In the Eye of Heaven Part 51

When even Durand doubted that Radomor would ever return, hoofbeats shuddered in the air: very close. His eyes swept the gray void. For one breath, he would have swom that Radomor was already through-invisible. The ground throbbed in a hundred directions. He gaped, and then heard the screams explode behind him.

They had circled.Blades sleeted through men and horses.

Only a few paces from Durand, Radomor's Champion tore through the crowd, batting men down like scarecrows, nearer and nearer. With mace and fists and fingers ripping through armored knights, the Champion looked like a beast scaled in iron. As the brute took the last man in his fist and threw him from his seat, Durand found himself caught between the Champion and the son of Mornaway.

Durand clenched his teeth. "h.e.l.ls!"

The Champion loomed high, whipping his th.o.r.n.y mace down for Durand's head. Three spikes jutted from the inner face of Durand's shield. The Champion reared back, wrenching his mace free with a force that nearly tore the shield away. There could have been a bear in the man's hauberk. The mace whistled down, a single spine flickering through Durand's gauntlet and knuckles as he threw a parry high.

Durand jabbed his spurs home, the bay leaping clear as iron thorns swept past yet again. But, setting his teeth against terror, he knew mat he must not run. He turned back against the monster. The thing must not get by.

The Champion had already made to move on when Durand pitched back into its path. He was like a dog at a bull's ankles. Durand barged into the Champion; a disembodied throb roared from the man. He vibrated like his skin had been packed with bees. An obscene reek and a gray beard gushed from under the monster's helm.

Durand swung, but his hesitation cost him. The Champion's mace struck first: a claw of spikes tearing Durand's shield. The big man muscled the mace into a swing Durand could do nothing about. Hardwood thundered over his shoulder. Iron tines darted between the bones of his back.

For an instant, Durand was nowhere.Lolling.

He was drowning, gulping for air, doubling over against his will. He heard a whining, high, and the beehive roar. Some quarter of his mind waited like a falling man waits for the earth. Another part knew that a killing blow would fall in an instant, and he would be driven from Creation.

But he lived: long enough to wrench a glimpse from the chaos. A wedge of Radomor's men had driven through to Moryn. Knights of all sides surrounded the lean son of Mornaway. And Durand could see, in that instant, that the two sides were balanced. Radomor's Champion had turned his head. All at once, Durand saw that the man would hurl himself against this stalemate like a thunderbolt.

It would all be over.

Durand lashed out. The wild blow scrabbled from the Champion's shoulder. The monster twisted, unable to reach back, as Durand's second swing clipped his helm, catching and wrenching it round. The Champion flailed. Now, Durand reeled free. He swung again and again with blacksmith blows.

The thing would never reach Moryn.

A last strike clanged, and Durand rose in the stirrups, reversing his blade and, with the force of both fists, drove the point down into the brute's chest.

He meant to throw his weight behind the driving point, but the blade slipped deeper than he could understand, plunging like a fork into straw. A torrent of flies battered Durand's lips and eyelids. No blood erupted.

They were falling.

Durand landed hard in a belch of corruption: a tanner's midden, a putrid grave. Flies stormed around him, curling in his eyes, clotting his mouth and nostrils. Under his hands, the man was like rotten branches. Impossible. Durand scrambled, remembering only at the last instant to s.n.a.t.c.h his sword free. The blade came away dry.

Now, Durand was crawling at the bottom of a maelstrom of horses and flying muck. No one had time to look down, but Durand hardly noticed. He scrambled.

Then a great shape whirled high above him. Durand heard a roar, and a hail of iron-shod hooves stabbed down. He had to forget horror. He had to roll. He caught glimpses of green as hooves hammered from warding arms. Above it all, the red leopard of his attacker's crest seemed ready to leap over its master's shoulders. This was the duke himself.

The hideous will of the man bore down on Durand alone.

Suddenly, the hunchbacked duke was gone-a mighty storm sucked back into the clear blue Heaven. But the duke was only gathering himself. When his horse was clear, Radomor spun, a razor-edged axe flashing in his hand, and charged. Durand couldn't move for mud. The duke rode a hail of flying muck, and his axe flashed high.

Then a spray from another horse slashed across the duke's path. Hooves stamped down. Coensar's blue and white flashed. Durand tumbled and tore himself to his feet. There were limbs and men in that mud. He could be crushed as easily by friends as foes.

The duke and captain turned round each other, Radomor suddenly without a helm. The duke's beard jutted from a tight chain hood, his eyes flashing like spear-points. Coensar had cornered the hunter. Durand staggered from the tight gyre of the circling horses. If Coensar struck swiftly, the day was over.

Duke and captain circled shield to shield. Blows flickered through the rain with the snap and flash of lightning.

They swung apart, forcing Durand to pitch himself another few paces off just to keep clear. Their circle trampled the carca.s.s of Radomor's champion. Durand saw what looked to be ma.s.ses of crawling, muddy rags as a hoof shlupped shlupped from the corpse. from the corpse.

It was no even battle. Radomor needed only to delay his attacker. Any moment, some green b.a.s.t.a.r.d would spring from the crowd and spot his paymaster in trouble. But the duke was not waiting. His shining blade flashed out, biting deep into Coensar's shield. It could have had his arm. But, just for an instant, the face of the axe was trapped in the wood. Durand had a sudden flash of Cerlac's blade caught just the same in Hesperand.

Coensar seized his chance, ripping at the breaking shield, pitching the duke into Keening's arc: a flash with the bite of a siege engine. The blade skipped from ear to bad shoulder.

Even Durand stumbled with it.

In the instant that followed, Radomor managed to jam his spurs home, and his warhorse lurched out of the tight circle of the warriors' dance. Radomor's leopard shield tumbled from his fingers. He lolled; any other man would have fallen.

Silence and rain flooded into the churned s.p.a.ce between them.

Men looked to Coensar as though asking permission, but he only huddled over his saddlebow, watching.

Radomor turned from the lists. He should have been in the mud. Keening had struck like a thunderclap. The blow would have split an oak tree. Durand could hardly believe the duke was alive, but here he was-awake. He had lost, that much was certain, but he should have fallen.

There were scattered cheers.

As the duke rode, Durand saw his face: stiff with fury enough to keep his seat if every limb had been torn from him. He would never fall. And the Rooks were flapping into motion among the man's tents.

On the field, Yrlac's shocked host sagged away from the fight, and Moryn's men bounded close to Coensar, tipping their helms back and clapping his shoulders. Moryn himself, a few yards away, looked around like a man doubting his deliverance. Horses reared and knights, thrust their lances in the air. Only a neat step kept Durand from being trampled under by heedless comrades.

Durand glanced back through the rain toward the rebel duke. The Rooks had reached up to their master's hands, and a faint, clotted blackness poured from their lips. As Durand stared, he felt their strange sorcery tugging at the breath in his lungs.

Durand looked on, alone in horror. While the others slapped Coensar's shoulders, shadows came alive over the Duke of Yrlac, br.i.m.m.i.n.g-as he turned back toward the celebrating fools in the lists-in the sockets of his eyes. A snarl of bare teeth glinted in his beard. As Durand howled a warning, Radomor pitched his wild-eyed mount into a turf-shredding rush straight for Coensar.

Knights-shields loose, faces bare-began to turn. In a heartbeat, the duke would crash down on Coensar and his crowd of well-wishers. The duke stood in his stirrups, the b.l.o.o.d.y axe high.

At the very last, Coensar wrestled Keening around- hopeless.

But Radomor did not swing. A twitch sent him past Coensar and careering on to the Lord of Mornaway. Moryn was just turning round.

Too late, his men understood. Too slow, they sprang to close ranks. The duke's tall horse tore a gap. Moryn's mouth was a black hole in a white frame. Swords slapped Yrlac's armor. The wheeling axe met Mornaway's shoulder and chopped him down.

Yrlac rode through as Moryn cartwheeled to the mire.

Durand swayed where he stood. Killing the heir was pointless. Where was the boon? What was to gain? Rain poured down like misery. Ouen and Berchard jounced close and reached to hook him under the arms. Durand swore, shaking off their nursemaid hands. Radomor's green knights were whooping as they left the field. Durand looked for the spot where Lord Moryn lay and saw a crowd of his people. As Durand slogged toward them, he caught a glimpse through the screen of henchmen: Lord Moryn was pulling himself up from the mud.

"Great is the Lord of Dooms." A grin twitched across Durand's smeared face. Yrlac had not succeeded. Moryn had survived. They had won. The crown was safe, war averted, and all of them were free. Ouen and Berchard trotted into the celebration.

It was then, as they left him momentarily alone, that he heard something: a slender whisde.

He was alone for yards in every direction, and the thin shrieking sound rose from nearby.

Someone moaned, "No-o-o." "No-o-o."

The mangled form of the Champion lay only a few paces distant. The sounds piped from the carca.s.s. Or somehow beyond it. "It is enough. It should be enough," he heard. The dry shriek whistled on, arising from some deep place as though the flattened corpse lay over the gate of some vast catacomb.

Abruptly something slithered, real and palpable in the rain. Something moved among the clay rents and craters. Blackened tongues of linen retreated into the mouths cut by hoof and blade in the Champion's mail. Gray hair poured long and brittle as spider's webs from the iron cask of its helm.

All at once, the Champion levered itself from the mud. Durand was alone with the thing.

Its twin voices moaned, lost in their dark pa.s.sages below Creation.

Durand's hands jerked into the sign of the Creator. He couldn't turn away. "h.e.l.ls."

The creature turned. Its mount lurched onto the field beside it-though its eyes flashed. For a moment, the man's tall carca.s.s stood in the muck, dripping. The last long rags drew themselves in. The iron cask turned. Durand could see glints where his blade had struck it. For a moment, he felt himself under the eye of the man. He knew he could not fight this thing. Not now. But the towering Champion turned from him, finally, and swung onto its tall horse.

29 The Lion Snared

Your feet! The king, the king is standing!" said a voice. As the Champion rode from the field, Durand must have sagged. He found his hands in the mud. A wind had blown in from the sea, gusting strong enough to lift the trappers of fallen horses.

Berchard caught him under the arm. First, Durand saw Kandemar the Herald. The man was up, with his long trumpet in his hands and his tabard lashing. In the stands, Ragnal stood on wide-set legs. He had startled his oily flock of servitors. Around him, baffled lords and ladies- for and against the king-got to their feet as well, catching at hats and wimples. Prince Biedin looked from his place at his brother's elbow with a mollifying half-smile on his face, for the king himself wore a scowl.

With stiff fingers, Ragnal gestured to Kandemar, and, with one note of his slender trumpet, the pale Herald lanced the gale. Every man in Errest stopped silent and listened.

"Right," said the king into the empty wind. "It's done. Now we'll see the rest finished and know where we stand."

With this, the great man caught his flying cloak, and stalked from the box with starlings, lords and ladies following in his wake. The feast was set to begin as soon as the company could gather.

Now they would learn the result of all their labors.

CREATION FELL INTO darkness, tossing like a fevered giant. From the vast waste of the Westering Sea, came the greatest in a litany of storms. darkness, tossing like a fevered giant. From the vast waste of the Westering Sea, came the greatest in a litany of storms.

Durand tore a clean tunic from his packs as the gale s.n.a.t.c.hed and tugged at his tent. Beyond the loose-skinned drum of the tent, he heard the bark of laughter.

Durand knew the men's minds: Despite all the cunning games Radomor had played, he had lost. Radomor's tricks had left him with nothing, and few men would see valor in that last wild charge for Lord Moryn. Petulance. A man's honor demanded more: A fighting man accepted his doom.

And so they chuckled among the tents as they brushed their best surcoats and gossiped about the king's haste. They played games with the wind.

But Durand had seen the fury stamped on Radomor's features. He had seen the dead man climb from the muck and knew that nothing was over. Radomor would not rest.

He buckled on his sword, setting teeth at the protests of mace-tom shoulder, weeping cuts, and black bruises. Radomor and his creatures would not stop. No one was safe from the Col to the sea. And they all stood on the balancing point: a kingdom teetering on the stormy rock of Tern Gyre. The canvas round him slammed and thundered. His eye fell on the Green Lady's token, black in the shuddering dark.

He could not leave it behind.

The voices were gone. Other knights, with shield-bearers and servants to sponge and brush and comb, had moved more quickly. Whatever happened, he must be there. He must keep his eyes open and be ready.

Taking a deep breath, he stepped into an empty courtyard and was rocked by the wind. Some tents had blown down. One rolled and bounded through the gloomy yard. He was momentarily alone. Above the salt gra.s.s yard towered the keep of Tern Gyre. In the wind, Durand saw things: eye-corner shadows that vanished when he turned. Firelight shivered in the narrow windows of the fortress. The Rooks would be slinking through the keep. Radomor's Champion would be poised above the high table. In his mind's eye, Durand saw Radomor sitting on that Ferangore throne. Creation rolled and thundered, full of rain.

A mouth of stone yawned in the keep's flank. Beyond was a stair. Durand pitched himself through the wind and slammed the great door behind him.

Beyond the whistles of the muzzled storm, Durand now heard Biedin's feast upstairs. But, as he listened to their blithe laughter, he flinched from something much closer at hand. The shadows around him seemed to be rustling-small living movements-like moths' wings.

He caught hold of his blade, thinking that, even after all that had happened, he must be mad to be in this place where the rage of Duke Radomor and the schemes of his Rooks had Creation itself boiling like a cauldron.

"I'll see where they've put us." It was Lamoric, his voice hammered flat by the length of a staircase. "Wait a moment."

Deorwen waited alone on the threshold of Radomor's Great Council.

Durand cursed himself. She should not be in this place. He mounted the stair. Some of the lads could get her out and safe. There might still be time.

"Deorwen-" he began, reaching out.

But a great hand caught him, and Ouen was smiling down, gold teeth winking.

"Durand, lad. Come inside, why don't you?" He was grinning, but his grip was tight enough to pop seams. "There's a place with us. Lamoric's just stepped inside to see where the Marshal of the Hall plans to sit them."

Durand glanced to Deorwen.

"For G.o.d's sake, Ouen," he said, "it's not-" "Come on. The lads were wondering. The Prince sets a fair table. There's wine."

Durand left Deorwen there, staring after him with wide, shocked eyes. He couldn't explain to her. He couldn't fight Ouen now, and there was no shaking the big man's grip.

DURAND PITCHED INTO a hall full of men who laughed and gloated while the wind wailed at the arrow loops above them. Tern Gyre's feasting hall was a tall, smoky room where a coat of smooth plaster hid the keep's dark fabric. On a dais at the head of the hall stood the high table, white as an altar. There were chairs for the whole of the Great Council: Biedin, the king, and every Duke of Errest-even the old ghost of Hesperand-but the only man seated was Radomor of Yrlac, hunkered like a dead man's curse at some fairy-tale feast. Mud and blood blackened his surcoat. Rust stained his scalp. a hall full of men who laughed and gloated while the wind wailed at the arrow loops above them. Tern Gyre's feasting hall was a tall, smoky room where a coat of smooth plaster hid the keep's dark fabric. On a dais at the head of the hall stood the high table, white as an altar. There were chairs for the whole of the Great Council: Biedin, the king, and every Duke of Errest-even the old ghost of Hesperand-but the only man seated was Radomor of Yrlac, hunkered like a dead man's curse at some fairy-tale feast. Mud and blood blackened his surcoat. Rust stained his scalp.

This was the man Durand had seen on the throne in Ferangore.

Ouen half-shoved Durand on.

Below the dais, serving men had set benches and tables around the great blaze at the center of the hall. There, Durand sat under the pressure of Ouen's hand while the wind moaned outside.

"There you are lad, sat down and safe." He s.n.a.t.c.hed a cup of wine from one of the other's hands. "Here. A shot of this will do you good."

Durand set the cup aside. Green knights leaned on their elbows and talked with their knives. The ma.s.sive Champion sat hard by the dais, his notched helm hanging over the table. The Rooks preened.

Berchard, snug at Durand's side, spoke as Ouen threw his leg over the bench. "Thought you'd got lost," he said. "How's the shoulder?"

Durand hardly remembered. "Fine."

Straight across Biedin's hearthfire, the king's black gaggle of functionaries wrestled with a jug. Though they were bald and soft with years, these men-treasurers, clerks, cofferers, and chroniclers-plucked at each other, slopping wine back and forth and gabbling like children.

Berchard was eyeing Durand's back, seeing G.o.d-knew-what.

"You'll need a new surcoat, I think," he decided.

A glance showed a dark stain, but, with Radomor hunkered at the high table like something risen from the h.e.l.ls, he did not care. He could not believe the others were laughing.

The heavy notes of great drums boomed and rolled, summoning all eyes to the high table for the somber procession of the dukes of Ragnal's Great Council. A stooped man, some prelate by his beard and jeweled robe, took the lead. He carried a gilded sunburst high over his head.

Each lord to step out behind him wore a city's ransom in stones and stiff brocade. Weapons glinted at their hips and crowns winked on their brows. A snapped collarbone had not kept Lord Moryn away. When the procession reached the high table, each magnate stood behind his own tall chair, noting, with varying humor, Radomor's presence there, already sitting.

A thread of the gale outside curled through a window to bludgeon the candles down. Radomor got to his feet. The hearty Duke of Beoran gripped Radomor by the elbow, squeezing his rea.s.surance and muttering through a lopsided smile.