Dave’s horse trampled a svart alfar, even as his axe severed the raking horn of a dark green slaug. He felt a pain in his thigh; ignored it; killed, with a mighty blow of his fist, the dagger-wielding svart that had slashed him. He heard Levon grunt with exertion, and he wheeled just in time to crash his mount into the side of the slaug menacing the Aven’s son. Levon dispatched the unbalanced urgach with a sweep of his blade.
There were two more behind it, and half a dozen of the svart alfar. Dave didn’t even have room to stay with Levon. In front of him three more of the slaug pressed forward, over the body of the one whose horn he’d smashed. Dave fell back a couple of paces, sick at heart. Beside him, Levon was doing the same.
Then, disbelieving, Dave heard the ceaseless shrieking of the svart alfar rise to a higher pitch. The largest of the urgach advancing on him roared a sudden desperate command, and a moment later, Dave saw a space suddenly materialize on his left, beyond Levon, as the enemy fell back.
And then, even as it appeared, the space was filled by Matt Sören, King of the Dwarves, fighting in grim, ferocious silence, his clothing shredded, saturated with blood, as he waded forward over the bodies of the dead to lead the Dwarves into the gap.
“Well met, King of Dwarves!” Ivor’s voice rose high over the tumult of battle. With a glad cry Dave thrust forward, Levon just ahead of him, and they merged with Matt’s forces and began to advance again.
Ra-Tenniel, dazzlingly swift on the raithen, was suddenly beside them as well. “How are they doing on the left?” he sang out.
“Aileron sent us this way. He says they will hold!” Matt shouted back. “I don’t know for how long, though. Galadan’s wolves are on that side. We have to break through together and then circle back west!”
“Come on, then!” Levon screamed, moving past them all, leading them northward as if he would storm the towers of Starkadh itself. Ivor was right beside his son.
Dave kicked his own mount ahead, hastening to follow. He had to stay close: to guard them if he could, to share in whatever happened to them.
He felt a wind suddenly. Saw a vast, onrushing shadow sweeping across Andarien.
“Dear gods!” Sorcha cried, by Dave’s right hand. There came a tremendous roaring sound.
Dave looked up.
At dawn Leila woke. She felt feverish and afraid after a terrible, restless night. When Shiel came to get her, she told the other priestess to lead the morning chants in her stead. Shiel took one look at Leila and went away without a word.
Pacing the narrow confines of her room, Leila struggled to hold the images that were flashing into her mind. They were too quick, though, too violently chaotic. She didn’t know where they were coming from, how she was receiving them. She didn’t know! She didn’t want them! Her hands were damp and she felt perspiration on her face, though the underground rooms were as cool as they always were.
The chanting ended under the dome. In the sudden silence she became conscious of her own footsteps, the rapid beating of her heart, the pulsing in her mind—all seemed louder, more insistent. She was afraid now, more so than she had ever been.
There was a tapping at her door.
“Yes!” she snapped. She hadn’t meant to say it that way.
Timorously, Shiel opened the door and peeped in. She did not enter the room. Her eyes grew wide at the sight of Leila’s face.
“What is it?” Leila said, fighting to control her voice.
“There are men here, Priestess. Waiting by the entranceway. Will you see them?”
It was a thing to do, an action to take. She brushed past Shiel, walking swiftly down the curving corridors toward the entrance to the Temple. There were three priestesses and a dun-robed acolyte waiting there. The doors were open, but the men waited patiently outside.
She came to the threshold and saw who was there. She knew all three of them: Gorlaes the Chancellor, Shalhassan of Cathal, and the fat man, Tegid, who had been so much in attendance while Sharra of Cathal had been here. “What do you want?” she said. Again her voice was harsher than she meant it to be. She was having a hard time controlling it. It seemed to be a bright day outside. The sun hurt her eyes.
“Child,” said Gorlaes, not hiding his surprise, “are you the one who is acting as High Priestess?” “I am,” she answered shortly, and waited. Shalhassan’s expression was different, more quietly appraising. He said, “I have been told about you. You are Leila dal Karsh?”
She nodded. Shifted a little sideways, to be in the shade.
Shalhassan said, “Priestess, we have come because we are afraid. We know nothing, can discover nothing. I thought it was possible that the priestesses might somehow have tidings of what is happening.”
She closed her eyes. Somewhere, at some level, in the normal weaving of these things, this should be taken as a triumph—the leaders of Brennin and Cathal coming to the sanctuary thus humbly. She was aware of this but couldn’t summon up the appropriate response. It seemed lifetimes removed from the brittle fevers of this day.
She opened her eyes again and said, “I, too, am afraid. I know very little. Only that… something is happening this morning. And there is blood. I think they are fighting.”
The big man, Tegid, made a rumbling sound deep in his chest. She saw anguish and doubt in his face. For an instant longer she hesitated; then, drawing a deep breath, she said, “If you like, if you offer blood, you may enter within. I will share whatever I come to know.”
All three of them bowed to her.
“We will be grateful,” Shalhassan murmured, and she could hear that he meant it.
“Shiel,” she said, snapping again, unable not to, “use the knife and the bowl, then bring them to the dome,”
“I will,” Shiel said, with a hardiness rare for her.
Leila didn’t wait. Another inner vision sliced into her mind like a blade and was gone. She strode from the doorway, stumbled, almost fell. She saw the frightened eyes of the acolyte, as the young one backed away from her. Young? a part of her mind registered. The girl was older than she was.
Leila went on, toward the dome. Her face was bloodless now. She could feel it. And could feel a dark, cold fear rising within her, higher and higher all the time. It seemed to her that all around her as she went, the sanctuary walls were streaming with blood.
Paul tried. He wasn’t a swordsman, nor did he have Dave’s tremendous size or strength. But he had his own anger, and courage to spare, sourced in a driven nature, infinitely demanding of himself. He had grace and very fast reflexes. But swordsmanship at this level was not a thing one mastered overnight, not matched against urgach and Galadan’s wolves.
Through the whole of the morning, though, he stayed in the heart of the battle on the western flank, fighting with a passionate, coursing renunciation.
Ahead of him he saw Lancelot and Aileron dismount, side by side, the better to wade, swords blurred with intricate flashing speed, among the giant wolves. He knew that he was seeing something never to be forgotten, excellence on a scale almost unimaginable. Lancelot was fighting with a glove on his burned hand, that the hilt of his sword might not dig into the wound. The glove had been white when the morning began, but already the palm of it was soaked through with blood.
On either side of Paul, Carde and Erron were fighting savagely, slashing through the svart alfar, battling the wolves, holding back, as best they could, the terrible mounted urgach. And, Paul was painfully aware, doing their best to guard him all the time, even as they fought for their own lives.
He did the best he could. Bending on either side of his horse’s neck to thrust and cut with the sword he carried. Seeing a svart fall under one blow, a wolf draw back, snarling, from another. But even as that happened, Erron had been forced to whirl, with his lithe speed, to skewer another svart that had been leaping for Paul’s exposed side.