The other lands

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

He is designed for war. How else to describe it? Look at him! Just look at him…

So Rialus thought as he scurried to stay just behind the headman of the Lvin, the chieftain of the entire Auldek nation, and-as of today-the commander of an invading army: Devoth. His strides each doubled Rialus's. His shoulders punched forward and back as he walked, squared and higher on his frame than those of normal men, as if he wore sculpted armor draped over them. But the sculpting was nothing more than his natural contours; the bulk measured only in the striated cords of his own muscles. He went bare armed, shoulder joints rounded knobs, bulging at the biceps. His back-wrapped in tight-fitting leather-started wide and tapered toward his waist, where it met his buttocks and the swinging tree trunks he called legs.

Rialus kept his eyes above this part of the Auldek's anatomy, feeling the same unease he experienced around thoroughbred animals. Any creatures designed for violence and latent with sexual strength troubled him. He doubted there was even one individual in the Known World to match Devoth's physical stature. Certainly no Acacian ever had and likely no Mein either; no Halaly or Candovian; not even a freak, straw-haired Aushenian from the Gradthic Range was likely to reach the Lvin's height of eight savagely proportioned feet.

The benefits of four hundred and some years spent doing nothing but training for war, Rialus mused. That and teaching hummingbirds to sip sweet water from your mouth; raising pet lions; running endurance races over twenty-, thirty-, and fifty-mile courses; practicing archery; singing epic poems, and painting with a brush and ink. Yes, Rialus had continued to learn more about the Auldek with each passing day. None of the newfound knowledge, however, made anything about them make better sense to him. None of it balanced the knowledge that the entire nation was ravenous for war, rushing toward it with a breathless anticipation that seemed almost childlike. Though he had a considerable part in the planning stages of the coming invasion, this day had reared up before him suddenly. Things, it seemed, were moving as fast as the Auldek's massive strides.

Thus, Devoth, Rialus, and their small party went out from the Lvin area of Avina at a brisk pace. They walked atop an elevated network that took them from rooftop to rooftop through a district Rialus had not yet visited. Dropping to street level, they strode for a time down a thoroughfare that swarmed with onlookers, slaves mostly, but all caught up in the excitement of the moment. They yelled encouragement and clapped. Some banged cymbals together. The youngest tossed folded bits of paper shaped like birds and insects, yet another Auldek pastime. The light crafts looped in the air above them. Were they happy to know the Auldek were departing? It did not seem so. The enthusiasm seemed sincere enough, and the tears in the eyes of some held both joy and sadness. Rialus would never understand slaves.

Slick with sweat before long, Rialus welcomed the coolness as they dropped into an underground passageway. The Auldek to either side of Devoth talked as they moved, but Rialus did not follow what they were saying. It was enough just to keep up.

And then they emerged into the sun again. Devoth led them across a rectangle of pink marble. He began the ascent of a wide staircase. Above it, nothing but the sky, bright blue, streaked by high clouds and promising a fine day. Only as he reached the halfway point did he slow his pace. He inhaled a breath, head back slightly. Rialus did the same and he imagined he smelled the scent and essence of many, many souls.

Devoth paused. He did not turn fully around, but he twisted his head enough for Rialus to see his sharp profile. His long hair tumbled over his shoulders in auburn waves. "Are you ready to be stunned, Rialus Leagueman? I think this will be a sight you have never seen the like of before."

Actually, Rialus thought, I'm rather tired of being stunned. This entire journey: the waves of the Barrier Ridge and the sea wolves of the Gray Slopes, punching through the angerwall and gazing up at the heights of the barrier isles, the floating dead in the sea and the chaos after Sire Neen's beheading and… the list went on and on, and by the look of things it would do so endlessly. He would just as soon live the rest of his days without such excitement. But as he mounted the last steps and the field below them came into view, Rialus beheld the army that Devoth and the other Auldek had gathered for their invasion.

It was enormous. Countless bodies crowded a massive rectangular clearing that stretched toward the horizon. In the near distance, separated into rectangular units by their clan affiliation, marked by different-colored armor and garments, stood the Auldek themselves. Rialus knew enough to separate them at a glance now: Lvin and Kern and Kulish Kra nearest, Anet and Antoks and Wrathic just behind them, the Shivith along the left side. The Fru Nithexek, a clan he knew little about, were a thin line at the rear of the Auldek ranks, and the few Numrek stood in the right corner near the front. The totem clans of the Auldek.

Rialus tried to find some way to number them but ended up feeling he was guessing. There might be twenty or thirty thousand of them. Not so many to represent an entire race, really. But they were only a portion of the gathered host.

Behind them, stretching back toward the rim of the horizon, went the divine children. They were likewise sectioned off by the clans that claimed them, garishly clothed, many of them altered to physically resemble their clans' totem animals. How strange to see human wolves howling, white-faced lion men baring their teeth, cranelike people snapping their heads from side to side, others pretending to hiss like venomous snakes… Madness, on a massive scale. Those farther back lost shape and individual detail. They blended into a moving mass. They looked like ants swarming, piled on top of one another and intertwined so that it was impossible to tell where one ended and another began.

Lining the far edges of the mass of soldiers were the beasts that would also attack Acacia. Kwedeirs-those batlike monstrosities with riders strapped to their backs-shuffled uneasily, their awkwardly bent wings rustling, seemingly eager to fly. The kwedeir was not a totem animal as far as Rialus knew, but the clans aligned with animals fierce enough for battle had representatives also. Antoks were spaced out in ranks receding into the distance. They wore intricate harnesses with pockets in which soldiers perched, seven or eight for each creature. There were white-maned snow lions and shivith cats, lean and restless, ready to bolt; wrathic wolves the size of horses, with long muzzles that quivered as they growled; and even a few sky bears, bulky carnivores the color of dirty snow that-judging by what he could see-chose to stand on their hind legs when agitated. Above it all the crows of the Kulish Kra swarmed in excited flocks. Certainly, though, they were trained pets. Certainly, they were anticipating the slaughter that such a mass commotion must lead to. When had the world ever seen such a bizarre, murderous throng of man and beast and man-beast?

And all this, Rialus knew, was a gathering of just a portion of the army. A supply train had already been sent out along the route to prepare the way-to stash food supplies and gear, to construct makeshift outposts to aid the coming army. Devoth had explained that hunters and laborers would travel before the main column, and that a neverending convoy of slaves would follow it, shuttling the supplies to keep them alive in the northern regions. To hear him describe it, they would drain Ushen Brae of its population and send a river of new life flooding into the Known World.

Just before he stepped away from him to address the crowd, Devoth turned to Rialus. He pointed one of his long, thick-jointed fingers at him. "You are a witness. Watch and listen."

He turned away before Rialus could answer, leaving him with the disquieting feeling that he might be tested afterward on what transpired.

"This will be the greatest work of your lives!" Devoth shouted to the crowd, once they had settled down to allow him to speak. He spoke slowly, and for a moment Rialus found the cadence strange, especially as the sentiments themselves were impassioned. "You know why you're here. For war!"

The crowd affirmed that they did, indeed, know that was why they were gathered. It took a while for the approbation to die down, since the commander's words needed to be repeated for the farther reaches to hear. Cheers came back at him, delayed by the distance.

"This war was hundreds of years in the making," Devoth claimed. "Hundreds of years. Think how fortunate you are! You will be remembered for it-whether you live or die. You will be remembered and envied for the things you are going to see and deeds you are going to do. You will be legends. Do you doubt it? Who but the heroes of legend would dare to march into the great north? Who but legends would kick white bears and ice maidens out of their paths and tread across frozen water, walk above a fathomless sea, through biting wind and snow, across tundra and over mountains? Who but conquerors would dare face all that just to reach their enemies? Tell me that doesn't sound like legend!"

Judging by the shout that answered his prompt, they rather liked the notion.

He knows how to work a crowd, Rialus thought.

"Yes." Devoth paced back and forth across the platform, hand cupped beside his ear, pulling the cacophony in as if it were personal praise, eating it with his grin. "Yes."

For a time, Rialus lost the flow of Devoth's discourse. It was hard not to just gape at the throng of warriors and beasts: antoks pawing the ground; kwedeirs rolling their shoulders, cracking their jaws as if they might snatch up a snack from all the morsels around them; the masses rolling back their enthusiasm in delayed waves. The passing moments made none of it less horrifying. When the cheering suddenly faded, however, Rialus knew he had better listen more carefully.

"So how could we not offer you a great reward? Divine children, could we not honor you? Tell me, what would you like to have most in the world?"

Devoth leaned forward, awaiting a response. Only, there was no answering sound. The enormous army stood hushed. Even the antoks cocked their massive heads and listened to the eerie silence of thousands of breathing beings. The Auldek smiled and nudged one another knowingly, but the masses behind them seemed genuinely baffled.

What exactly is going on? Rialus wondered.

"You don't know?" Devoth asked. "Let me suggest something, then. I know you will come on this journey and fight this war with us because you are loyal and you are proud and this, more than anything in your lives yet, is what you were created for. But if you help us gain this-when we conquer the Acacians like the warriors we once were; when we of the Auldek race are fertile again and can make our own children; when we give up the souls inside us and live only the span of a single life once more; when we are mortal again; when we have all these things that we most want-then we will free you."

The hush that remained was more shocking than sound would have been.

"You will be free to do whatever you wish. Slay the Acacians, if you will. Enslave them, if you care to. Make war or peace as suits your souls. We will not hinder you." Devoth grinned. He curved his arm back, bicep bulging, and tapped his fingers against his chest. "If it pleases you, mass an army and make war on us. That would be great fun, yes?"

Still the crowd held its breath. The divine children stared up at Devoth, rapt, so many faces stunned and disbelieving. This made Devoth laugh.

"Lvin, Kulish Kra, Shivith, Kern, Anet-all Auldek clans, lend me your voices. Let them know what I say is true."

From one section of the Auldek ranks and then another, shouts rose in affirmation. Each group called its name, testifying, confirming. Senior members turned and nodded, pointing at Devoth to verify that he spoke for them all.

"Now, hear me once more and answer me!" Devoth bellowed above them. "Do you want freedom? If so, you have only to say so and then to fight for it. Answer me!"

It took a moment, but this time the masses did. They cried for their freedom.

"Good. I am glad you do not disappoint. I knew you wouldn't. I know this also: for this battle we take everything with us. For this battle, we fly as we haven't for centuries. We call upon old friends, mounts that have not allowed riders for years now. Mounts that we have promised carnage." He turned and shouted back the way they had approached. "Old friends, come to me!"

Rialus snapped around, not knowing what to expect but ready to be surprised again. He was. He did not hear the flapping of wings, though he would dream that he did for many nights to come. He saw them first as moving forms that were almost ghostly against the light blue of the sky. They rose up. One and then two more and then others. Winged, they flew. They flew fast, taking on size as they grew nearer, slicing in and out among one another, at times dark crescents of motion, in other instances slivers of shapes almost invisible.

At least, that was true until they landed. Some dropped onto columns beside the army. Some fell right among the crowd, which fled, leaving landing areas for them. A few flanked Devoth on the platform. One alit on the steps in front of him, between him and the ranked masses. This one landed on all fours. It stayed like that for a moment, as if adjusting the burden of its own muscular weight, and then it reared up, wings outstretched, massive, larger even than the kwedeirs, built differently. The creature was hairless and slick, its musculature more humanoid than those batlike creatures, more like a being meant to walk upright. Its back and upper wings were a blue so dark it neared black, but its belly, face, and the front half of its legs were a smoky white. Its head was like a hairless ape's, with a protruding jaw full of visible teeth and large eyes that took in the scene with a confident, intelligent malevolence.

Rialus forgot to breathe. When he recognized the burning in his chest for what it was, he tried to inhale and could not remember how.

Devoth turned and glanced at Rialus, blinked. "I mentioned freketes, didn't I? I see you are impressed. Watch this."

With that, he bounded down the stone steps toward the winged creature. The beast turned and followed his progress, eyes dilating, nostrils flaring with an audible inhalation of air. Its jaws opened, and for a moment Rialus was certain the creature was going to devour him. Instead, it tossed its head back and roared, an incredible sound that shredded the air.

Rialus slammed his hands against his ears. The beast half turned away from Devoth. It moved one of its wings and offered him a bulging thigh that Devoth leaped on. With a few deft movements the Auldek had climbed onto its back and slammed his feet into the stirrups of the slight frame wrapped around its body.

He had barely grasped hold of the straps when the creature surged up into the air, Devoth clinging tightly. As it reached the height of its leap, the frekete beat its wings and skimmed away over the awed heads of the throng. People ducked as it passed, flattening themselves on the ground. Then they rose with bellowing and shouting, a cacophony to which the antoks and kwedeirs and the other freketes added. A great noise. An army announcing itself.

Rialus pulled his hands away from his ears and instead placed a finger to his lips. He whispered, with no faith that he would be answered, "Giver protect us."