The Dark Queen

Chapter 21

The gold and gray plains at the edge of lstar stretched out sandy and rock-littered-little more hospitable than the desert in which Fordus had wandered and prophesied and fought for most of his life. There was said to be forest somewhere farther north-a land of thick and luxurious green, dripping with soft autumn rain or the hard, thunderous downpours of an Ansalon spring.

Standing in the midst of his ragged army, for a moment Fordus let himself imagine that northern country. He had never seen a landscape of lush and resplendent green, never walked beside brooks or looked up into a vault of leaf and evergreen. His country was brown and red and ochre, its land shy;marks visible for miles over the level terrain.

Landmarks like the towering city of Istar, carved of marble in the Age of Dreams, the heart of an empire.

Soon to be his. City and empire alike.

What did it matter that so few warriors stood behind him now? What did it matter that his num shy;bers were not the thousands, the hundreds of thou shy;sands, he had dreamed long ago in the Tears of Mishakal and again, a few nights ago, high up on the Red Plateau?

It was not loss, not attrition. It was a weeding out, a culling. Only the finest fighters remained, their worthiness proved by their survival.

For Northstar was still with him, and Rann and Aeleth. Somehow Gormion had wrestled down her natural cowardice, and she was beside him as well, as were threescore of the younger men and women, their sunken eyes alight with adulation, their thoughts upon the liberation of the Plainsmen enslaved in Istar.

Stormlight is dead, Fordus hallucinated. He is a forerunner, a harbinger, the vanguard of an invisible legion.

For the dead would arise and follow Fordus Fire-soul. So he had read in the fissures on this cracked and graven plain.

Oh, he had not told the others yet. Not even Northstar knew. At night Fordus found himself laughing at his little surprise, at the army he knew was coming. For the dead army would fear nothing … especially not death.

He held back a high and rising laughter as he crouched among his lieutenants on the stubbled plains. Milling before the city walls, the Kingpriest's army assembled-soldiers and mercenaries called from all corners of Ansalon.

Because the Kingpriest was afraid now. Fordus's dreams had told him that as well.

It was the time of the Water Prophet, and the War Prophet, and the Prophet King. The Prophet King's army, bound for Istar, set to marching around the lake, rising to Fordus's demand yet again, tired beyond belief and helplessy enthralled. Their torches fanned the shoreline like glowing gems set in the half-circlet of a crown. Fordus would be Istar's new monarch, and their native prince. They needed no songs, no chanting of bards to dismantle the walls of Istar. With his gallant following and the huge invisible army at his back, Fordus would scale the walls himself.

Into a city promised him before the beginning of the world.

Stormlight watched from the encampments, as Fordus organized his few men for the assault.

Just as he had previously seen huge, destructive storms brewing and approaching, he could see this disaster in the making-less than fourscore rebels marching against the assembled might of the city. Left behind were the children and grandfathers and pregnant wives, starved and vulnerable amid smok shy;ing campfires and tattered tents.

Even if, as a last resort, he killed Fordus, the others would still attack, propelled by the martyrdom of the Prophet King and by his final prophecies-some delirious foolishness about armies of the dead.

Stormlight had known it would come to this when he bade Larken farewell, told her to wait with his followers while he set out after Fordus's quick-marched forces. He had looked over his shoulder once, twice, and she stood as he had left her, silhou shy;etted against the red light of Lunitari.

"Wait here," he had told her. "I shall return."

Now he was not so sure.

Miles away, on the other side of the lake, Larken stood in the Western Pass, staring across the water toward the harbors and walls of the marbled city.

Vincus stood at her shoulder; stroking Lucas, who danced back and forth eagerly upon her gloved hand. The young man believed that Lucas was his closest friend among them, the creature most wor shy;thy of his trust and reliance. Larken's sign language was soothing and familiar, as well.

Through the afternoon he had guided Larken and her hundred followers to the Western Pass. There they meant to wait-for tidings of the battle, for Stormlight and returning survivors.

All of them sensed the disaster approaching, doom riding the air as heavily, as corrosively as the wind-driven sand in the southern sterim.

Oddly, the bard had set aside her drum. She held the lyre now, softly fingering its bow as though reluctant to touch its strings. Lucas hopped to her shoulder, raining amber light into the moonlit shad shy;ows, his soft voice mewling, encouraging.

Vincus tugged at Larken's tunic. How long do we wait? he signaled.

The bard blinked, as though awakened from a light sleep.

Three days, she signaled in reply. Longer would be dangerous, but news travels slowly across the lake.

If we had the glyphs … Vincus offered hopefully.

But Larken shook her head. Those were the old days.

Now we have belief and waiting. Belief in Stormlight, in his skill and resourcefulness.

Larken turned again to her harp, and the young Istarian, cast back into his own thoughts, stared north over Lake Istar.

The distant walled city reflected serenely on the glassy surface of the water.

With a fumbling of weapons, the ranks closed behind the Prophet King. Solemnly, as though at the beginning of a great and somber ritual, the rebels marched toward the city-toward Istar, shimmering in refracted light.

In the distance, they saw the Istarian army group shy;ing-red banners aloft and fluttering in the rising wind. The rebels had seen these flags before, had eluded them over a world of high grass and sand, striking from the flanks and the rear with the swift shy;ness and surprise of swooping birds.

But now, they marched to meet Istar head-on. Sev shy;enty, seventy-five warriors arrayed against ten thou shy;sand. It was certain madness.

Were it not for the promise of the Prophet King.

For Fordus had sworn their deliverance in the council fires of the night before. Never trust simple numbers, he had urged them, for I have a magic that no numbers can quell.

Now, as they saw the army assembled against them, the banners and the bright, approaching stan shy;dards of four legions, for a moment it crossed their minds that the magic might fail and the prophecies go dry.

Yet each man stood at the shoulder of Kis cohort, and pride and illusion prevailed. Having come this far, they would not run and they would not waver.

Ahead, dressed in a dirty white robe and a brown kaffiyeh, indistinguishable from his followers, his golden collar hidden under the loose robes, the Prophet King shouted and beckoned.

Past judgment and past wisdom, they lifted their shields and followed.

The first wave of arrows rained down upon the rebels.

The archers perched in the distance, perhaps two hundred yards away, and their efforts, spent and inaccurate, clattered against the rebels' uplifted shields and fell harmlessly on the hard ground.

Good. The Istarians were nervous. Too quick to shoot.

The pikemen in the forward ranks lowered their weapons. Men of the Fourth Legion-old foes with a score to settle-quickened their pace, breaking into a run, a shouting, shrieking charge across the level fields where the rebels, woefully outnumbered, braced to face the first assault.

"Now!" Fordus shouted as the lines collided. Rebel weaponry flashed amid the lunging pikes, and Istarian after Istarian fell to the more mobile rebels. The Fourth Legion's attack billowed and eddied around Fordus, Northstar, and Rann, then the Istarian lines broke, the pikemen withdrew, and the distant archers showered arrows once more.

Fordus looked around him. Forty Istarians dead, but twelve of his own, as well. Even more rebels wounded, though these were rising to their feet, preparing for yet another assault.

It did not matter. Reinforcements were coming soon.

From the Kingpriest's Tower, Tamex looked out across the city, past the walls and onto the plains, where the skirmish unfolded. There, banners tilted and nodded as Istarian troops attacked and regrouped, then attacked again, each time suffering grievous losses, it seemed, but each time whittling away at the rebel numbers.

He could not believe the easy foolishness of this War Prophet, this Prophet King. Assaulting the Istar-ians with less than a hundred men.

He scanned the ranks of the entrenching rebels. Plainsman and bandit had gathered the shields and armor of the fallen Istarian pikemen. The desert robes were lost in a swirl of leather cuirasses, of bur shy;nished bronze shields so bright that the glare made the rebels hard to number, their leaders hard to identify.

Surely not Fordus, Tamex thought. Surely this is a scouting party only, and the War Prophet waited behind the lines, safe in an encampment from which he could direct the battle.

With the sight of a god couched in his crystalline eyes, Tamex scanned the horizons, his gaze reaching as far as a small rebel camp, twenty more miles of plains, and then the beginning of the forests.

Nothing.

No concealed forces. No rebel reinforcements, except for that huddled handful in the mountain pass, led by the jilted bard.

Still, the dark general refused to commit his troops. Perhaps Fordus had surprises planned, was waiting for the full assault to unleash a veiled and dangerous tactic.

The woods themselves could be bristling with rebels.

Tamex would wait. He would hurl attack after attack at the entrenching company of Plainsmen, losing ten men, twenty, even a hundred for each fallen Que-Nara.

What difference would it make? The rebels were gravely outnumbered. Eventually, the numbers would win out.

From his balcony, Tamex signaled the herald. The mounted messenger guided his horse to the foot of the tower. Scrawling a hasty message on a scroll, Tamex dropped the missive to the young man, who took it and galloped to the gates of the city, bearing orders for Celeres, the commander of the celebrated Sixth Legion, whose soldiers waited impatiently, hidden from rebel eyes inside the city gates.

Hold ranks, the message said. Wait until further orders.

They would hold until he found Fordus Firesoul.

Weary and battle-shocked, the Fourth Legion withdrew and regrouped in the milling Istarian ranks. Again the archers drew and fired, and then for a moment the battlefield stilled, as if neither side were willing to engage again.

Then slowly, not as if they had not been ordered, but prodded or pushed or cajoled, the spearmen of the Second Legion surged over the beaten plain, two com shy;panies of the finest Istarian swordsmen following.

In a ragged semicircle, their numbers reduced to about fifty, the rebels braced for the attack. In the center of the line, Aeleth nocked his bow, and a dozen Que-Nara readied their slings. On each flank the officers waited-Rann on the left and Fordus on the right.

It was the old tactic, straight out of the Battle of the Plains. First the rebels salted the legion with arrows and stones, then Aeleth's troops turned and withdrew, the angry Istarians charging after. At the right moment, when the Second Legion was spread out and overextended, Fordus and Rann attacked, and the rebels converged on the hapless Istarians, who turned, broke ranks, and ran under a withering assault.

Fordus, eyes alight and head high, whirled across the battlefield like a deadly wind. An arrow passed inches from his head, ripping away his kaffiyeh, and bare-headed, his auburn hair blowing back and tan shy;gling, he urged his men to pursue the fleeing Second Legion.

The enlivened rebels surged around and past him, and the War Prophet whooped ecstatically. He had turned the Istarian army, and behind his charging forces, he thought he saw wavering shapes rising out of the bloodied ground.

The dead. The army of the dead had arrived.

Hear the word of the Prophet.

From his vantage in the Tower, Tamex saw the kaf shy;fiyeh fall from the auburn-haired warrior, saw as well the gold collar at the man's neck.

It was all he needed to see.

"Fordus!" he whispered. Then, aloud, "Messenger!"

The next courier galloped to the city gates, where a thousand men stood ready.

Celeres and the Sixth Legion got their order:

March. Attack. Take no prisoners.

The gates of Istar opened, issuing forth the Sixth Legion, their strides quickening with the loose, con shy;fident movement of veterans. The other Istarian sol shy;diers parted ranks as the crack troops moved into the open field. Spears raised, shields glittering, in a matter of minutes they closed with the remaining rebels.

Twenty of Fordus's troops fell before they could return a single blow. The rebels reeled back, turned, and routed, their destination the camp, the forest- anywhere.

High in her marble perch, masked by the face of Tamex, Takhisis laughed softly. She leaned against the wall, her masculine, faceted body as hard as the stone against which it rested.

And so it would have been over, were it not for the storm that lifted out of the sandy fields and bore down upon the armies.

For Sargonnas had not waited and brooded and plotted to let this moment pass.

When the Sixth Legion surged through the rebel lines, the landscape burst with a hundred geysers of fire. Borne on the rising wind, the glowing ash rained havoc on the Istarian rear guard. The red ban shy;ners smoldered and caught fire, and the vaunted troops scattered, screaming and burning, unable to fight what they could not understand.

In the front of the little battle the Sixth Legion slowed, uncertain. The firestorm rushed at them, passing over them in a deadly wave of fire. The stark hexagonal standards erupted in flame, and Celeres himself fell in the inferno.

On the far flank of the rebel forces, Fordus and Northstar scrambled clear of the storm. Behind them, Istarian and rebel burned on the blasted battlefield-Rann and Aeleth, the vaunted Sixth Legion fell quickly, engulfed in smoke and fire.

"The Prophet King. ." Northstar began. He blindly searched for Fordus in the rolling murk of the smoke-filled sky.

"This way," Fordus shouted, and began to run.

"But, Fordus!" Northstar coughed. "I can't see you…"

The Prophet vanished in a curtain of smoke.

Spiraling to the ground, the great young guide of the Que-Nara crawled the tight circle he had already passed over, then circled it again. Cries burst from the smoke, and at the edges of his awareness, North-star could catch the dance of flames, shadows flit shy;ting back and forth through the smothering, twilight country.

"Fordus?" he called. "Fordus?"

No answer returned from the thickening smoke.

Choking, sneezing, the Plainsman fell flat on his face. Stay low in a fire, someone had told him when he was a child. So he lay in a flat, barren clearing, clutching his rescued medallion and praying for the fire to pass, for the smoke to spare him.

When three Istarians, swords drawn, stumbled into the clearing a moment later, they found him facedown on the ground-guttering, gasping, drowning in smoke. And though they, too, were seeking refuge from the fire-storm, passage through the flame and through the strangling smoke, they were veterans and merciless, stopping long enough to follow their general's orders: "Take no prisoners."

Northstar's hand at last relaxed on the medal, and he found his way to death with no trouble at all.

Using his extraordinary speed, Fordus burst clear of the smoke. Behind him the plains were ablaze from one horizon to the other. Istarian legionnaires raced toward the city in panic, but Fordus passed them by, his thoughts no longer on strategy and tactics.

He was bound for the city gates, for the Temple.

And for the Kingpriest.

On whose head he would rain the fire of vengeance.

Upon the Tower's highest balcony, reeling in dis shy;belief from the sudden turn of the battle, Tamex saw a solitary figure spring clear of the holocaust.

"Fordus!" he breathed, alarm changing slowly to a silent exultation as the man raced toward the gates of the city.

Oh, this is better, Tamex thought, his faceted fea shy;tures suddenly feminine, reptilian.

Rain on, Sargonnas. Rain on, you petty fool. May the smoke of your torment ascend for ever and ever, and may you have no rest in day or night. You can shy;not send fire enough to burn me, storm enough to make me seek shelter.

Now, across the burning plain, Fordus comes to Istar. He will be mine, and I shall keep my promise.

I will show him who he really is.