His anger faded. He was too far from his flesh to sustain an emotion long. He looked within himself, and was disturbed by what he saw. He was too attached to this idea of being Deliverer.
He sped back to the river and battle that would be Shinsan's last hurrah.
Dawn had come to the Tusghus. There was ice enough for men to cross. Sahmanan was spreading it up and down the stream, providing a broader avenue for attack.
Ethrian passed among his enemies, and grew nervous as he did so. They were not afraid. Their wizard-captains had convened no panicky conferences. They had their first and second and third lines set, their pyres ready to burn, their portals ready to evacuate their dead. Their commander was taking breakfast with his legion commanders, indifferent to events on the river.
Fear me, damn you! the youth raged. But, of course, they could not hear him. And that was just as well. They might have mocked him in their arrogance.
He thought, You'll see. When the stone beast speaks, you'll see. Then you'll show a righteous fear.
He returned to his body. He found Sahmanan now seated on the earth, eyes closed, face pruny with concentration. A black box, ten by six by five inches, lay in her lap. "That's a god?" It seemed bigger in the woman's visions.
The sun was several diameters above the horizon when her eyes clicked open and she said, "It's done."
Ethrian started his forces moving to the river's edge. They would strike when the beast Spoke.
It whispered in his mind, "I can't speak without a mouth, Deliverer. Lend me yours."
Again Ethrian chastized himself for lack of foresight. And not in respect to traps. "Use Sahmanan."
"Impossible. She's no more corporeal than I."
"You could have fooled me." He summoned a soldier.
The beast said, "I can't use the dead."
"Then we're wasting our time." How stupid did the beast think he was? "Sahmanan, let the river melt."
"I forbid it."
The woman hesitated.
Ethrian knew the instant she chose her ancient master.
"Lend me your mouth, Deliverer."
"No."
The beast's rage hammered him. He endured it more easily than he endured his own.
"Don't fight," Sahmanan pleaded. "Ethrian, call an animal out of the forest. Anything large will do."
He reached out, found a she-bear immediately. He brought her shambling to the hilltop, trailed by baffled cubs.
"Send her to the river," the beast snapped. His rage continued unabated.
Ethrian drove the bear, and followed himself. Sahmanan brought the box. Deep inside him the youth felt the Great One probing, trying to insinuate a tentacle or two, trying to take over. There would be a showdown. He or this dark godlet would bend the knee...
The beast's anger boiled. It fumed and smouldered and spread. Ethrian felt it touch the baffled she-bear as she started across the ice. Her cubs skittered and whimpered behind her. She ignored their snuffling and whining.
Ethrian smiled. What were they thinking over there? All this great sorcery, the freezing of the river in summer, so a bear and her cubs could cross?
Maybe they wouldn't connect her. They might think her just a poor creature wandering on the ice...
They weren't deceived. Ethrian felt the shaft barrage screaming down the sky. He felt the beast's rage crest, then explode. The bear's mouth opened, then Spoke.
The youth reeled as the Great One shifted his attack, trying to take him by surprise.
The Word rolled across the ice. It fell on the might of Shinsan.
Ethrian's universe went dark.
He wakened to find Sahmanan leaning over him. "Are you all right?" she demanded.
He searched his mind. "Yes." He was surprised. "How long was I out? Where's the Great One?"
"Twenty minutes. I took him back uphill. He's still out. He didn't expect you to hit back."
"You left him?"
"We don't need him now, do we?"
He examined her closely. She meant it. "Then take him back to the desert."
"All right." She donned a conspiratorial smile. "He won't be happy about it."
"Do I care?" He faced the far bank of the river. They were stirring over there! He left his body, fluttered over, flew back. Distracted, the stone beast had done only half a job. "I'm wasting time," he muttered.
The army of the dead marched onto the ice. It was a pathetic assemblage of stiff-legged men, slipping and falling and rising to try again. The ice had developed a water film. The beast's strength had gone out of Sahmanan.
Will it last? Ethrian wondered. Faster! Faster!
Groggy legionnaires were at work over there. Six unconscious men into every portal every minute... They were escaping! "Faster!" he shrieked.
The first clash of arms echoed across the ice.
The least stunned of his foes responded to his attack. They rekindled their fires and remanned their breastworks. And the ice kept melting.
It was the shortest and most profitable of his battles. It lasted only an hour. He gained eight thousand recruits. The legions fell back, almost in disorder.
His gains barely replaced his losses. The ice broke up too fast. Some of his creatures were caught on floes that swifted away on the flood. They fell into the water. Fish got some. Others became entangled in the roots of trees growing along the banks. Or they raced on toward the distant sea, ever farther from his control.
The Tervola blasted away as they withdrew. They salvaged the bulk of their army. He tried to pursue them, but each mile they covered lessened his control of his warriors.
It wasn't till the last redoubt had fallen that he flew over to join his army.
Sahmanan returned from the desert. "He's back in his temple. I can feel his rage and fear from here."
"He shouldn't have tried to trick me. Look here. We've won. They can't stop us now. There aren't any more big barriers."
"What happens when you destroy them? Go on till the only people left are the dead you command?"
He looked at her, and sensed a touch of loathing, of incipient hatred. "Let me be, woman. I have only one goal. The eradication of Shinsan. We'll worry about what's next when that's done."
"I thought you'd say that."
"What do you mean? Never mind. Let's go. We have an appointment at a city west of here. If we move fast they won't have time to prepare. And we can catch up with the refugees."
Sahmanan shook her head dolefully, led him to their dragons.
For two days Ethrian patrolled the remote flanks of his host, seeking recruits. His efforts were hardly worthwhile. Only the very old, lame, and weak had stayed behind.
He recruited them. He took anything that would move.
The third morning after the Tusghus crossing Ethrian departed a wood and found himself facing Northern Army across a small plain. "I don't believe it. Where do they get the nerve? After what we did at the river."
Sahmanan laughed. "You said they were the best. You said they don't frighten. You said they wouldn't have time to prepare that city. What else could you expect?"
"I don't know."
This time the enemy came to him. They cut their way through the recruits. They slashed deep into his better soldiers, whose efficiency suffered from continued decay. They went after legion dead incorporated into his army. They brought with them portals mounted on wagons. The fighting continued till it seemed both armies must be destroyed. Then the legions withdrew.
Ethrian wept in rage.
They had taken back their dead. They had robbed him of the seed of a new host. They had left him with fewer than twenty thousand bodies able to hobble or crawl.
He reviewed them in the dawn. They were gaunt, stinking, horrible things all, clad in rags, with limbs lost, chunks torn from their flesh, missing ears or noses or eyes. Maggots crawled in their flesh. "Looks like the earth opened up and a battlefield yielded its ancient dead."