca murmured. "For now."
Verminaard lifted the mace again, holding it delicately, almost lovingly, fitting its handle in the scar-notched groove of his palm. "Do so, and I shall attend to the rear guard action, to the last despicable attempt to spoil our victory."
Aglaca shook his head and started to speak, but Judyth set her hand on his shoulder. Wordlessly she nodded toward the unconscious soldiers tied carefully to the horses they were leading, and Aglaca understood. Swiftly, almost shamefully, with scarcely a look behind them, they mounted the horses, Judyth atop the mare and Aglaca on
Daeghrefn's stallion, steadying the petrified Lord of Nidus across the horse's rump.
It was a strange caravan that made for the gates of the castle. Traveling in darkness, the dying fires behind them, the party of seven approached the battlements, where, at their posts, the sentries began to waken and stir.
Gundling was the first to sit up in the saddle. Blearily he looked toward the battlements. The sentries waved and the gates opened.
"By the gods!" he cried ecstatically. "By the Book of Gilean, by Zivilyn and by great Kiri-Jolith, we have weathered the lot of it!"
He looked beside him, where the dark girl, her hands gently on the reins of his horse, led them toward safety, toward a good meal, no doubt, and a warm bath.
With a sooty hand, Gundling rubbed his head. His hair was a little singed, his right ear bloodied. Otherwise, he thought, he was unbroken and sound. And yet he felt he had seen… no doubt had imagined…
What was it? He couldn't remember, and the opaque, troubled stare of the girl riding beside him told him nothing.
With a groan, Graaf sat up on the other side of the girl, weaving atop his horse, almost falling, until Aglaca rode up and caught him.
"Be calm," the Solamnic was saying with a thin, unas-suring smile. "Rest and try not to stir. You nearly fell from your horse there, Sergeant Graaf, and it'd be a shame to weather threescore ogres only to break your crown in a riding accident."
The ogres. Where were the ogres? Gundling steadied himself, turned painfully in the saddle.
Behind him, dark in the light of the waning fire, Master Verminaard stood on the plains. He was shouting- riotous words, incomprehensible-and lifting a black mace to the night sky. A dozen ogres lay lifeless around him, and he stood over the last one shouting, the mace rising, wheeling, and falling in a lethal, silent rhythm.
Twelve of them, Gundling marveled, a strange and numbing awe spreading over him. Twelve of them, by the gods, and if he's been unsung before, he will be unsung no longer.
Not if I have breath and voice to sing.
Chapter 13
It was a custom in tbe mountains, a custom honored since tbe Age of Might, that victory in battle was followed by a night of banquet and celebration, but also of the Minding, when the story of the victory was told, the fallen mourned, the brave honored, and the history of the battle enrolled in the thoughts and memories of those who had not been present. Regardless of rank or station, everyone was permitted to speak.
So was it done in other castles throughout Taman Busuk, in Jelek and Estwilde, through the Kalkhists, into the Doom Range, and down into Neraka.
Not so, however, in Castle Nidus. It had been Daegh-refn's custom to conduct the Minding all by himself.
Instead of allowing the men to tell their version of the day's events on the battlefield, the Lord of Nidus would assemble the troops and speak briefly of the deaths that had befallen his house that day, of its heroism and tragedy. Then the ceremony was over-observed, so as not to arouse the traditionalists, but bleak and quiet and altogether joyless, the words floating aimlessly into the dark rafters of the great hall.
After the surprising, near-disastrous battle with the ogres on the plains near Nidus, many of the men wondered if the Minding were in order at all, if what had taken place that night, within sight of the battlements, could have been more defeat than victory.