Robert Vardeman - Istu awakened

Rann's eagle, as gray as a cloudy sky, moved into the lead. The fourth bird was pure white. Its rider raised a gloved hand in salute to Fost as they took station on opposite sides of Nightwind. Fost waved back. Cerestan was a fool for coming along, but Fost was in no position to be critical.

Rann banked. Fost felt his bird tilt to follow the leftward turn, surging upward toward the City hanging above them, black against muttering storm clouds. He tried not to panic, tried not to think about losing his seat and tumbling end over end to the hard rocks below. He was strapped into the saddle and had both hands clinging to the harness. He looked up, up…

The sun reached down and drove its fist into the middle of the glacier.

As the solar prominence Istu had torn from the face of the sun bathed the glacier in flame, great clouds of steam billowed upward with a serpent's hiss magnified a millionfold. A groaning scream rang through Athalau, shaking loose great spires of ice, toppling ancient buildings. Men, women and children fled through the streets, covering their ears as they ran.

Zak'zar reeled back from the rimwall, shielding his eyes against the hellish brilliance. The Sky City began to rock with the force of the superheated steam boiling from below.

When the Speaker's eyes worked again, he beheld Istu standing braced on the rimwall, laughing and laughing as he raised his arms to bring down more sunfire.

Hot water washed down the nave of the Palace of Esoteric Wisdom and cascaded over the steps. The Ethereals did not stir as the tide came surging around them. They were one with the World Spirit and beyond feeling; some had turned dark, no longer touched with the green glow. These would never again feel physical agony.

'Princess.' The word was ground from a giant mill of agony. 'Princess, I… I melt! I cannot shield you much longer.' The words came scarcely less quickly than a human would have spoken, so great was Guardian's pain. 'Moriana, do something!' cried Ziore.

'I can stop the waters from flooding the city,' Moriana said, and this was done, the near-scalding tide receding until only an inch of cooling water swirled on the floor. 'But I cannot stop the burning.'

'If Synalon doesn't reach the City soon, we all shall die with Guardian.'

'Great merciful heavens,' cried Erimenes. 'What's going on?'

'They don't seem merciful to me. And I don't know,' snapped Fost, more intent on remaining on top of his eagle than on examining their plight.

There had come a blinding streak of light. It had been obscured at once by an explosion of steam. Only because the bird riders had flown to the eastern edge of Guardian were they saved from being scalded to death. Fost managed to blink back the green line of afterimage that split his sight, and he occasionally saw flashes of the fire streaming down from above through rents in the cloud as though a curtain were being drawn aside to give him a view of Hell.

He glimpsed motion to his right and looked that way. The gray eagle flapped alongside. Rann held up a gauntleted fist, then drove it upward and forward. The gray climbed away. 'What's that mean?' Erimenes asked. 'It means we go on.'

The steam-laden winds buffeted them like the fetid breath of Hell. The clouds proved a blessing; they were shielded from observation from above. But Fost wondered if they veered into that fall of sunfire.

Guardian struggled to retain life. 'Princess, the pain. I… I am almost pierced through.'

'I'm sorry. I can do nothing until my sister reaches the Sky City.' Moriana had the awful thought, if she does. If the sunflame didn't take her. Her and Fost. The thoughts were strong enough to stand out against the inchoate backgound of the World Spirit.

'I must die soon. I cannot be helped. But… save Athalau. I have done… done my best… to… guard… her.'

'I shall, good and faithful Guardian.' The words, 'If I can,' went unspoken.

Rann shot an arrow through the face that appeared, peering over a rimwall that loomed ghostly in the fog. Fost's eagle burst from the mist wing to wing with Nightwind. The giant black bird slashed a Hisser's head from his shoulders with a vicious stroke of his beak and shrieked triumph as he settled his claws once more on the gray-green stone of his home.

Rann's bird dropped toward a group of Vridzish racing to the wall. Rann shot another, cast aside his bow and leaped from the saddle as his bird came down like fury among the foe. Then Fost's own bird thumped to a landing. Fost forgot about the prince as he struggled to free himself from the safety strap before the half-dozen charging Zr'gsz reached him.

He had a powerful ally in the bird. Screaming in rage, it struck out with beak and talon, disembowelling and dismembering. But the wild movements threw Fost around in the saddle so furiously he couldn't free himself.

Then the bird stood alone amid black-bloodied corpses. Fost tore free the strap and jumped to the ground. His sword sang from its sheath. He felt power and control merge harmoniously within and knew he would fight well this day.

'Sister, I am ready!' he heard Synalon cry at his back. Cerestan engaged a knot of Hissers off to the left. More came at Fost, and he sprang to meet them with a roar of hatred.

His first blow tore apart one's face. His second took a clawed arm off at the shoulder. His third sent greasy ropes of intestines spilling about a Hisser's knees.

A whistling scream sounded and he saw his war bird reel back, blood fountaining from the stump of its neck. A huge Zr'gsz noble had taken the head off with a single stroke of an obsidian-edged sword. Fost ducked under the cut meant to remove his head; his sword slashed at the dark, bulging neck. He ripped his sword free and turned to face the lizard men streaming toward him with weapons in their claws.

There's no way out for me now,' he cried. 'So come ahead and we'll do this right! The Vridzish advanced.

The agonized screams of the glacier cut off as though severed by a knife. 'He's dead,' Ziore said, and began sobbing.

Though she felt the glacier's passing, Moriana never heard the nun. Her whole being strained to hold together under the terrific pressure of rapport with the World Spirit. It was like being twisted and pulled and compressed all at the same time, a million vectors tearing at her soul. She probed for her sister's mind and prayed she could hang on until contact was made.

As Erimenes predicted, Fost earned himself a place in the ballads that day. The spirit cheered hysterically from the jug while the tall man slew and slew like a figure out of legend. He used every trick of swordplay he knew, both fair and foul, and threw in alley fighting from boyhood days in Medurim. He hacked and stabbed and slashed, then smashed faces with his buckler. When an axe-blow split the shield, he hurled it in someone's face, picked up an abandoned shortsword and fought on tirelessly.

But Fost saw through the haze of blood and sweat in his eyes that Rann was the true hero. Fost fought with preternatural strength and fury, but Rann… Rann fought as no man ever had, nor would again. With scimitar in his left hand and his knife in the right, Rann walked among the Hissers like death incarnate. He disdained to parry, but no blade touched him. His weapons were in constant, blurring motion, the dagger picking at eyes and throats and exposed bellies; the scimitar slashed left and right and curved around the guard of an unsuspecting enemy to bring bloody death.

The tide of Hissers slackened. Fost staggered back against the wall. To his surprise he saw Cerestan still fought on. Synalon stood with arms upraised, straining to make contact with Moriana. Fost wondered how much longer any of them would be alive.

A figure strode down the narrow street, a green cloak flapping from its shoulders, a sword in hand. It stopped before the prince.