Roger Taylor - Into Narsindal

The remark had struck through to Sylvriss’s heart in some way and she left silently.

She had found no solace with Gulda either. The comforting form of the old woman was nowhere to be seen and her tent stood strangely still and silent under the noisy, pelting rain, as if it were a faded picture in an ancient book of tales.

Now, Sylvriss ran forward to the leader of the group entering the camp. His face was grey with strain.

‘Oslang, what’s happened?’ she cried out.

Oslang looked at her distantly and then, with diffi-culty, focused on her.

‘What’s happened?’ she repeated almost desperately. ‘Why are all your people here?’

‘They’re gone,’ Oslang replied uncertainly after a moment.

‘Gone? Who’s gone?’ Sylvriss exclaimed.

Oslang leaned against the wooden palisade and slowly sank down on to the wet ground. Ryath answered for him. ‘The Uhriel, lady. They’ve gone.’ His voice too, was weak.

Sylvriss put her fingers to her temples in an effort to understand what she was hearing.

‘They’re defeated?’ she said. ‘The Uhriel are de-feated?’

‘They’re gone, lady.’ Ryath repeated Oslang’s words indifferently as he sat down on the damp earth beside him and, closing his eyes, turned his face up into the rain. ‘Whether fled or dead we don’t know, but their horror menaces us no more.’

Sylvriss’s bewildered expression slowly changed to one of triumph, then it darkened. ‘If they’re gone, why are you here?’ her voice was strident with reproach. ‘Why aren’t you on the field? Using your power on the enemy as Oklar did on Vakloss?’

Oslang started, as if out of a trance. He looked up at her, his face grim and angry. ‘We cannot,’ he said coldly.

‘Cannot?’ Sylvriss echoed. ‘Cannot, or will not do you mean?’ Her hand clutched at her child and her mouth curled into a vicious snarl. ‘Would you protect His army with your misguided compassion, Cadwanwr?’

Oslang’s own face became a mirror to the Queen’s in its savagery. ‘We cannot , lady,’ he said, his eyes blazing. ‘Do you think we’d stay our hand from anything that might bring an end to that horror out there?’

He struggled to his feet. The Queen’s anger abated a little at the effort this simple deed required.

‘We cannot lady,’ he said again, more softly. ‘We have the skill and the knowledge to redirect what is sent against us; even great Power. We know that now; these last hours have made us wiser by generations. But we are ordinary men. To use the Old Power as the Uhriel can use it would destroy our feeble frames before we brought down a fraction of that host.’

Sylvriss shook her head. ‘But they’re mortal men,’ she said uncertainly.

Oslang took her arm. ‘They’re mortal, surely,’ he said, more composed now. ‘As even is Sumeral. And, unlike Him, they were men. But they’re His limbs now. They exist in many planes, and their mortality is no longer that of ordinary men. We’ve done all we can.’

Sylvriss bowed her head before Oslang’s pain.

‘How goes the battle?’ she said without looking up.

‘The balance swings against us, I fear,’ Oslang said. ‘The enemy dead are legion, but they have such numbers.’

‘Be specific,’ the Queen said, looking up calmly.

Oslang met her gaze. ‘The lines hold,’ he said. ‘Infantry and cavalry. But they’re nearly surrounded, and the circle tightens despite the carnage.’

Sylvriss closed her eyes briefly as if to picture the scene. The Uhriel might be gone from the field, but, as all had known from the beginning, men must fight men. His army could prevail yet.

‘If need arises can you use such skill as you have with your Power to defend the injured in this camp?’ she asked urgently.

Oslang nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said, frowning. ‘For a while we could use the Power thus.’

Slowly Sylvriss lifted the straps of the baby’s sling from her shoulders and handed it to the Cadwanwr. Then, gently, she set aside its protective hood a little, and, removing her sodden glove, ran her finger over the warm, sleeping, face of her child.

‘I shall withdraw the squadrons guarding our south-ern flank, and those guarding the camp, and lead them into the battle,’ she said.

Oslang stared at her fearfully.

‘This day will not be won unless we commit our every resource,’ Sylvriss said simply, in answer to his unspoken question. She drew on her glove and straight-ened up. ‘Guard this camp as… Hawklan would,’ she said, smiling wanly. ‘And my… ’ Her voice broke a little. ‘… my baby… as I would. Forgive my reproach to you and your brothers. It was hasty and intemperate.’

Oslang folded his arms around the child and bowed.

‘Light be with you, Lady,’ he said hoarsely.

Denial screamed through every fibre of Hawklan’s body, but the cold words inside him allowed no escape.

‘Greatest of My Uhriel.’

Hawklan’s mind tumbled wildly in their icy wind. Only his hand tight about the hilt of his sword seemed still.

‘No,’ he cried out silently. ‘I am… Ethriss’s chosen. His hand snatched me from my very death to face you on this day.’

‘That hand was Mine, Hawklan. Ethriss spared none of his creations. I saw your true worth and I took you to be Mine when I should rise again. Now you have brought Me My enemies and destroyed those who betrayed Me by their weakness and folly. You are worthy indeed. Their mantle becomes yours. See your inheritance, and deny it if you can. ’

Hawklan struggled to cry out again, but around him suddenly were worlds of beauty and perfection where such a cry could not be uttered.

He gazed in wonder for a timeless age, at the silent, glittering, revelation. His heart sang out.

‘Thus shall Ethriss’s folly be remade .’

Silence.

‘It is without flaw,’ Hawklan whispered.

‘And it shall be yours .’

Silence.

‘Let slip Ethriss’s cruel goad, and come forward to the power and glory of your rightful place .’

Hawklan’s hand opened, and the black sword of Ethriss slipped from his grasp. He felt it falling, falling, falling, through the darkness of Ethriss’s flawed and swirling world until, with a ringing, sonorous, chime, it was gone.

The perfection closed about Hawklan and drew him forward.

But the ringing of the sword would not die. It ech-oed and re-echoed, growing upon itself, its beating, beating, rhythm, like the sound of powerful wings, shaking the perfection of His realm until it was but a faint shadow in a light that shone and danced with the great joy of being. At its heart swooped the black, familiar form of Gavor.

Sylvriss looked at the tableau in front of her. It was as Oslang had described. The appalling toll of the day, though scarcely distinguishable from the mud, now carpeted the entire field. Isolated groups were strewn about the field, some in savage hand-to-hand combat, some, larger, stabbing and thrusting from behind beleaguered shield walls.

But the greater part of the army, though intact, was struggling to prevent the encircling enemy closing about them.

Steadily they were losing ground, and against such numbers, exhaustion and sickness of heart must surely defeat them eventually.

Sylvriss checked her sword, then threw back her hood and let the rain fall cold about her head. She looked from side to side at her force: Fyordyn, Orthlundyn and Riddinvolk; cooks and clerks, ostlers and armourers; the just too old and the just too young who had been guarding the southern flanks of the force against the unknown strength that had cut their supply lines; and, not least, such of the wounded as could hoist themselves into the saddle.