David Zindell - Lord of Lies

'Mandru!'

I urged Altaru forward, straight toward two Blues working their way behind Lord Tomavar's battalion. My sword took off the head of the first, and then I chopped down at the second, cleaving him from his neck through his thick body and out the opposite side. Other Blues came at me; one tried to vault off the ground and knock me from my horse. I killed them all. I turned to look for more victims for my sword. The enemy were all around me.

How easily a man is made into meat! With every stroke of my sword, it seemed, I cut someone else into pieces. Blood soaked the grass beneath me; it sprayed over me, reddening my hands, chest and face, and ran in rivulets from the grooves in Altaru's steel armor. I kept cutting and thrusting until my arm burned like a knot of fire, like the valarda burning inside me. And still men came at me trying to kill me.

And then a terrible scream split the air, and 1 looked through a mass of the Dragon Guards toward the frantically struggling warriors in Lord Tanu's battalion. Jonathay stood there. One of the Guards had thrust his spear through Jonathay's armpit and deep into his body. It drove all the sweetness from his face so that only agony remained. He fell beneath the boots of the Dragon Guard, and I did not see him rise again.

'Jonathay!'

Blood filled my eyes, and I pushed Altaru forward into the Dragon Guards. My sword cleaved the steel of their armor; I killed several of them. A spear rammed into my back, nearly knocking me out of my saddle. A sword slashed open the underside of my jaw. One of the Guard hammered his shield against my leg in a rage to break it. Altaru, in a rage of his own, let loose a great whinny as he wheeled and kicked out with his great hoof. He pulped the Guardsman's face and snapped back his head with a 'crack' loud enough to be heard above the great noise of the battle. Then he drove forward into another Guardsman and trampled him to death beneath his savage hooves.

Thus we fought for many minutes. Sar Vikan and the knights fought near me, too. None of them wielded lance or sword so well as Maram, who rode downS least five of the Dragon Guards before they could turn against the warriors in the broken Meshian line. Sar Jessu's reserve companies finally worked their way forward to fill up the gap between Lord Tanu's and Lord Tomavar's battalions. They drove their spears and shields against the enemy still trying to pour through. And suddenly, there was no one nearby left to slay.

'To me!' I called out. 'Sar Vikan! Maram! Knights, to me!'

Sar Vikan's company gathered to me. Twenty of them lay among the many hundreds of dead carpeting the grass. As many bore serious wounds. These, if they could ride, I sent off to the field infirmary a mile to the north, at the Meshian encampment behind the battlefield. Those who couldn't ride, I could do nothing for.

'Look!' Maram called to me. 'The line holds!'

The line of my countrymen fighting on foot in front of us, I saw, was holding — and more. Now nearly the whole of the Galdan and Sakayan armies had forced themselves as down into a funnel, as with Duke Malatam's knights at Shurkar's Notch. But there were a hundred times as many of this enemy, and the walls of the funnel were not immobile rock, but matchless Meshian warriors thrusting swords and spears as they pressed forward. The Galdan heavy infantry was packed together so closely with the mercenaries, with the Dragon Guard and the Blues, that they could hardly move. They could not lift their shields to protect their bodies against our long, sharp spear points; they could not raise their swords to parry our. murderous kalamas. The two wings of the V of the Meshian line began dosing upon them like jaws of diamond and steel.

'Your stratagem is working!' Maram said to me. 'I've never seen men fight so!'

In truth, the Meshians were now fighting like the well-drilled warriors they were — and with a fury that struck terror into Morjin's men. They locked their long, rectangular shields together like a wall and pushed at the enemy even as they pierced them with their spears or drew their tharams and stabbed these vicious short swords into their faces. Many of my countrymen had cast down both shields and spears; these fought with their long kalamas, which left hideous gaping wounds in the bodies of men wherever they fell. Those of Sakai who tried to push forward in desperation and break through our line, thin though it was, were cut to pieces. Our enemy could do little more than stand and die. 'Father,' I whispered. 'Mandru. Jonathay.'

Horns sounded from behind the mass of men in front of us, and knew that someone had ordered a retreat. The Galdan light infantry, I sensed, would be turning to withdraw, or panicking altogether, casting down their weapons and running. And the rest of the two armies caught in the funnel of death would want to run. But so many thousands caught like fish in a net could not so quickly break away

'This is our chance!' I said to Maram. 'Do you see?'

Just then, I caught a flash of gray and red to my left, and I turned to see Kane and Atara galloping behind our lines straight toward us Kane's mail, from neck to knee, was spattered with blood. But I saw that Atara's quiver was still full of arrows. She rode trusting to the sure-ness of Fire's quick stride, and I swallowed back a surge of fear to see her so helpless and blind.

'Val, why are you here?' Kane called out to me.

He reined in his horse and drew up in front of me. Somehow, Atara found her way to me, too.

'Asaru sent for me,' I told him. 'My father is dead.'

'So, I saw him fall, but I did not know that he walked the stars.'

Atara turned her beautiful face toward me. Her white blindfold showed splotches of red. She said to me, 'You shouldn't have come — why have you come?'

'I came to kill Morjin!' I shouted, shaking my sword at the sky.

'Ha, Morjin!' Kane growled out. 'We've sought him, too, for an hour, all across the left flank.'

'Who leads our knights there now?' I asked him.

'Lord Avijan.'

'And my brothers? What of Karshur? Have you seen Ravar?'

Kane's blazing eyes softened with sadness as he told me about them.

This is how Karshur died: Just as he pushed his lance through the chest of an Urtuk warrior, another dose by fired an arrow into his horse's side, causing this great beast to rear up in screaming agony. And in that moment, a charging Galdan knight collided with them. Karshur crashed to the ground, and his huge warhorse, Jurgarth, fell on top of him, crushing him to death.

This is how Ravar died: Just as he cast his throwing lance through the eye of an Urtuk captain, one of the captain's men fired an arrow through Ravar's forehead, killing him instantly.

Upon hearing this, I stared out at the armies battling in front of me. The din of clanging steel faded to a hiss. And I opened my mouth to cry out a single name in a shout that seemed to shake the world: MORJIN!

In that moment, Atara sat up straighter on her horse, and I knew that she had regained her second sight.

'There's a great chance here,' Kane said to me. He pointed toward Balvalam Hill, where Asaru's knights were slowly pushing back the massed Ikurian horse. 'Do you see? If we could break them, we could encircle the rest of the army. And kill Morjin, if he is there.'

'Let's ride then/ I said. I nodded at Maram, who nodded back So did Sar Vikan and several of his knights. 'Let's finish this, if we can.'

I nudged Altaru's sides, and my great-hearted horse fairly leapt into a gallop. Everyone followed me. We rode west behind our lines, turning toward the north as we neared Balvalam hill. We made our way straight into the snarl of knights and screaming horses there. The clash between Asaru's knights and the black-bearded Ikurians had degenerated into hundreds of individual battles, as knight fell against knight in a frenzy of stabbing lances and scything swords. Hundreds of men lay dead or dying on the bloodstained grass. Riderless horses wandered about looking for a way to escape the carnage all around them. We rode through this shrieking chaos seeking out Morjin or the lord and captains of the Ikurians — or anyone else we could find to cut down with our swords.