Skilgannon said nothing for a moment. ‘Who was this Blessed Priestess?’ he asked at last.
‘Some believe her to have been a goddess, who surrendered immortality for her love of humanity.
Others say she was the human child of the Wolf God, Phaarl. For myself, I believe her to have been a brilliant arcanist and philosopher and prophet. A gifted woman, and holy, who was allowed to see the future, and to have a part in saving humanity from the Dawn of the Beasts.’
‘Did she have a name, this paragon?’
‘Of course. She was Ustarte. It was said that you knew her.’
All colour drained from Skilgannon’s face. ‘I knew her. She came to me in the last days.’
He stood on the hillside outside his home, and watched as the rider galloped back towards the city. A great heaviness settled on his heart. Slowly he strolled up the hillside, moving out onto the cliff path above the bay. Skilgannon had grown to love this place during the last eight years. A stone seat had been set on a jutting ledge of rock. He did not know who had set it here, but something in his heart had warmed to the man who had. The ledge was perilously overbalanced, and looked as if it might drop at any moment, falling the hundreds of feet to the rocky beach below. Yet someone had decided to set a seat here, as if to hurl a challenge at the gods. Kill me if you will, but I will choose to sit here, in this place, and defy your power.
Skilgannon walked out onto the ledge and stretched himself out on the seat. The air was warm, the sunshine bright. Far out on the Jian Sea he saw the fishing boats, and the gulls swooping and soaring round them. Pain flared in his neck and he winced. The fingertips of his right hand grew numb. He stretched his neck, then looked down at his hand. The fingers were trembling. Making a fist, he tried to quell the tremor. Slowly the pain in his neck dulled, merging with the other aches in his tired body. His lower back troubled hint at nights; the old scar on his hip would grind if he rode a horse for more than an hour. His left knee had never recovered from the arrow wound.
Angry now, he pulled the parchment from his belt and opened it once more. ‘Bakila has refused our offer,’ he read, ‘though he has accepted the gifts and tributes.’
Gifts and tributes.
For years Skilgannon had tried to tell them that Bakila could not be bought off for ever. The Zharn king had a hunger that would not be satisfied by tributes. He also had an army that needed to be fed with plunder. The young Angostin king had not understood this. He did now.
Now that it was too late.
‘ Ho, general!’ came the call. Skilgannon swung on his seat. The pain flared in his neck once more. The young captain, Vakasul, came striding up the cliff path. He halted just before the ledge, and stood there, grinning and shaking his head. ‘That will fall, you know,’ he said.
Skilgannon smiled affectionately at the dark-eyed young warrior. ‘Come sit with me — and dare it to fall,’ he answered.
‘ I think not.’
‘ You know the Zharn are coming?’
‘ Of course.’
‘ And you will ride with me to fight them?’
‘ You know that I will. We will scatter them, general.’
Skilgannon rose and walked back to where the officer waited. Vakasul was in battle dress, black breastplate and helm of hardened leather, thigh-length riding boots, reinforced at the knee with bronze. His long dark hair had been braided in the Angostin fashion, lengths of silver wire placed within the braids to offer added protection to the head. ‘You will fight a massive enemy army,’ said Skilgannon, ‘and yet you will not walk onto a stone ledge.’
‘ The ledge is not under my control,’ said Vakasul. ‘On the battlefield my sword and my bow will protect me.’
Skilgannon looked into the young man’s eyes. Both men knew that nothing could possibly protect them in the coming battle.
Bakila would have twenty thousand foot soldiers, and eight thousand horsemen. The Angostin force would number around four thousand trained infantry and two thousand cavalry. Eight years before, Skilgannon had led a coalition army against Bakila, and turned back his horde on the southern border of Angostin. Forces from Kydor and Chiatze and the Varnii nomads had fought a ferocious battle. More than thirty thousand Zharn had perished, and some twelve thousand of the allies. Bakila had managed to withdraw his surviving forces during the night. Skilgannon had urged the Angostin king to allow him to pursue them. The request had been denied. The king had been horrified by the losses and believed that Bakila would have learned a harsh lesson.
Indeed he had. The following year he had taken a new army southwest and crushed the Varnii.
The next summer he had swept into Kydor, sacking its cities and pillaging the capital. Two years later he had made an alliance with the Sechuin people on the eastern coast, and attacked Chiatze, smashing its armies in two great battles. The Chiatze had surrendered and offered Bakila a huge yearly tribute. To prevent a new invasion the Angostin king sued for peace, and also offered to send a yearly tribute to Bakila. Seven hundred pounds of gold was the agreed sum in the first year. Then it rose to a thousand. Then two thousand. Now the Angostin treasury was virtually bankrupt.
And the Zharn were coming.
‘ How long do we have, general?’ asked Vakasul.
‘ Perhaps ten days.’
‘ And you will contrive a splendid battle plan to destroy them. I look forward to hearing it.’
‘ There is only one hope of success, Vaki. You know it as well as I.’
‘ It will be a miracle if we get to within two hundred feet of him.’
‘ Then we’ll have to make a miracle.’
Vakasul swore softly, then edged past Skilgannon and onto the ledge. He sat down and stared out to sea. ‘By the way, general,’ he said, ‘there are some odd-looking people waiting at your house.’
‘ Odd? What do you mean?’
Vakasul grinned. ‘There is a bald woman in a gown of satin. Quite attractive, if you like bald women. The two men with her are astonishingly grotesque. As my father used to say: “They look as if they fell out of the ugly tree and landed on their faces.” ’
Back in his apartments Skilgannon began to exercise his body, moving through a series of dance-like steps, leaping and twirling. Several times he stumbled upon landing, and once he fell heavily. His brain knew how to execute the moves, but his body seemed sluggish. Keeping it simple, he continued to stretch, seeking to free his thoughts. The images in his mind were sharp, and yet fractured. There was no real flow to his memories. Scenes appeared, and then were cut off, or overlaid by some other image.
Names flashed into his consciousness: Dayan, Jianna, Druss, Vakasul, Bakila, Greavas. . Occasionally a face would merge with the name, and then disappear.
He exercised for an hour and then sat on a rug, a blanket round his shoulders. Bowing his head he sought inner calm, focusing only on one word.
Ustarte.
The stars were bright, and the rain clouds had moved away towards the west. This was a blessing.
The ground tomorrow would be dry and hard, the speed of the charge increased. With luck it would carry them deep into the Zharn ranks. How deep, he wondered? And would Bakila position himself on the left, as he had eight years before? Skilgannon strode to the top of the rise and gazed down at the battlefield. It was wide and flat. A stand of trees covered the hillsides to the west. To the east was the river. He pictured the likely formation the Zharn would adopt. The Angostin infantry had no choice but to stake out a position on the high ground north of the valley.