Morning came. The Host arrayed itself. The Disciple strode forth clad in purest white. Two Invincibles accompanied him, bearing the standards of the Lord and of the Second Empire. The black-clad shaghûns followed. El Murid halted on a mound a long bowshot from the southernmost circle. The shaghûns formed a shallow crescent cupping him and his standard-bearers.
Enemy faces lined the top of the tumbled rock barrier. The Itaskians had felled the megaliths during the night. The Disciple felt the full weight of their nervousness and fear.
He dropped to one knee, bowed his head, offered up a prayer. Then he rose, surveyed his enemies, flung arms and face toward the sky.
"Hear me, O Lord of Hosts! Thy servant beseechest thee: Empty the cup of thine wrath upon these who cast dung upon thy Truth. Lend thy servant thine immeasurable power that he might requite them for their iniquity. Hear me, O Lord of Hosts!"
Few of his enemies understood who he was or comprehended what he screamed. But they did not need that knowledge to realize that a mighty doom was upon them.
El Murid's amulet blazed, cloaking him in blinding light. Cries of despair rose within the circle. Panic-driven arrows darted toward the man of fire. The Disciple's shaghûns turned the shafts.
El Murid flung his hands downward. Thunder groaned across the sky. The earth trembled. Stones cracked, broke, tumbled, crumbled, flew into the air and plunged down again. Lightning stalked the plain. Men shrieked.
El Murid lifted his arms and flung them down again. Again the sky spoke and hurled down its spears. Again mighty rocks cracked, broke, flew about, collapsed into mounds of gravel. The surviving Itaskians shrieked and wailed and looked for places to run.
El Murid signalled Abd-er-Rahman.
A light horse regiment swept forward. It scoured that circle clean. The men cowering in the other circles were too stunned to support their fellows.
El Murid and his escort stalked to a hummock facing the westernmost circle.
Arrows darkened the sky before the Disciple commenced his prayer. The shaghûns were hard-pressed to turn them. One did crease a standard-bearer as El Murid flung his fiery hands at the world's blue ceiling.
The Host scoured that circle. And the eastern one too. And cheered their Lord almost continuously. At long last this stubborn foe was to be put away.
Some of the men in the northern circle tried to flee. Rahman flung his cavalry after them. They died before they reached the woods, before comrades who could do nothing to save them.
The plain stunk of fear. The Host was showing no mercy at all, even refusing to take knights and lords for ransom.
The Host grew quiet. The Disciple had turned his eye to the central circle, where half the northern army awaited its doom. He took his station atop rubble left from the scouring of the southern circle. The Host crowded up behind him, eager for blood and plunder.
The Duke and his captains were waiting. As the arrows began to fly and the light to surround the Disciple, a dozen bold knights charged.
Rahman sent men to meet them. But not in time. El Murid's shaghûns were compelled to shift their attention to stopping them. The last fell twenty feet from El Murid.
The arrows fell like heavy winter snow while the witch-men were distracted. The standards went down. Two shaghûns fell. The arrow-storm thickened. The remaining shaghûns could not turn it all.
El Murid's blazing power did not shield him.
His concentration was such that the first shaft bothered him less than a bee's sting. He brought the lightning down. Inside the circle a hundred men died.
A second arrow passed through the Disciple's upraised right hand. Again he brought the fire down. Boulders hurtled about. Men and animals screamed. Rahman's riders moved up close enough to use their short saddle bows.
The third arrow buried itself in El Murid's left breast. Though it missed heart and lung, its momentum spun him around and flung him to the earth just as the lightning came down again and shattered the last of the megaliths protecting Greyfells' army.
Abd-er-Rahman attacked immediately, hoping to finish the enemy before his own men realized what had happened to their prophet. The Host swarmed into the central circle.
Esmat reached his master before the glory of the amulet faded. He shielded his eyes with his hands. "Lord?"
El Murid groaned. He should have been dead. The terrible vitality that had seen him through the desert in his youth and through the hellish aftermath of the defeat of Wadi el Kuf remained with him. Perhaps his amulet assisted. Esmat grabbed the fallen standards. He snarled at the shaghûns, "Help me make a stretcher." The witch-men stared dumbly. "Strip one of the bodies, you nitwits!" He glared toward the central circle.
The melee was wild and bloody. The warriors of the Host continued pouring in. Some quick-witted foeman was howling, "The Disciple is slain!"
Too many warriors saw Esmat and the shaghûns flee with the stretcher. They believed the cries.
Shouting, the physician tried to assemble El Murid's bodyguard. A handful of Invincibles remembered their honor.
Fickle, insane panic filled the Host as it teetered on the brink of final victory. Victory slipped away.
Esmat concealed himself and his master in a woodcutter's cottage ten miles south of the Five Circles. A dozen Invincibles accompanied him. Most remained in the woods watching for enemy patrols. Two he retained for their muscles.
Out in the dusk the Host was in dismayed flight, small bands of warriors flying hither and yon to escape the Itaskians, who were so bewildered by their good fortune they were doing nothing to follow up.
"Hold him!" Esmat snapped. "Forget who he is. We're trying to save a man, not a myth." The white robes remained unconvinced. Esmat argued, "If we don't save him, who will speak for the Lord?"
The Invincibles leaned into it. Esmat began with the simplest arrowhead.
El Murid groaned and screamed.
A sentry burst in. "Can't you keep him quiet?"
Esmat sighed. "The will of the Lord be done." He took drugs from his kit. He had wanted to avoid them. The Disciple had had so much difficulty whipping his addiction.
El Murid bled a lot, but remained too stubborn to die. Esmat removed four steel barbs.
"How soon will we be able to move?" the leader of the bodyguard asked.
"Not soon. He's hard to kill but slow to mend. We might have to stay here for weeks."
The white robe grimaced. "The will of God be done," he whispered.
They stayed put a month. Twice the Invincibles exterminated small Itaskian patrols. They endured. The Disciple banished his despair with repeated pretenses of agony. Esmat gave him drugs out of fear of the Invincibles. His master became an addict once more.
The Host had collapsed. The survivors had fled so swiftly their enemies hadn't been able to overtake them. Abd-er-Rahman had been unable to rally them. But the collapse affected only the one force.
Where there were commanders of will and energy the Faithful hung together. Two of the small divisions penetrated the domains of Prost Kamenets. Another crossed the Silverbind and brought fire and sword to the unguarded Itaskian midlands. The army on the coast, after one savage encounter with the remnants of Greyfells' force, stunned the Itaskians by driving north and occupying their great harbor city of Portsmouth, where they settled in for a siege. Other divisions lurked near Greyfells, harassing his foragers.
A stalemate, of sorts, had been achieved.
Greyfells could not move south while strong formations threatened his homeland. The Faithful hadn't the will to resume the offensive.
In the south, Haroun and Hawkwind continued to whoop from town to castle, cutting a broad swath, rooting out supporters of the Disciple. They captured Simballawein and roared on into Ipopotam.
The military governor of the occupied provinces let them spend their vigor and spirit. Once they were far away, he collected scattered formations and reoccupied Libiannin, putting all unbelievers to the sword.