Roger Taylor: Into Narsindal

It was no Muster squadron, but it was all they had left, and she had spread the Riddinvolk through the ranks to help maintain its cohesion. ‘Courage and will would win this battle, not horsemanship,’ she had announced.

She lifted her lance high above her head.

At the signal a great fanfare of horn calls sounded above the din of the battle.

The pace drumming began and the line started to walk forward.

Tackle clinked and jangled.

Slowly, the drums increased the pace.

Trotting, then cantering, the hooves splashed through the sodden Narsindal earth. The fanfare sounded again, purposeful and menacing.

Sylvriss tightened her grip on her lance as her Rid-dinvolk soul responded to the urgency of the horse beneath her.

Then, the blasting horns and rattling drums gave way to the shouting and screaming of battle cries, and the line came to the gallop, thundering through the teeming rain, over the dead, and those living foolish enough not to flee.

Hawklan became a mote; a spectator.

He trembled as he felt the gathering of great and terrible power.

‘I had thought My last cast slew you, brother.’

The power was gathering still; drawn from all His many selves on many planes; frantically almost; its momentum seemingly uncontrollable.

‘My prince of ravens with his true sight, caught my spirit as it fled the Iron Ring. Now his spirit has wakened him You thought lost so that he may destroy You.’

‘Only you can destroy Me, brother, and you shall not this time, for now My power is undivided; unhindered by the tenancy of your flawed creations. Its totality is within and about Me now and it is gathered for your doom .’

There was a long silence, then, very simply: ‘I have nothing with which to oppose Your might.’

There was another time-rending silence.

‘YOU LIE!’

And the fullness of Sumeral’s power was unleashed.

‘GAVOR!’

Hawklan’s voice filled his own universe in his de-spair for the fate of his friend.

But the tiny winged figure was gone even as the Ancient Power of the Great Searing, jagged with the barbs of humanity’s every dark emotion, surged forth into the void where he had been. Only words lingered there.

‘I forgive You Your wickedness; forgive You me mine, I beseech You.’

Then they too were gone. Gone in the scream that rose into the grey misted sky of Narsindal and echoed out over the world beyond, and those other places that knew Him. The scream that came as His long-hoarded power flowed through His mortal frame and, being unopposed, slipped from its grasp and destroyed it utterly; the scream that came as He measured His folly in this deed, and, most terrible of all, the scream that came as Ethriss’s forgiveness rent His tormented spirit into a myriad gibbering shards.

As it reached and rolled over the awful battlefield, Sylvriss’s riders crashed into and over the crowded ranks of Mandrocs.

Hawklan swayed.

Faintly a voice spoke to him. ‘Sumeral and I were but aberrations in the Great Searing. Now He is spent utterly, and I am among you all, as I should be, and as I have been for many eons. Forgive me my folly, Hawklan. Live well, and light be with you.’

Hawklan reached out to ease the poignant pain in the voice.

Then, dwindling finally, very human. ‘Ah, prince, your touch is true. And it was good to soar awhile in the stout heart of your friend… It was… good… ’

‘Hawklan, Hawklan.’ A loud voice brought Hawklan back to the tumult of a solid, familiar, world. Someone was pulling at him desperately.

It was Andawyr. Hawklan, dazed, succumbed to the little man’s limping urgency.

The ground was shaking violently and a screaming wind was tearing at them as they staggered forward. Then the waters of the lake were boiling and foaming, and great waves began to spill across the causeway, threatening to wash them away.

Suddenly, out of the turmoil came figures running towards them. It was Yatsu and Isloman following Dar-volci. Without preamble, Yatsu seized the hobbling Andawyr, hurled him over his shoulder indecorously and sped off, splashing through the waves and leaping over yawning cracks. Isloman did the same for the still bewildered Hawklan despite a feeble protestation.

As they reached the end of the disintegrating cause-way, Hawklan looked up suddenly as if his name had been called. Briefly he saw three shadowy figures in the howling storm. Their hands were raised, in salute. Then they were gone, and a sound greater even than that of the destruction of the Viladrien over Riddin filled the air. Hawklan and the others fell to the ground, their hands over their ears in a vain attempt to shut out the appalling noise. In its wake, the shaking became so violent that the ground was rippling beneath them as if it were the surface of the lake.

The noise rose to a climax and then faded suddenly. The trembling of the ground faded with it and then all was still and quiet.

The four men lay motionless for a long time, until Andawyr looked up and whispered into the silence. ‘It’s over. He’s gone. I can feel it. He’s gone .’

‘And the Guardians have cracked the foundations of Derras Ustramel,’ Hawklan said. ‘I saw them… again.’

The thought triggered a memory. ‘Where’s…?’ he began.

He was interrupted by an oath from Andawyr who had scrambled to his feet and put his weight on his injured ankle.

‘The others are nearby,’ Yatsu said, wrongly antici-pating Hawklan’s question, as he reached out to support the hopping Cadwanwr. ‘Not in the best of shape, but alive. Those Mandrocs were rough. I was glad Dar-volci and Gavor were there.’

Hawklan raised his hands in self-reproach as a cas-cade of questions poured into his mind. Then came a surge of awful grief for his slaughtered friend. With an effort he set it aside. Time enough perhaps, to weep later, he thought.

‘Where’s… the woman? And Oklar’s body?’ he asked. ‘And Serian.’

Yatsu looked at him blankly.

‘They were here when I came to fetch you,’ Andawyr said. ‘She was still cradling his head and crying.’

‘Come and look at the others,’ Yatsu said urgently as Hawklan and Andawyr looked around vaguely. ‘Whoever you’re talking about wasn’t here when we arrived, and Jenna and Tirke need you now.’

As Hawklan tended to the casualties, the mist began to clear a little, though a dense cloud still hid the centre of the Lake. Other roads leading up to the broken causeway appeared; solid lines across the marshland.

‘To the great plain,’ Byroc said, indicating one.

Yatsu looked along it. ‘No food, no shelter, debat-able water and a long way to go through hostile territory,’ he said. ‘I’m open to suggestions.’

‘How about one foot in front of the other?’ Athyr said.

Yatsu nodded, then looked at his battered troops.

‘Where’s your sword, Hawklan?’ he asked.

Hawklan nodded towards the lake.

Yatsu shook his head. ‘Take Tirke’s for now,’ he said, putting his arm out to support Andawyr. ‘It’s better balanced for you than Jenna’s, and we mightn’t have finished fighting yet.’

They set off wearily, two being carried, several limp-ing, all too exhausted to talk.

A low, blood-red sun was sinking into the mist-shrouded west when a Muster squadron came upon them.

The following morning, Hawklan woke, aching and deeply weary. He was aware that the tale of the battle had been recounted to him on the journey back to the camp, but he had little recollection save that the Mandrocs had finally broken and fled under the onslaught of Sylvriss’s great charge, and now none were to be found anywhere.