The next lightning flash was not a bolt but a sheet of flame that lit the sky and the ground and the mountains with a purple white radiance. Silhouetted against the awful glow, a figure moved toward them, walking calmly through the raging storm, seeming untouched by the gale, unmoved by the lightning, unafraid of the thunder.
“Is it one of ours?” Galdar asked, thinking at first that one of the men might have gone mad and bolted like the horses.
But he knew the moment he asked the question that this was not the case. The figure was walking, not running. The figure was not fleeing, it was approaching.
The lightning flared out. Darkness fell, and the figure was lost. Galdar waited impatiently for the next lightning flash to show him this insane being who braved the fury of the storm. The next flash lit the ground, the mountains, the sky. The person was still there, still moving toward them. And it seemed to Galdar that the .song of death had transformed into a paean of celebration.
Darkness again. The wind died. The rain softened to a steady downpour. The hail ceased altogether. Thunder rumbled a drumroll, which seemed to mark time with the pace of the strange figure of darkness drawing steadily nearer with each illuminating flare. The storm carried the battle to the other side of the mountains, to other parts of the world. Galdar rose to his feet.
Soaking wet, the Knights wiped water and muck from their eyes, looked ruefully at sodden blankets. The wind was cold and crisp and chill, and they were shivering except Galdar, whose thick hide and fur pelt protected him from all but the most severe cold. He shook the rain water from his horns and waited for the figure to come within hailing distance.
Stars, glittering cold and deadly as spear points, appeared in the west. The ragged edges of the storm’s rear echelon seemed to uncover the stars as they passed. The single moon had risen in defiance of the thunder. The figure was no more than twenty feet away now, and by the moon’s argent light Galdar could see the person clearly.
Human, a youth, to judge by the slender, well-knit body and the smooth skin of the face. Dark hair had been shaved close to the skull, leaving only a red stubble. The absence of hair accentuated the features of the face and thrust into prominence the high cheekbones, the sharp chin, the mouth in its bow curve. The youth wore the shirt and tunic of a common foot knight and leather boots, carried no sword upon his hip nor any sort of weapon that Galdar could see.
“Halt and be recognized!” he shouted harshly. “Stop right there. At the edge of camp.”
The youth obligingly halted, his hands raised, palms outward to show they were empty.
Galdar drew his sword. In this strange night, he was taking no chances. He held the sword awkwardly in his left hand. The weapon was almost useless to him. Unlike some other amputees, he had never learned to fight with his opposite hand. He had been a skilled swordsman before his injury, now he was clumsy and inept, as likely to do damage to himself as to a foe. Many were the times Ernst Magit had watched Galdar practice, watched him fumble, and laughed uproariously. Magit wouldn’t be doing much laughing now.
Galdar advanced, sword in hand. The hilt was wet and slippery, he hoped he wouldn’t drop it. The youth could not know that Galdar was a washed-up warrior, a has-been. The minotaur looked intimating, and Galdar was somewhat surprised that the youth did not quail before him, did not even really look all that impressed.
“I am unarmed,” said the youth in a deep voice that did not match the youthful appearance. The voice had an odd timbre to it, sweet, musical, reminding Galdar strangely of one of the voices he’d heard in the song, the song now hushed and murmuring, as if in reverence. The voice was not the voice of a man.
Galdar looked closely at the youth, at the slender neck that was like the long stem of a lily, supporting the skull, which was perfectly smooth beneath its red down of hair, marvelously formed. The minotaur looked closely at the lithe body. The arms were muscular, as were the legs in their woolen stockings. The wet shirt, which was too big, hung loosely from the slender shoulders. Galdar could see nothing beneath its wet folds, could not ascertain yet whether this human was male or female.
The other knights gathered around him, all of them staring at the wet youth; wet and glistening as a newborn child. The men were frowning, uneasy, wary. Small blame to them. Everyone was asking the same question as Galdar. What in the name of the great horned god who had died and left his people bereft was this human doing in this accursed valley on this accursed night?
“What are you called?” Galdar demanded.
“My name is Mina.”
A girl. A slip of a girl. She could be no more than seventeen... if that. Yet even though she had spoken her name, a feminine name popular among humans, even though he could trace her sex in the smooth lines of her neck and the grace of her movements, he still doubted. There was something very unwomanly about her.
Mina smiled slightly, as if she could hear his unspoken doubts, and said, “I am female.” She shrugged. “Though it makes little difference.”
“Come closer,” Galdar ordered harshly.
The girl obeyed, took a step forward.
Galdar looked into her eyes, and his breath very nearly stopped. He had seen humans of all shapes and sizes during his lifetime, but he’d never seen one, never seen any living being with eyes like these. Unnaturally large, deep-set, the eyes were the color of amber, the pupils black, the irises encircled by a ring of shadow.
The absence of hair made the eyes appear larger still. Mina seemed all eyes, and those eyes absorbed Galdar and imprisoned him, as golden amber holds imprisoned the carcasses of small insects.
“Are you the commander?” she asked.
Galdar flicked a glance in the direction of the charred body lying at the base of the monolith. “I am now,” he said.
Mina followed his gaze, regarded the corpse with cool detachment. She turned the amber eyes back to Galdar, who could have sworn he saw the body of Magit locked inside.
“What are you doing here, girl?” the minotaur asked harshly. “Did you lose your way in the storm?”
“No. I found my way in the storm,” said Mina. The amber eyes were luminous, unblinking. “I found you. I have been called, and I have answered. You are Knights of Takhisis, are you not?”
“We were once,” said Galdar dryly. “We waited long for Takhisis’s return, but now the commanders admit what most of us knew long before. She is not coming back. Therefore we have come to term ourselves Knights of Neraka.”
Mina listened, considered this. She seemed to like it, for she nodded gravely. “I understand. I have come to join the Knights of Neraka.”
At any other time, in any other place, the Knights might have snickered or made rude remarks. But the men were in no mood for levity. Neither was Galdar. The storm had been terrifying, unlike any he’d ever experienced, and he had lived in this world forty years. Their talon leader was dead. They had a long walk ahead of them, unless by some miracle they could recover the horses. They had no food—the horses had run away with their supplies. No water except what they could wring out of their sodden blankets.
“Tell the silly chit to run back home to mama,” said one Knight impatiently. “What do we do, Subcommander?”
“I say we get out of here,” said another. “I’ll walk all night if I have to.”
The others muttered their assent.
Galdar looked to the heavens. The sky was clear. Thunder rumbled, but in the distance. Far away, lightning flashed purple on the western horizon. The moon gave light enough to travel.
Galdar was tired, unusually tired. The men were hollow-cheeked and gaunt, all of them near exhaustion. Yet he knew how they felt.
“We’re moving out,” he said. “But first we need to do something with that.” He jerked a thumb at the smoldering body of Ernst Magit.