David Zindell - Lord of Lies

The much larger middle ward held even more bodies. The garments of some of these had been doused in oil and set aflame. I was not sure that all of them had been dead when Morjin's men immolated them. Carts and wagons were smoldering, too, and bales of straw, barrels, heaps of spears and wooden swords, the timbers in the blacksmith's shop — any and all things that could be set on fire.

The gates to the keep had been battered into splinters and also put to the torch. Many knights had died trying to defend it. I dismounted Altaru and made my way inside. It was a charnel house. The stones in the halls were soaked with the blood of the many dead who had fallen there. More of my countrymen lay in bloody heaps in the various rooms. In the armory swords and spears had been snapped into pieces and cast upon a pile of corpses. The treasury was empty. In my room across the hall, I found Lord Rathald and his family. Lord Rathald, it seemed, had been killed trying to protect his daughter and his grandchildren, who were gathered in the corner behind his cold form. He still gripped his bloody kalama. I did not know why the Dragon Guard who had killed him left it in his hand.

Now I could bear my dread no longer, and I burst out into the hallway. I stumbled over a long line of bodies as I ran toward my parent's rooms crying out as loud as I could: 'Mother! Nona! Mother!' But the rooms were empty. I searched as well in the adjoining servants' quarters, and in the library and the kitchens. I called out for my mother and grandmother, many times. And then I swallowed my gorge and went into the great hall.

And there I found them. Two of the great, long tables had been shorn of their legs, and then upended and bound with ropes against the stone pillars holding up the roof. And my mother and grandmother had been fixed to these tables with nails. My mother was dead. Her tunic was torn with many bloody gashes; to either side of her, the table's wood was riven with deep slits. It seemed that the Dragon Guard, after they had crucified her, had used her for target practice with their spears.

But they had shown no such mercy to my grandmother: I saw to my amazement that she still lived. Blood oozed from her palms and bare feet; her breath barely filled her frail, old body as she struggled to speak to me.

'Valashu!' she gasped out.

I came up to her and kissed her feet. Great spikes of iron had been pounded through flesh and bones, deep into the table's wood.

'We've got to get you down from there!' I called to her. Her head had dropped upon her chest, and I looked up into her milky, blind eyes. 'Please, help me,' she said to me.

I drew my sword and cut the ropes holding fast the table. With a great heaving that nearly broke my back, I eased this great slab of wood onto the floor, between the bodies that lay there. I knelt beside my grandmother. I touched her quavering arms, her bloody hands. I could think of no easy way to pull her off the bent-over nails without further tearing her flesh.

'Who did this to you?' I cried out.

She gathered in a deep breath and murmured, It was. . Morjin. He said that he wanted you to know this. The traitor, Samelu — he held my wrists. And Morjin pounded in the nails.'

'Damn them!' I shouted. I shook my sword at the stones of the ceiling high above. 'Damn them to death!'

'Valashu — '

'Damn them! Damn them! Damn them!'

'Valashu, listen to me!' she pleaded. 'You must help me, please.'

I gripped my sword as I used my other hand to brush back the sodden white hair from her forehead.

'Help me to die in peace.'

I looked down through the blur of water in my eyes at my grandmother's beautiful face. In the soft, anguished lines, I saw to my wonder that there was no hate there. There was no resentment, either, nor anger at her fate — only a warm and overwhelming concern for me. For she, too, was a Valari warrior in her fierce, sweet spirit. And so she said to me, 'Promise me you won't waste your life in seeking vengeance.'

'But how can I not?' I shouted. My fury struck her like a blow, and I bit my lip to see her wince in pain. I lowered my voice and gasped out, 'How can I not slay Morjin?'

'Slay him if you must,' she said to me. 'But do it only because you must … for Ea's sake, not out of vengeance. Do not let the burning for his death destroy you.'

'But I — '

'Please, Valashu. Don't let him kill you this way.'

She fell still then, and I thought she had died. But I felt her heart beating, weakly, somewhere inside her.

Just then footsteps sounded along the hallway leading into the keep. Then Kane, Maram and Atara came hurrying into the room. 'Oh, my lord!' I heard Maram cry out. 'Oh, my lord!' It seemed that someone had told them of my father's death, and they had followed me up from the battlefield.

'We've got to get her off of here!' I said, laying my hand on my grandmother's wrist 'Help me.'

Atara descried a great, iron maul cast onto the floor near the body of a little boy whose brains had been bashed out. She went over and picked it up, and wiped the gore on the surcoat of one of the Dragon Guard, adding another stain of red to the bright yellow cloth. She brought the maul over to me.

'Why don't we try pounding out the spikes from the other side?' she said, tapping the maul against the table.

Kane, Maram and I made ready to lift the table off the ground, but just then, my grandmother opened her eyes. I knew that, somehow she could see the only part of me that really mattered. And she whispered to me, 'Promise me — please promise me.'

'All right,' I told her. 'I will.'

'Good,' she said. And then she died, too, joining my mother, father and brothers in that icy, black emptiness from which there is no return.

After that, we took down both my grandmother and mother from their mounts of wood. We laid them on the cold floorstones. I pulled the great black and silver swan banner off the wall, and covered them as with a shroud.

Then there came the sound of horses and men entering the middle ward outside. Kane told me that Sar Vikan and his knights had ridden up to the castle, too.

'Keep them out of here!' I said.

My grim-faced friend went out of the hall's southern doors for a few moments to confer with Sar Vikan, and then returned, shutting the doors behind him.

I began walking slowly around my slain people, toward the dais at the end of the hall. As I neared it, I had to step over a small wall of Morjin's knights and the Guardians who had fought them. Sunjay Naviru, in death, looked younger and smaller than I had remembered. Skyshan of Ki had fallen next to him, and Sar Kimball, Lord Noldru and many others. I climbed up the dais, where there were more of the enemy; a ring of dead Guardians fairly surrounded the white granite stand.

The Lightstone no longer rested upon it. In its place had been set a square of paper, topped by a piece of gold. I grasped both in my hand and tucked them down into my armor.

Maram came up to me and said, 'Maybe one of our knights secreted the cup on his person. Or had time to hide it, somewhere.'

I swept my sword down toward my dead knights. It glowed only dully. I pointed Alkaladur south, in the direction that Morjin would have ridden with the thousands of his Dragon Guard in order to escape from Mesh with the Lightstone. And its blade flared a bright silver.

'No, it is gone,' I said.

A shudder ripped through me as I tried not to fall writhing to the floor. It was as if one of Morjin's knights had chopped my legs out from under me and then gutted me with his sword.

Kane came over and placed his hand on my shoulder. 'So, then, we'll take it back! We'll ride after them and kill the Dragon!'

Atara shook her head at this. 'No, that's impossible, now.'

'You say that?' he growled out.