Tiny black scorpions covered his shoulders, his neck, the hidden red oak leaf on his wrist.
The druid cried out once, briefly, but the poison that raced through his blood felled him like a cross shy;cut oak. He sank to his knees in the midst of the white sand, with a last painful brush of his hand erasing the final glyphs he had written for Fordus, the message the War Prophet would never read.
I am again surprised, thought Vaananen, sinking into green darkness. How remarkable.
Swarming over the room, their dark mission accomplished, the scorpions turned upon one another until all of them, stung by their own poison, lay as dead as the druid.
The next day, the stunned acolytes found that the sand from the rena garden covered the floor, the bed, the lectern, the dead scorpions, and Vaananen, too, in a thin white layer like a fresh new snowfall. It was pristine, almost beautiful, except for a wide stain of sand hardened into dark volcanic glass, in the center of the garden between three standing stones.
Chapter 21
The gold and gray plains at the edge of lstar stretched out sandy and rock-littered-little more hospitable than the desert in which Fordus had wandered and prophesied and fought for most of his life. There was said to be forest somewhere farther north-a land of thick and luxurious green, dripping with soft autumn rain or the hard, thunderous downpours of an Ansalon spring.
Standing in the midst of his ragged army, for a moment Fordus let himself imagine that northern country. He had never seen a landscape of lush and resplendent green, never walked beside brooks or looked up into a vault of leaf and evergreen. His country was brown and red and ochre, its land shy;marks visible for miles over the level terrain.
Landmarks like the towering city of Istar, carved of marble in the Age of Dreams, the heart of an empire.
Soon to be his. City and empire alike.
What did it matter that so few warriors stood behind him now? What did it matter that his num shy;bers were not the thousands, the hundreds of thou shy;sands, he had dreamed long ago in the Tears of Mishakal and again, a few nights ago, high up on the Red Plateau?
It was not loss, not attrition. It was a weeding out, a culling. Only the finest fighters remained, their worthiness proved by their survival.
For Northstar was still with him, and Rann and Aeleth. Somehow Gormion had wrestled down her natural cowardice, and she was beside him as well, as were threescore of the younger men and women, their sunken eyes alight with adulation, their thoughts upon the liberation of the Plainsmen enslaved in Istar.
Stormlight is dead, Fordus hallucinated. He is a forerunner, a harbinger, the vanguard of an invisible legion.
For the dead would arise and follow Fordus Fire-soul. So he had read in the fissures on this cracked and graven plain.
Oh, he had not told the others yet. Not even Northstar knew. At night Fordus found himself laughing at his little surprise, at the army he knew was coming. For the dead army would fear nothing … especially not death.
He held back a high and rising laughter as he crouched among his lieutenants on the stubbled plains. Milling before the city walls, the Kingpriest's army assembled-soldiers and mercenaries called from all corners of Ansalon.
Because the Kingpriest was afraid now. Fordus's dreams had told him that as well.
It was the time of the Water Prophet, and the War Prophet, and the Prophet King. The Prophet King's army, bound for Istar, set to marching around the lake, rising to Fordus's demand yet again, tired beyond belief and helplessy enthralled. Their torches fanned the shoreline like glowing gems set in the half-circlet of a crown. Fordus would be Istar's new monarch, and their native prince. They needed no songs, no chanting of bards to dismantle the walls of Istar. With his gallant following and the huge invisible army at his back, Fordus would scale the walls himself.
Into a city promised him before the beginning of the world.
Stormlight watched from the encampments, as Fordus organized his few men for the assault.
Just as he had previously seen huge, destructive storms brewing and approaching, he could see this disaster in the making-less than fourscore rebels marching against the assembled might of the city. Left behind were the children and grandfathers and pregnant wives, starved and vulnerable amid smok shy;ing campfires and tattered tents.
Even if, as a last resort, he killed Fordus, the others would still attack, propelled by the martyrdom of the Prophet King and by his final prophecies-some delirious foolishness about armies of the dead.
Stormlight had known it would come to this when he bade Larken farewell, told her to wait with his followers while he set out after Fordus's quick-marched forces. He had looked over his shoulder once, twice, and she stood as he had left her, silhou shy;etted against the red light of Lunitari.
"Wait here," he had told her. "I shall return."
Now he was not so sure.
Miles away, on the other side of the lake, Larken stood in the Western Pass, staring across the water toward the harbors and walls of the marbled city.
Vincus stood at her shoulder; stroking Lucas, who danced back and forth eagerly upon her gloved hand. The young man believed that Lucas was his closest friend among them, the creature most wor shy;thy of his trust and reliance. Larken's sign language was soothing and familiar, as well.
Through the afternoon he had guided Larken and her hundred followers to the Western Pass. There they meant to wait-for tidings of the battle, for Stormlight and returning survivors.
All of them sensed the disaster approaching, doom riding the air as heavily, as corrosively as the wind-driven sand in the southern sterim.
Oddly, the bard had set aside her drum. She held the lyre now, softly fingering its bow as though reluctant to touch its strings. Lucas hopped to her shoulder, raining amber light into the moonlit shad shy;ows, his soft voice mewling, encouraging.
Vincus tugged at Larken's tunic. How long do we wait? he signaled.
The bard blinked, as though awakened from a light sleep.
Three days, she signaled in reply. Longer would be dangerous, but news travels slowly across the lake.
If we had the glyphs … Vincus offered hopefully.
But Larken shook her head. Those were the old days.
Now we have belief and waiting. Belief in Stormlight, in his skill and resourcefulness.
Larken turned again to her harp, and the young Istarian, cast back into his own thoughts, stared north over Lake Istar.
The distant walled city reflected serenely on the glassy surface of the water.
With a fumbling of weapons, the ranks closed behind the Prophet King. Solemnly, as though at the beginning of a great and somber ritual, the rebels marched toward the city-toward Istar, shimmering in refracted light.
In the distance, they saw the Istarian army group shy;ing-red banners aloft and fluttering in the rising wind. The rebels had seen these flags before, had eluded them over a world of high grass and sand, striking from the flanks and the rear with the swift shy;ness and surprise of swooping birds.
But now, they marched to meet Istar head-on. Sev shy;enty, seventy-five warriors arrayed against ten thou shy;sand. It was certain madness.
Were it not for the promise of the Prophet King.
For Fordus had sworn their deliverance in the council fires of the night before. Never trust simple numbers, he had urged them, for I have a magic that no numbers can quell.
Now, as they saw the army assembled against them, the banners and the bright, approaching stan shy;dards of four legions, for a moment it crossed their minds that the magic might fail and the prophecies go dry.
Yet each man stood at the shoulder of Kis cohort, and pride and illusion prevailed. Having come this far, they would not run and they would not waver.