Now, these beasts, these fiends, were here to murder his friends, his brothers and sisters, to enslave his country. They were going to take or murder that sweet, cheerful girl he'd come to admire so much, who was so very old for her few years, and yet so charmingly young. They, and others like them, were killing innocent, ordinary farmers like those boys and girls he and Selenay had met around the fires, old men like Dethor and women like Myste, mothers like his—
Now he and Kantor would kill them.
He felt Kantor's rage along with his own; Kantor reveled in the shock that traveled up his arm with every good blow—he rejoiced in the impact of Kantor's hooves on flesh. They moved as one in an awful and glorious dance of death, as Kantor's white hide and his white uniform and armor were spattered, splattered, drenched in red, as red blood ran down his sword arm and soaked into Kantor's legs. Kantor danced on bodies that crunched and screamed; he reared and kicked, hooves connecting with heads and bodies, before and behind. They were surrounded; Alberich didn't care. Let them waste their force on him! He was expendable; Selenay was not.
He used his shield as a weapon as well as protection, the heavy metal frame as a club.
And his sword made short work of those too-light cap helms, when he struck them at all. Mostly he went for the faces—the eyes, those dark and fierce eyes that held no pity and no remorse, only a flicker of terror when the blade came at them. He reveled in the terror. He wanted more of it.
He howled in protest when they slashed at Kantor's rump; Kantor screamed in rage as they cut through his armor into his leg.
They fought as he had never before fought in his life, without effort, with endless strength and energy, and in a white heat of rage that slowed time and sped his reactions.
And still they fought—and continued to fight—
The briefest possible flicker of blue hazed his vision for a moment, but not even his Gift could conquer this unbridled rage.
But something was going to happen—
Something awful was going to happen—
Then a sickening blow to the soul—
—that should have sent him to his knees—
—told them both that Sendar—
—Sendar, his patron—Sendar, his King—
For a moment, just a moment, he leaped skyward, out of his body, and found himself looking down on the field of battle where tiny creatures fought and died. There he was, the sole target of a circle of Tedrel elite, who had forgotten their primary mission in the face of his attack. He continued to fight like a night-fiend, despite the fact that he wasn't "there" anymore.
Another blow, nauseating and disorienting, struck him; his attention snapped to the battle line.
Sendar was cut off from the rest of the Valdemaran forces, with only his bodyguards for protection. He fought like a demon, and so did they, but even as Alberich realized what peril they were in, three of the bodyguards went down, leaving only Crathach, Jadus, and Talamir to fight with him. There was a blur of motion just under the noses of the Companions. A shriek of pain that came from the soul of Taver as well as the body, and Taver flung up his head.
Then a burly hulk with an ax swung at Talamir.
No—not at Talamir—at Taver! At the exposed neck—
—of the King's Own Companion—
Nothing could have survived that blow to the neck, no matter how heavily armored. Taver went down, blood gushing from the severed throat, neck snapped, Talamir with him, leaving the King's right flank open.
No!
Alberich howled in protest, uselessly, silently—but suddenly Jadus was there, between the King and the axman, and the ax came down—
This time, not across a Companion's neck, but across Jadus' leg. The Companion, reacting to his Chosen's agony, shied sideways, leaving Sendar unprotected.
As if in a nightmare where time slowed to a crawl, yet nothing could be done to stop what was happening, Alberich saw a hundred fighters moving at the same time. Saw the mob close in, like a pack of rabid dogs, shoving Crathach into Sendar's side, hemming in the horse and Companion so that neither could move.
Watched as too many weapons to count pieced first Sendar's Companion, then Sendar.
Flicker of blue—and a wave of sickening horror smashed him back into his body. But he knew what he had seen was real.
Sendar, the King of Valdemar—
—was dead.
That was when a shriek of berserk rage tore the throat of every man and woman in the army, and sent them against their foes in a killing frenzy such as no Valdemaran had experienced in three centuries or more. He and Kantor rode that wave of bitter, mindless hatred, rode it and used it and let it use them, until it ran out—
—and the foes ran out—
—and left them, like every other surviving fighter on the Valdemar side, exhausted and sickened; blinking at the carnage around them, peering at death through eyes that streamed with agonized tears, in grief and mourning that would never entirely be healed.
17
THE taste of blood was in his mouth; the sweet-sickly stench of it in his throat. His nostrils felt choked with it.
He thought, vaguely, that he should be on his knees, throwing up what little there was in his stomach. But instead, all he could feel was grief and numbness.
:Selenay—: prompted Kantor, with unutterable weariness, turning his head in the direction of the Heir.
No, not the Heir, he reminded himself, with a stabbing sensation in his heart. The Queen.
He wiped blood and sweat away from his eyes, and peered though a haze of exhaustion toward her circle of protection. He hadn't prevented all of the Tedrels from getting to her and her guardians, after all—just a great many of them. Another clot of bodies marked where the Royal Guardsmen and her bodyguards had taken care of the ones that had gotten by him. Four of the Royal Guardsmen were dead, the rest wounded, two of the four mounted bodyguards were down.
Kantor stumbled to them; he half fell out of the saddle. His leg slash and half a dozen other wounds burned with a fire of their own, but he knew from the way they felt that though they hurt like demons were poking him, they were relatively minor. He wasn't going to bleed to death any time soon, and his injuries weren't going to incapacitate him. Therefore, as he had countless times when he was injured, he would carry on, if need be, until he dropped.
Berda and Locasti were on the ground with their greathearted horses standing over them like guard dogs. Locasti sat up just as he got there, holding her head in both hands; a dented helm told him what had happened to her. It was a good helm, that, double-walled, with extra space between the inner and outer wall on the top of the head—a helm inside a helm, so to speak. Good job it was built that well; it had saved her from a cracked skull or worse.