Where Natac stood. He took comfort from knowing that Fionn stood at his left and Tamarwind at his right. Nistel and Hiyram shouted encouragement to their troops, and Natac was further heartened as those great formations stood firm in the face of the deliberate, measured attack.
Some innate sense of discipline guided the blind fighters toward the defenders, and rank after rank of savage, armored dwarves rushed forward. Their weapons whirled like scythes, and they came at the Nayvians like a deadly and purposeful killing machine.
Natac knocked away the blades of a pair of eyeless dwarves, slicing through their metal shirts with the point of his own deadly sword. Daggers slashed toward him and he knocked them away, cutting into hands and arms, hacking and stabbing with a quickness that he’d never guessed he possessed. One after another of the Unmirrored fell, bodies lying in a heap around his feet. He heard gnomes and goblins shrieking, crying out in pain and fear-but then he was aware of others, led by Hiyram and Nistel, who raced to take the places of those who fled or fell.
But there were too few weapons, and too few warriors with the skill and courage to wield them. More and more tightly packed Delvers pushed ahead, driving their wedge inexorably deeper into the slowly widening gap.
Fionn and another group of elves attacked from the left, but there the blind dwarves formed an impenetrable front. Clashing weapons echoed from all sides, while cries of glee and terror mingled in a rising cacophony.
“Flee, or die here!”
“We’re doomed!”
The shouts of panic rose from more and more of the horrified Nayvians. Goblins and gnomes began edging backward, and Natac sensed the line behind him wavering. His sword trickled blood onto the street, but he couldn’t take the time to wipe the weapon clean. Instead he lifted the blade and chopped again into the mass of attackers, feeling the keen steel slice through metal and flesh.
And then he saw something different. In the midst of the Delver phalanx was a being of grotesque aspect, a face of red, pulpy flesh framed by steel jaws, sharpened teeth, and a helmet that dropped down to conceal a forehead and eyeless brow. A swelling breastplate suggested that this thing was female, and the slender metal rod in her hand looked like a lethal weapon. Sparks trailed from that rod, and she lashed back and forth with a ritualistic frenzy-a frenzy Natac could see translate directly into the passion of the warriors immediately surrounding this arcane leader.
The Tlaxcalan charged, propelled by a single, desperate idea. He hacked to the right and left, grateful as Fionn and Tamarwind rushed beside him, guarding his flanks. The steel blade cut down a Delver immediately in front of the dwarven female, and then he lunged at her, sword thrusting for a killing stab.
But somehow sensing his attack, she parried with the metal rod. The two weapons met in a loud, sparking clash. Natac gasped as searing pain shot through his weapon hand, and he quickly darted back, ducking away from her savage swipe. She swung past his face, a gesture powerful and quick, but wild.
In that attack she left herself open, and Natac slashed again, driving the edge of his sword into the pulpy flesh of her flaring nostrils. The Delver shrieked and tumbled backward, and the human followed up with a lethal thrust, twisting the weapon in his hand until he saw the convincing proof of black blood gurgling upward, spreading across the horrible face, the dark armor, and the paving stones in a growing sheen.
Z ystyl reeled backward, gasping for breath, staggering to retain his balance on ground that seemed to tilt crazily beneath him. But it was not the ground that shifted-it was his own reality.
Kerriastyn was dead-he himself had felt the pain of the slicing blade, had choked on the blood that seemed to well in his throat, filling his lungs and darkening his senses. Finally he dropped to his knees, ignoring the concerned murmurs of the elves-cursed Seers!-who stood near his command post.
How could she have fallen? What fighters had the capability, the audacity, to break a Delver phalanx? Human, he knew, had sensed in Kerriastyn’s last thoughts, final sensations.
Even more surprising was the sense of loss twisting and growing within him. Kerriastyn had been merely a tool, a useful and attractive tool, but nothing more. She had served him well, but that was no more and no less than he deserved. The fact that she had given her life in that service was only appropriate, since it now seemed clear that she had been incapable of attaining immediate victory-the only other outcome Zystyl would have accepted.
Still, she had been precious to him in her own way, and now she was gone. The Delver arcane vowed, very solemnly, that she would be avenged.
19
Cold as Fire
Frantic thoughts of a night in pain storm through my mind.
I have to hurt someone, and I wish it could be you.
Creed of the Hunted
“We will build a palace here,” Sir Christopher said, sweeping his hands around the broad, flat expanse of the Mercury Terrace. At his side was Darryn Forgemaster, though the blacksmith seemed to take little note of the knight’s expansive gesture. The Nayvian night still loomed dark and starlit above them, and the sounds of battle marked skirmishing a half mile or more away.
“I tell you this,” Christopher went on, turning to address the smith, “because you will be doing much of the work. Our troops are well-armed now, and the war is nearly concluded. With our ultimate victory I will raise an edifice that will be a monument to God!”
“You need carpenters and stonemasons, then-not a blacksmith,” retorted Darryn.
But the knight was not paying attention. Instead, his eyes narrowed as he watched his ally approach from the darkness. Zystyl, accompanied by a dozen of his faceless Delvers, strode up to Christopher with that disquieting directness, confirming for the knight that the blind dwarf knew exactly where the human was standing. The knight put his hand upon his chest, feeling the comforting Stone of Command under his tunic. He let the power of his talisman infuse him, renewing and readying him for the meeting with his horrible partner.
“We need to erect shelters, awnings across this terrace, before the Lighten,” declared Zystyl. “A pavilion that will protect my warriors from the murderous sun. We can use the tarpaulins from the raft.”
“Of course, yes,” Christopher said irritably. “But beyond that, we need to create something lofty, permanent, glorious. Your troops are skilled with stone, are they not?”
The dwarf nodded, sniffing with those grotesque nostrils as if he sought the spoor of the knight’s thoughts. Christopher shuddered, squeezed the stone more tightly, and tried to keep the revulsion out of his voice.
“And our goblins work well with wood. I shall assign a thousand of them to the building task. The blacksmith shall make himself available as he may be needed.”
“Don’t you think we should complete the conquest, first?” snapped Zystyl. “And perhaps there will be a better place for your palace-in the Center of Everything, I suggest.”
“That land is blasphemed by the presence of the demon’s loom,” retorted the knight. “No, this shall be the place. When that foul temple is destroyed, I intend to salt the grounds and make the land around it a waste.”