Black Jade. David Zindell

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СКАЧАТЬ horn sounded, but the swells of earth separating us from the steppe beyond muffled the sound of it. The two forces of our enemy, I thought, would be meeting up on the grassy slope below the ridges and preparing to attack us.

      ‘We should see how they deploy,’ Kashak said to me. He pointed toward the ridge above us. ‘We could steal up to those rocks and see if you are right.’

      I nodded my head at this. And so leaving Kashak’s men behind with Kane, Atara, Maram and the Manslayers, Kashak and I picked our way up the ridge running in front of the second of the Ass’s Ears. As we neared the crest, we dropped down upon our bellies and crept along the ground for the final few yards like snakes. With the taste of dirt in my mouth, I peered around the edge of a rock, and so did Kashak. And this is what we saw:

      Out on the steppe, a quarter mile away, some forty of the Zayak warriors were arrayed in a long line below the ridge to the left of us where Bajorak had set up with his Danladi. They gripped their thick, double-curved bows in preparation for a charge and an arrow duel. The ten remaining Zayak, dismounted, gathered along the stream with the two score Red Knights, who would also fight on foot. I looked for the leader of these knights, encased in their armor of carmine-tinged mail and steel plate, but I could not make him out.

      ‘It is as you said!’ Kashak whispered to me. ‘It is as if you can look into Morjin’s mind!’

      No, I thought, I had no such gift. But Liljana did. At my request, she had used her blue gelstei one last time, seemingly to seek out the secrets of Morjin’s mind – and his intentions for the coming battle. And she had, in this invisible duel of thoughts and diamond-hard will, with great cunning, let him see our intentions: our company’s flight into the mountains with the Manslayers as an escort. That Kane, Maram, Atara and I remained behind, lying in wait with Kashak’s men and the rest of the Manslayers, she had not let Morjin see, or so I hoped. It was a ruse that might work one time – but one time only.

      Then one of the Red Knights below us raised up his arm, and another horn rang out its bone-chilling blare. The forty Zayak on their horses began their charge toward Bajorak and his warriors. And the Red Knights – bearing drawn maces or swords – began moving at the double-pace up between the two ridges.

      ‘They come!’ Kashak whispered to me.

      I remained frozen to the ground, gripping a rock with one hand and my sword in the other. The entire world narrowed until I could see neither mountain nor sky nor rocks running along the edge of the gray-green grasslands. I had eyes for only one man: he who led the Red Knights up along the stream cutting between the two ridges. His yellow surcoat blazed with a great red dragon. I felt the fury of the sun heating up my sword and a wild fire inside me, and I knew that this man was Morjin.

      ‘Lord Valashu, they come!’ Kashak whispered more urgently.

      He pulled at my cloak, and I nodded my head. We scuttled crablike down the slope a dozen yards before rising to a crouch and then running back down to join our companions.

      There were too few trees here to provide cover for all the Sarni. Kashak’s warriors grumbled at being ordered to hide behind them, while Karimah’s Manslayers almost rebelled at being asked to lie down behind some raspberry bushes. I stood with Kane, Maram and Atara behind a rock the size of a wagon. We waited for our enemy to appear in the notch down and around the curve of the stream.

      ‘Oh, Lord, my Lord!’ Maram sighed out to me. He fingered the edge of his drawn sword: a Valari kalama like the one that Kane held to his lips as he whispered fell words and then kissed its brilliant steel. ‘That Kashak was right, wasn’t he? It seems always to come to this.’

      I looked up to my left past the stream, at the ridge where Bajorak waited with his warriors. The curve of the ground obscured the sight of most of his small force, but I knew they were ready because I could see three of the Danladi nearest us. They pulled back their bowstrings as they sighted their arrows on the Zayak who would be riding uphill against them.

      ‘Why, Val, why?’ Maram murmured to me. ‘I should be sitting by a stream in the Morning Mountains, preparing to eat a picnic lunch that my beloved has made for me. Look at this lovely day! Ah, why, why, why did I ever consent to leave Mesh?’

      ‘Shhh!’ Kane whispered fiercely to him. ‘You’ll give us away!’

      I smiled sadly, for Maram was right about one thing: it was a beautiful day. In the hills behind us, birds were singing. The sun rained down a bright light upon the reddish rocks and the silvery green leaves of the cottonwood trees. Below us, along either bank of the stream and up the rocky slopes, millions of small white flowers grew. Atara called them Maiden’s Breath. A soft breeze rippled their delicate petals, which shimmered in the sunlight. It occurred to me that I should be picking a bouquet for Atara, rather than gripping a long sword in which gathered reddish-orange flowers of flame.

      We heard our enemy before we saw them, for as they advanced up the stream, they made a great noise: of boots kicking at rocks; of grunts and hard breath puffing out into the warm air; of interlocking rings of mail jangling and grinding against the sheets of steel plate that covered their shoulders, forearms and chests. And of twanging bowstrings, as well, as Bajorak’s warriors upon the ridge rained down arrows upon them. Steel points broke against steel armor and shields with a clanging terrible to hear. A few of these must have broken through to the flesh beneath for the air below the towering Ass’s Ears rang with the even more terrible screams of men struck down or dying. I wondered if Bajorak’s men were concentrating on the Red Knights or the more vulnerable Zayak warriors in their flimsy leather armor. And then our enemy rounded the curve of the stream and charged up the flower-covered slopes straight toward us.

      They did not see us until it was too late. I waited until they came close enough to smell their acrid sweat, and then I shouted out: ‘Attack!’

      Kashak’s men stepped out from behind the trees at the same moment that Karimah’s Manslayers lifted their bows over the tops of the raspberry bushes. With Atara, these archers were twenty in number, and they loosed their arrows almost as one. The first volley, fired at such short range, killed a dozen of the Red Knights and the Zayak. A few arrows glanced off red armor, but many found their marks through the Zayaks’ throats or chests, or straight through the Red Knights’ vulnerable faces. I shouted at Kashak’s men to keep to the cover of the trees, but in this one matter they did not heed me. They were Sarni warriors, used to battle on the open steppe, and they thought it shameful to hide behind trees. The second volley found our enemy better prepared; the knights covered their faces with their shields, while the Zayak warriors loosed arrows of their own at us. I grunted in pain as a long, feathered shaft slammed into my shoulder but failed to penetrate my tough Godhran armor. There was no third volley. With our two small forces so close to each other, our enemy’s leader shouted out for his men to close the distance and charge into us where the fighting would be hand to hand.

      With a chill that shot down my spine, I recognized this voice as belonging to Morjin. It was a strong voice, almost musical in its tone, and it vibrated with sureness and command. And with malevolence, vanity and a hunger for cruelty that made my belly twist with hot acids and pain. His face was Morjin’s, too: not, however, the aged, haunted countenance with the blood-red eyes and grayish, decaying flesh that I knew to be his true face, but rather that of his youth. He was fine and fair to look upon. His eyes were all clear and golden, and sparkled like freshly minted coins. His thick hair, the color of Atara’s, spilled out from beneath his carmine helm. Although not quite a large man, he moved with a power that I felt pulsing out across three dozen yards of ground. In truth, he fairly quivered with all the fell vitality of a dragon.

      Was it possible, I wondered, that he had somehow regained the power to deceive me with the same illusions that he cast СКАЧАТЬ