The Diamond Warriors Read online

  And then I heard someone enter my tent and come up beside me. Although I could not turn my head to see who it was, I felt his presence as a fresh, sea wind that drives away the stench of death after a battle. A hand, long of palm and with delicate, tapering fingers, laid itself down on top of my hand. Immediately, I felt the cold burning through my muscles leave me. The Ahrim seemed to vanish along with it, like smoke into the sky. I finally looked up to see Bemossed gazing at me.

  I would never know how he had managed to arise out of the catalepsy sickening him. Had it been, I wondered, through the Master Juwain’s healing arts or the strengthening virtue of the Great Gelstei that the other masters of the Seven wielded? Had the goodness of Liljana’s soup finally found its way deep into his body or one of Alphanderry’s songs called to his soul? Or had Estrella’s quiet but fierce love awakened him? He did not speak of this to me. Although he seemed weaker and more tired than ever in his flesh, a fire had come into his soft eyes. I sensed a terrible resolve burning through him and a vast will to make this be.

  ‘Valashu,’ he said to me, ‘I must speak with you.’

  I drew my hand out from beneath his and stared at it. I said to him, ‘You have driven away the Ahrim!’

  With great sadness, Bemossed shook his head. ‘No, it was not I – I have no power over that thing.’

  ‘But it is gone!’ I said, flexing my fingers. ‘You do have power over it!’

  ‘No,’ he told me with a shake of his head. ‘Only power over you.’

  He smiled at me, but there was no joy in him, only oceans of pain. Then he added, ‘No, that isn’t right, either. I have no power over you. But I can help you to be free.’

  At this, I dropped the quill onto the new sheet of paper. It left scrapes of black against white.

  ‘I am free,’ I told him. ‘Free from that evil thing.’

  Bemossed bowed his head at this, and his smile grew deeper. ‘That is good, friend. But the question that we should ask ourselves is not what we are free from. Rather, it is what are we free for?’

  ‘Surely,’ I said, reaching out to grasp the hilt of my sword, ‘we are free to make our fate. Or, at least, to meet it bravely.’

  ‘You would meet Morjin, wouldn’t you? And his army?’

  ‘They have burned Trial’ I told him, looking down at the letter that I had been forced to write. ‘If Morjin tells true, they have done this terrible thing. Now he will march on the Nine Kingdoms to do the most evil work of all!’

  ‘Then you will not turn back from the road that you march down?’

  ‘You know what I dream – how can I?’

  ‘And you know what I dream, too,’ he told me. ‘And so how can I watch men slaughter men ever again? How can I, Valashu?’

  That was all he said to me that night, and for many days after that. In the morning, while everyone went about the business of breaking camp, he took up his post on the east slopes of Magda overlooking the sea. He stood watching as I led the Meshian vanguard out from between the hills onto the corpse-strewn beach. Then came Lord Tanu at the head of our foot warriors, and Lord Tomavar, and then the Kaashans in their masses of knights and glittering columns. True to King Talanu’s wishes, the Kaashans had acclaimed Prince Viromar as their new king. That morning he rode beside me so that we might hold council as we marched north up the great highway of the beach. His standard, showing a white eagle against a blue field, flapped and cracked in the stiff wind blowing off the sea. The great noise of our army – the snorting horses, creaking wagons and jingling bells – drove away most of the gulls working at the fallen Galdans and Karabukers. I did not know until the last if Bemossed could bring himself to join us on our march. But as I led my thousands of men toward the Pillars of Heaven to the north of the beach, I looked back to see Bemossed come down from his post and mount his horse. Then he galloped forward to rejoin Liljana, Daj, Estrella and Alphanderry riding behind the vanguard.

  I was the first of the Valari to pass between the great black monoliths rising up toward the sky. Then came Viromar Solaru, now King Viromar, and the rest of our army. I did not know if these strange rocks held any magic or if marching across King Talanu’s grave might inspirit my warriors. I prayed, however, that my army might somehow gain invincibility and go forth toward the greatest of victories.

  Abrasax, looking back at the devastation of the beach, his face all gray and grave, spoke only these words to me from the Book of Battles: ‘“From out of the darkest dark, the brightest light. From the worst of evil, the greatest of good.”’

  For all that day and part of the next we journeyed north across the hardpacked sands of the beaches of Delu’s southern coast. Then, at a point where the coast slanted off northeast toward Delarid, we turned northwest to cross Delu’s lowlands and cut the Nar Road some fifty miles away. Morjin, I thought, would leave a burning Tria behind him and march down the Nar Road from the opposite direction, perhaps to attack the Nine Kingdoms through Anjo and Taron. Our journey to the Seredun Sands had taken the Meshian and Kaashan armies far afield, and we had need of haste if we were to keep Morjin’s soldiers from ravaging across the Morning Mountains and destroying the Valari armies one by one. My hope was that when we passed into Athar, the Valari kings would begin to join us, one by one. And then inevitably, somewhere, we would meet Morjin in a great battle where the Valari would once again fight together as one.

  It took us three days of tramping through some rich farmland to reach the city of Nagida astride the Nar Road. The umber foothills of the eastern ranges of the Morning Mountains rose up ten miles to the west of Nagida’s red brick buildings. To the east, a hundred and seventy miles down the Nar Road, lay the white stone city of Delarid and King Santoval’s magnificent palace, said to be the second grandest on all of Ea. I had sent an invitation to King Santoval, requesting that he lead his army forth and meet up with mine at Nagida. As his men would have a longer distance to cover than would mine, I was prepared to wait some days to welcome Delu’s eighty thousand soldiers to our great purpose of defeating Morjin.

  ‘He won’t come,’ Maram told me for the twentieth time as we made camp. ‘He hates to leave the company of his concubines.’

  ‘He must come,’ I told him. ‘I know he will come.’

  King Santoval’s army, however, true to Maram’s prediction, never made the journey from Delarid, nor did King Santoval himself. In his place, he sent an envoy, Prince Adamad, a cousin of Maram. Prince Adamad, a large, florid-faced man wearing jeweled rings on seven of his fingers, rode up to our encampment along with half a dozen others of his retinue. He dismounted in front of my pavilion, and made a great show of bowing to me and my battle-hardened captains. In a voice as smooth and sweet as orange oil, he called out to me: ‘King Valamesh the Victorious, Champion of the Tournament at Nar, Hero of the Great Quest, Guardian of the Lightstone! – know that my lord, King Santoval Marshayk, sends his greetings! And his everlasting gratitude for your valor and that of your men in defeating the invaders from Galda and Karabuk! You have done Delu a great service! It shall never be forgotten! In recognition of your deeds, King Santoval has created a new honor just for you: that Valashu Elahad shall ever after be known as the Friend of Delu and Savior of the Realm!’

  So saying, he presented me with a golden wand set with emeralds and topped with a cut diamond as large as a horse’s eye. Wings, like those of an eagle and covered with diamond dust, projected out from the sides of the wand. It was a gaudy thing of great value but little beauty. I stood holding it and looking at Prince Adamad.

  ‘Please convey my thanks to your lord for this,’ I said, squeezing the wand. ‘But it would be an even greater honor to see King Santoval again – and to march with the king and his men to war.’

  Prince Adamad’s face seemed to lose a little of its color. His smile lacked warmth as he said to me: ‘War is upon us now, and all free men from all the Free Kingdoms must do all that men can do to throw back our enemy.’

  ‘Good!’ I called out. ‘The
n when can I expect King Santoval to join us here?’

  ‘Unfortunately, he is ill, and so he had to send me in his place.’

  I looked at Master Juwain, waiting nearby, and I said, ‘What ails your king? Perhaps we can be of help.’

  ‘Oh, it is just the flux, and nothing that our own healers can’t cure. But it will keep my lord from taking the field for some time.’

  ‘But we haven’t much time!’ I told him. ‘The Red Dragon has burned Tria! We must march west to meet him, and soon. If King Santoval is too ill, is there another who would lead the army here?’

  Prince Adamad cast me a long, hard look from beneath his heavily-lidded eyes. He looked even harder at Maram, standing next to me.

  ‘Prince Tymon commands the army in the king’s absence,’ Prince Adamad said. ‘But I must tell you that he has been forced, from strategic necessity, to keep the army close to Delarid.’

  I stared right back at him and said, ‘Please tell me why.’

  ‘Why, in case the Galdans and Karabukers return. Our diviners believe that more armies might be summoned from Galda.’

  At this, Kane stepped forward. I felt him restraining himself from grabbing Prince Adamad’s jeweled tunic and shaking him. ‘Return, ha! There’s no one left to return. We destroyed our enemy, nearly down to the last man!’

  ‘So it is said,’ Prince Adamad coughed out. He looked at Kane as he might an uncaged tiger. ‘But the Red Dragon seems always able to summon up new armies. King Santoval has determined that Delu can be of greatest service to the Free Kingdoms – and of course, to the Valari – if we guard the gateway to the west and prevent any of the Red Dragon’s armies from marching on your rear.’

  He looked at Lord Avijan and then Lord Harsha, whose single eye seemed to shine upon Prince Adamad like a star. The prince smiled with much nervousness at Lord Tomavar, Lord Tanu and King Viromar, who watched him with the concentration of a falcon.

  Now it came Maram’s turn to confront Prince Adamad. He said to him, ‘If you believe what you just told me, you are even more a fool than my father – and he is more a coward than I had thought possible!’

  Maram’s words failed to chasten Prince Adamad, or even embarrass him. He drew himself up stiffly, and with the relish of nastiness declared to Maram: ‘You have no father, now. You wear diamond armor and the sword of a Valari knight; you have given your allegiance to a Valari king. Where the Valari march, you will march as well. And where they fall, so will you. King Santoval will make no prayers over your grave.’

  ‘So be it,’ Maram said. I could feel him holding back tears – of anguish and rage. ‘But at least I will lie in the company of men.’

  Prince Adamad made no response to this, nor did any of the other Delians in his retinue. Then Maram shouted at them: ‘Is there no one of our land who will fight?’

  Prince Adamad said nothing to this, either. Then he bowed to me and told me, ‘My lord and all of Delu wish you well on your journey. King Santoval will send provisions to speed you upon it. The Savior of the Realm will always have Delu’s blessings.’

  He bowed once again, then mounted his horse and rode off with the others of his embassy. I stood watching them disappear down the road to the east. I gripped the golden wand of victory that King Santoval had sent to me. Then I turned in the opposite direction and said to King Viromar: ‘It seems that those who should have been our allies have abandoned us. Will Kaash still march with Mesh?’

  Prince Viromar, whose face seemed harsher than that of an eagle, smiled and told me: ‘To the end of the earth, if that is our fate. It will be as that fat prince said: we Valari will march together.’

  I, too, smiled grimly. Then I cast the golden wand down to the dirt at my feet, and clasped King Viromar’s hand.

  It was our fate, however, that the Delians did not completely desert us in our time of need. Just before nightfall, from the north, a renowned Delian warrior known as Prince Thubar led five hundred mounted knights and three thousand foot soldiers into our encampment. Prince Thubar, a great bull of a man and yet another of Maram’s innumerable cousins, met with King Viromar and my captains and me outside my pavilion, where the wand of triumph still lay on the ground. Prince Thubar looked down at it, and said, ‘I had heard that King Santoval ordered a victory baton made. And that he has betrayed you, King Valamesh. But you might, even so, wish to keep the baton in recognition of your men’s sacrifice for Delu and your great victory. My countrymen, across our land, know of what you did, and we do honor you. Those who would not be made cowards by their king have come here with me in proof of this honor, that we might pledge our swords to your cause.’

  So saying, he drew out his single-edged sword, only slightly less long than a kalama. I bowed my head to him, and pressed my hand to the flat of his blade. I picked up the golden wand. Then I walked with Prince Thubar out to the edge of the encampment where he had ordered the Delian cavalry and infantry to draw up in neat ranks and columns. The Delian knights wore a good mail armor reinforced with steel plate; the infantry, though, had only thin sheets of bronze sewn to padded leather to protect them. I wondered at the fighting quality of these men. But I could not doubt their spirits, for they stood here not only in defiance of Morjin but of their own king.

  ‘You must know where we march,’ I told him, ‘and how desperate is our hope of victory.’

  Prince Thubar only smiled at this as if I had suggested to him a particularly challenging game. His hand swept out toward his small army, and he said, ‘We are all desperate men – as are all who know what the Red Dragon will do to Delu if you fail.’

  ‘We must not fail,’ I told him. ‘But even if we defeat our enemy, will you not find it dangerous to march back down this road again? Will not King Santoval regard your pledge to me as treachery and rebellion?’

  ‘It is no treachery,’ he told me, ‘to serve one’s lord by fighting that lord’s enemy, even if he has foolishly forbidden it. And as for rebellion, if ever my men and I do return home, King Santoval would incite open revolt in trying to punish those who risked their lives for Delu.’

  I nodded my head at this, then smiled. ‘All right then – you shall march with the Valari, and let no one say that the Delians are afraid of Morjin!’

  We clasped hands at this, and then I invited Prince Thubar to take dinner with my captains and me in my tent. As we made our way back toward the center of our encampment, with its many cooking fires sending up smoke plumes into the sky, Kane took me aside. And he said to me, ‘Three thousand foot and half a thousand knights this Delian prince brings us – some will count us fortunate for adding to our army, eh? But how many of them have made secret vows to the Order of the Dragon?’

  ‘None, we must hope,’ I told him. ‘I trust Prince Thubar – and his judgment of his men.’

  ‘Would you stake everything on such trust? If an assassin fell upon you or Bemossed, then …’

  He lapsed into silence. His black eyes seemed to gather up the darkness of the falling night.

  ‘Once,’ I said to him, clapping my hand against his shoulder, ‘you told me that you were an assassin of assassins. With you by my side, I will have no cause to fear any of Prince Thubar’s men. Nor even Morjin’s.’

  Kane smiled, showing his long, white teeth. ‘Still, it is a chance.’

  ‘It is,’ I agreed. ‘But too much caution, now, will be worse than too much audacity.’

  Kane, I sensed, must have agreed with this, for he turned to stare at Prince Thubar’s soldiers as if defying any of them to move against me.

  In the morning, we began the march across the eastern range of the Morning Mountains. The white peaks pushing into the sky ahead of us did not rise so high as those of the White or even the Crescent Mountains. Even so, they were steep and rugged, blanketed in thick forests, and the passage through them might have proved arduous if not for the ancients who had built the Nar Road. This band of brick and stone wound through valleys and around the sides of mountains at an easy grade for
most of its miles; it spanned gorges and rivers in great, arched bridges that still stood in good repair after many centuries. It made me wonder at the glories of the past ages; what would it be like, I asked the wind blowing off the glaciers above me, if all roads on Ea could be made as well as this one, and connect every realm to every other in a free passage of people, goods and knowledge?

  For ten days, the men of Mesh, Kaash and Delu and our thousands of horses pounded up the road while our wagons’ iron-rimmed wheels ground on and on. Little of Soal’s heat found its way into these heights. It rained often, and twice great storms seemed to come out of nowhere and shake the very mountains in lightning flashes and earsplitting cracks of thunder.

  My warriors’ spirits held good and true. At night over blazing campfires, Meshians mingled with the Kaashans without quarrel, and both armies of Valari welcomed Prince Thubar’s Delian soldiers with politeness if not a quick and easy warmth. Too many times in the past, when Delu had been strong, we Valari had had to throw back the invading forces of one ambitious Delian king or another. Memories could no more easily be expunged than ink set into white paper. Still, I thought, new memories could be written. Toward this end, I invited Prince Thubar to sit at my table during our councils, and for my Valari warriors to share food and song with the Delians. I marveled at the capacity of these strangers for feasting and drinking, laughing at crude jokes and weeping at sentimental stories – and then being able to rouse themselves from their beds after staying up half the night throwing dice. Master Juwain reminded me that different peoples practice different ways, and I thought that two peoples could hardly be as different from each other as the Delians and the Valari. The ways of these effusive, sensual men were completely at odds with those of the Morning Mountains, but we would march together with a single purpose – and fight side by side when the time came for battle.