Domes of Fire Part 39

'Pick the best one you can. If Sephrenia has to bring down the cave-mouth, I'd like to have you all back where it's safe.' Talen nodded.

'Be careful, Sparhawk,' Ehlana said to him, embracing him fiercely.

'Always, love.'

Sephrenia had also embraced Vanion, her admonition echoing Ehlana's. 'Now go, both of you,' she added.

'Yes, little mother,' Sparhawk and Vanion said in unison.

The two knights started back down the canyon. 'You don't approve, do you, Sparhawk?' Vanion asked gravely.

'It's none of my business, my friend.'

'I didn't ask if it was any of your business, I asked if you approved. There wasn't any other way, you know. The laws of both our cultures prohibit our marrying.'

'I don't think the laws apply to you two, Vanion. You both have a special friend who ignores the laws when she chooses to.' He smiled at his old friend. 'Actually, I'm rather pleased about it. I got very tired of seeing the pair of you moping about the way you were.'

'Thanks, Sparhawk. I wanted to get that out into the open. I'll never be able to go back to Eosia, though.'

'I'd say that's no great loss under the circ.u.mstances. You and Sephrenia are happy, and that's all that matters.'

'I'll agree there. When you get back to Chyrellos, try to put the best face on it you can, though. I'm afraid Dolmant will burst into flames when he hears about it.'

'He might surprise you, Vanion.'

Sparhawk was a bit startled to discover that he still remembered a few words in Troll. Ulath stood in the centre of their narrow gap, bellowing at the forest in that snarling tongue.

'What's he saying?' Kalten asked curiously.

'It wouldn't translate very well,' Sparhawk replied. 'Trollish insults lean heavily in the direction of body functions.'

'Oh. Sorry I asked.'

'You'd be a lot sorrier if I could translate,' Sparhawk said, wincing at a particularly vile imprecation Ulath had just hurled at the Trolls.

The Trolls, it appeared, took insults very seriously. Unlike humans, they seemed not to be able to shrug such things off as no more than a customary prelude to battle. They howled at each new sally from the big Genidian Knight. A number of them appeared at the edge of the wood, foaming at the mouth and stamping in rage.

'How much longer before they charge?' Tynian asked his tall blond friend.

'You can't always tell with Trolls,' Ulath replied. 'I don't think they're accustomed to fighting in groups. I can't say for sure, but I think one of them will lose his temper before the others, and he'll come rushing at us. I'm not positive if the others will follow.'

He roared something else at the huge creatures at the forest's edge. One of the Trolls shrieked with fury and broke into a shambling, three-legged run, brandishing a huge club in his free hand. First one Troll, then several others, began to run after him. Sparhawk glanced around, checking the positions of his archers. Khalad, he noted, had given his crossbow to another young Pandion and stood coolly sighting along the shaft of the javelin resting across the centre of his improvised engine.

The Troll in the lead was swinging wildly at the sharpened stakes with his club, but the springy saplings bent beneath his blows and then snapped back into place. The enraged Troll lifted his muzzle and howled in frustration.

Khalad cut the rope holding his over-sized bow drawn back. The limbs of the bow snapped forward with an almost musical tw.a.n.g, and the javelin shot forward in a long, smooth arc to sink into the Troll's vast, furry chest with a meaty-sounding 'chunk!' The Troll jerked back and stood staring stupidly at the shaft protruding from his chest. He touched it with one tentative finger as if he could not even begin to understand how it had got there. Then he sat down heavily with blood pouring from his mouth. He grasped the shaft feebly with both hands and wrenched at it. A fresh gush of blood burst from his mouth, and he sighed and toppled over on one side.

'Good shot,' Kalten called his congratulations to Sparhawk's squire, who, with the help of two other young Pandions, was already re-c.o.c.king the engine.

'Pa.s.s the word to the other archers,' Khalad called back. 'The Trolls stop when they come to those stakes. They don't seem to be able to understand them, and they make perfect targets when they're standing still like that.'

'Right.' Kalten went to the archers on one side of the canyon and Bevier to the other to pa.s.s the word along. The half-dozen or so Trolls who had followed the first one paid no attention to his fall and lunged on forward towards the field of sharpened stakes.

'We might have a problem, Sparhawk,' Tynian said. 'They're not used to fighting in groups, so they don't pay any attention to casualties. Ulath says that they don't die of natural causes, so they don't really understand what death's all about. I don't think they'll back away just because we kill all their comrades. It's not like fighting humans, I'm afraid. They'll make one charge, and they'll keep coming until they're all dead. We may have to adjust our tactics to take that into account.'

More Trolls came out of the trees, and Ulath continued to shout obscenities at them. Kalten and Bevier returned.

'I just had a thought,' Kalten said. 'Ulath, will the females attack too?'

'Probably.'

'How do you tell the females from the males?'

'Are you having urges?'

'That's disgusting. I just don't want to kill women, that's all.'

'Women? These are Trolls, Kalten, not people. You can't tell a female from a male unless she's got cubs with her-or unless you get very, very close to her-and that's not a good idea. A sow will tear off your head just as quickly as a boar will.'

The Genidian went back to shouting insults. More Trolls joined the charge, and then, with a vast roar, the entire edge of the woods erupted with the monsters. They did not pause, but joined the loping herd.

'That's it,' Ulath said with a certain satisfaction. 'The whole pack's committed now. Let's go get our horses.'

'They ran back to join the others as the several Cyrinics firing Bevier's improvised catapults and the Pandions working Khalad's engine began to launch missiles at the oncoming Trolls. The archers at the canyon walls rained arrows into the s.h.a.ggy ranks. Some Trolls fell, riddled with arrows, but others continued the charge, ignoring the shafts sticking out of them.

'I don't think we can count on their breaking and running just because their friends have been killed,' Sparhawk told Vanion and the others as he hauled himself onto Faran's back.

'Friends?' Stragen said mildly. 'Trolls don't have friends, Sparhawk. They aren't even particularly fond of their mates.'

'What I'm getting at is the fact that this is all going to be settled in one fight,' Sparhawk said to them. 'There probably won't be a second charge. They'll just keep coming until they break through or until they're all dead.'

'It's better that way, friend Sparhawk,' Kring said with a wolfish grin. 'Protracted fights are boring, wouldn't you say?'

'I wouldn't say that, would you, Ulath?' Tynian asked mildly.

The knights moved into formation, their lances at the ready as the Trolls continued their bellowing advance. The first half-dozen or so Trolls that had been in the forefront of the charge were all down now, either dead or dying of arrow wounds, and the front rank of the bellowing horde was faltering as sheets of arrows struck them. The Trolls at the rear, however, simply ran over the top of their mortally wounded companions. Mouths agape and fangs dripping, they charged on and on.

The sharpened stakes served their purpose well. The Trolls, after a few futile efforts to break through the bristling forest, were forced into the narrow corridor where they were jammed together and milled impatiently behind the brutes who were leading the charge as Tynian's sharpened pegs protruding from the ground slowed the rushing advance of the leaders. Not even the most enraged creature in the world charges very well on sore paws.

Sparhawk looked around. The knights were drawn up into a column, four abreast, and their lances were all slightly advanced. The Trolls continued their limping charge up the gap until the first rank, also four abreast, reached the end of the stake-lined corridor where it opened out into the basin.

'I guess it's time,' he said. Then he rose up in his stirrups and roared 'Charge!'

The tactic Sparhawk had devised for the Church Knights was simple. They would charge four abreast into the face of the Trolls as soon as the creatures came out into the basin. They would drive their lances into the first rank of Trolls and then veer off, two-by-two, to the sides of the gap so that the next rank of four could make their charge. Once they had moved out of the way, they would return to the end of the column, take up fresh lances and proceed in an orderly fashion to the front rank again. It was, in effect, an endless charge. Sparhawk was rather proud of the concept. It probably wouldn't work against humans, but it had great potential in an engagement with Trolls.

s.h.a.ggy carca.s.ses began to pile up at the head of the gap. A Troll, it appeared, was not guileful enough to play dead. He would continue to attack until he died or was so severely injured that he could not continue. After several ranks of the knights had struck the Trollfront, some of the brutes had as many as four broken-off lances protruding from them. Still the monsters came, clambering over the bleeding bodies of their fellows.

Sparhawk, Vanion, Kalten and Tynian made their charge. They speared fresh Trolls in the raging front, snapped off their lances with well-practise twists of their arms and veered off to the sides.

'Your plan seems to be going well,' Kalten congratulated his friend. 'The horses have time to rest between charges.'

'That was part of the idea,' Sparhawk replied a bit smugly as he took a fresh lance from the rack at the rear of the column.

The storm was nearly on them now. The howling wind shrieked among the trees, and lightning staggered down in brilliant flashes from the purple clouds. Then, from back in the forest there came a tremendous bellow.

'What in G.o.d's name was that?' Kalten cried. 'Nothing can make that much noise!'

Whatever it was, was huge, and it was coming toward them, crushing the forest as it came. The raging wind carried a foul, reptilian reek as it tore at the visored faces of the armoured knights.

'It stinks like a charnel-house!' Tynian shouted over the noise of the storm and the battle.

'Can you tell what it is, Vanion?' Sparhawk demanded.

'No,' the Preceptor replied. 'Whatever it is, it's big, though-bigger than anything I've ever encountered.' Then the rain struck in driving sheets, obscuring the knights' vision and half-concealing the advancing Trolls.

'Keep at them!' Sparhawk commanded,in a great voice. 'Don't let up.'

The methodical charges continued as the Trolls doggedly pushed through the mud into the killing zone. The strategy was going well, but it had not been without casualties. Several horses were down, felled by club strokes from wounded and enraged Trolls, and a few armoured knights lay motionless on the rain-swept ground.

Then the wind suddenly dropped, and the rain slackened as the calm at the centre of the storm pa.s.sed over them.

'What's that?' Tynian shouted pointing beyond the howling Trolls: It was a single, incandescent spark, brighter than the sun, and it hung just over the edge of the forest. It began to grow ominously, swelling, surging, surrounded by a blazing halo of purplish light.

'There's something inside it!' Kalten yelled.

Sparhawk strained to see, squinting in the brilliant purple light that illuminated the battle-ground. 'It's alive,' he said tersely. 'It's moving.'

The ball of purple light swelled faster and faster, and blazing orange flames shot out from the edges of it. There was someone standing in the centre of that fiery ball-someone robed and hooded and burning green. The figure raised one hand, opened it wide, and a searing bolt of lightning shot from that open palm. A charging Cyrinic Knight and his horse were blasted into charred fragments by the bolt.

And then, from behind that searing light, an enormous shape reared up out of the forest. It was impossible that anything alive could be so huge. The head left no doubt that the creature was reptilian. The huge head was earlessly sleek, scaly and had a protruding, lipless muzzle filled with row after row of back-curving teeth. It had a short neck, narrow shoulders and tiny forepaws. The rest of the body was mercifully concealed by the trees.

'We can't fight that thing!' Kalten cried. The hooded figure within the ball of purple and orange fire raised its arm again. It seemed to clench itself, and then again the lightning shot from its open palm-and stopped, exploding in midair in a dazzling shower of sparks.

'Did you do that?' Vanion shouted at Sparhawk.

'Not me, Vanion. I'm not that fast.'

Then they heard the deep, resonant voice chanting in Styric. Sparhawk wheeled Faran to look. It was Zalasta. The silvery-haired Styric stood partway up the steep slope on the north side of the canyon, his white robe gleaming in the storm's half-light. He had both arms extended over his head, and his staff, which Sparhawk had thought to be no more than an affectation, blazed with energy. He swung the staff downward, pointing it at the hooded figure standing in its fiery nimbus. A brilliant spark shot from the tip of the staff and sizzled as it pa.s.sed over the heads of the Peloi and the armoured knights to explode against the ball of fire. The figure in the fire flinched, and once more lightning shot from its open palm, directed at Zalasta this time. The Styric brushed it disdainfully aside with his staff and immediately responded with another of those brilliant sparks of light which shattered like the last on the surface of the ball of fire. Again the hooded one inside its protecting fire flinched, more violently this time. The gigantic creature behind it screamed and drew back into the darkness. The Church Knights, dumbfounded by the dreadful confrontation, had frozen in their tracks.

'We have our own work to attend to, gentlemen!' Vanion roared his reminder. 'Charge!'

Sparhawk shook his head to clear his mind. 'Thanks, Vanion,' he said to his friend. 'I got distracted there for a moment.'

'Pay attention, Sparhawk,' Vanion said crisply in precisely the same tone he had always used on the practice field years before when Sparhawk and Kalten had been novices.

'Yes, my Lord Preceptor,' Sparhawk replied automatically in the self-same embarra.s.sed tone he had used as a stripling.

The two looked at each other, and then they both laughed.

'Just like old times,' Kalten said gaily. 'Well then, why don't we go Troll-hunting and leave the incidentals to Zalasta?'

The knights continued their endless charge and the two magicians continued their fiery duel overhead. The Trolls were no less savage now, but their numbers were diminished and the huge pile of their dead impeded their attack. The b.l.o.o.d.y work on the ground went on and on while the air above the battleground sizzled and crackled with awful fire.

'Is it my imagination, or is our purple friend up there getting a little pale and wan?' Tynian suggested as they took up fresh lances once more.

'His fire's beginning to fade just a bit,' Kalten agreed. 'And he's taking longer and longer to work himself up to another thunderbolt.'

'Don't grow over-confident, gentlemen,' Vanion admonished them. 'We still have Trolls to deal with, and that oversized lizard's still out there in the forest.'

'I was trying very hard not to think about that,' Kalten replied.

Then, very suddenly, as suddenly as it had expanded, the bit of purple-orange fire began to contract. Zalasta stepped up his attack, the fiery sparks shooting from his staff in rapid succession to burst against the outer surface of that rapidly constricting nimbus like fiery hail. Then the blazing orb vanished.

A cheer went up from the Peloi, and the Trolls cheered. Khalad, his face strangely numb, set another javelin on his improvised engine and cut the rope to unleash his missile. The javelin sprang from the huge bow, and as it sped forward it seemed to ignite, and it blazed with light as it arced out higher and farther than any of the young man's previous shots had done.

The great lizard rearing up out of the forest roared, its awful mouth gaping. And then the burning javelin took it full in the chest. It sank deep, and the hideous creature shrieked a great cry of agony and rage, its tiny forepaws clutching futilely at the burning shaft. And then there was a heavy, m.u.f.fled thud within the monster's body, a confined explosion that shook the very ground. The vast lizard burst open in a spray of b.l.o.o.d.y fire, and its ripped remains sank twitching back into the forest. A nebulous kind of wavering appeared at the edge of the trees, a wavering very much like the shimmer of heat on a hot summer day, and then they all saw something emerging from that shimmer. It was a face only, brutish, ugly and filled with rage and frustration. The s.h.a.ggy face sloped sharply back from its fang-filled muzzle, and the pig-like eyes burned in their sockets. It howled-a vast howl that tore at the very air. It howled again, and Sparhawk recoiled. The wavering apparition was bellowing in Trollish again it howled, its thunderous voice bending the trees around it like a vast wind.

'What in G.o.d's name is that?' Bevier cried.

'Ghworg,' Ulath replied tensely, 'the Troll-G.o.d of Kill.'

The immortal beast howled yet again, and then it vanished.

Chapter 23.

All semblance of co-operation among the Trolls vanished with the disappearance of Ghworg. They were not, as Ulath had so frequently pointed out, creatures which normally ran in packs, and without the presence of the G.o.d to coerce them into semi-unity, they reverted to their customary antagonism toward each other. Their charge faltered as a number of very nasty fights broke out in their ranks. These fights quickly spread, and within moments there was a general brawl in progress out beyond the mouth of the canyon.

'Well?' Kalten asked Ulath.

'It's over,' the Genidian Knight shrugged, '-at least our part of it is. The riot among the Trolls themselves might go on for quite a while, though.'

Kring, it appeared, had reached the same conclusion, and his Peloi moved purposefully on the heaps of Trollish casualties, their sabres and lances at the ready. Khalad was still standing behind his roughly constructed engine, his face blank and his eyes unseeing. Then he seemed to awaken.

'What happened?' he asked, looking around with some confusion.

'You killed that big reptile, my young friend,' Tynian told him. 'It was a spectacular shot.'

'I did? I don't remember even shooting at it. I thought it was out of range.'

Zalasta had come down from the sloping side of the canyon with a look of satisfaction on his beetle-browed face. 'I'm afraid I had to override your thoughts for a few moments there, young sir,' he explained to Sparhawk's Squire. 'I needed your engine to deal with the thunder beast. I hope you'll forgive me, but there wasn't time to consult with you about it.'

'That's quite all right, learned one. I just wish I'd been able to see the shot. What kind of beast was it?'