——— 4 ———

⁠—⁠—⁠— IV ⁠—⁠—⁠—

The night deepened.

The captains had spent many hours sitting in council in Amnelis’s pavilion, but they had concluded their deliberations at last and each had returned to his respective command. Now, in the flickering torchlight within the pavilion, a page wetted towels with precious water and carefully cleaned the dust and sand of Nospherus from the general’s weary limbs. When he had finished, he helped the lady into her bed of layered linens and snuffed the torch.

Outside, there were few who slept. They could not be at ease in a place like this as they could in the safety of Alvon Keep. Flames from the watchfires leapt towards the mantled sky. The men were kept busy feeding the flames with bits of wood and dried moss and whatever other fuel they had been able to gather or carry with them.

The soldiers ate, looking up at the angel hair uneasily all the while, and smacked their lips and thought longingly of the sweet mulsum honey-wine that they were forbidden to drink on the march. When the men exchanged glances they marveled at each other’s faces, every last one of which was caked and discolored by the Nospherus sand. For them there was no water for washing.

When the knights lit the watchfires, the swarming canopy of angel hair grew thinner and thinner above the central flames until it took the shape of a vast hovering ring. The men half expected more of the white tendrils to swarm from the edges into the central void, to fill it, as before. To their relief, however, it appeared that no more of the peculiar strands were arriving. The knights’ unease began to settle when they saw the power of their watchfires’ flames, and they slowly grew accustomed to the shifting white mist hanging above their heads like a gentle, swaying creature looking down on them with expressionless eyes. The fire was bright and warm, and soon the morale of the knights had recovered enough that they felt ready to chat amongst themselves, albeit in whispers.

There were two main topics of conversation: the angel hair, and the freakish captive that they had dragged with them from the wildlands interior.

Every squad had a scholar, respected for his knowledge of the world’s many mysteries, or perhaps a fellow renowned for his sixth sense and intuitive way of comprehending the unknown. These men now spoke thoughtfully to the other knights, their faces half lit by the fires.

“It’s an ill omen for sure,” one proclaimed. “If I’m wrong, may I eat the blade of my longsword, and throw in the scabbard!”

“What is?” whispered another of the knights. “The angel hair… or that freak?”

“Both of ’em!” replied the first man, taking a swig from his canteen. “If it were just one of ’em, I might be willing to blame it on chance. Anything can happen in Nospherus,’ and all that. Aye, I’m sure there’re plenty more freakish things out there in the night, my friend. But the leopard-headed man and this angel hair? Coming right after the bad turn at Stafolos⁠—”

“Me mates Gulun and young Orro were at Stafolos when she fell,” interrupted another knight. He had a thick accent and an eager voice and his face was ruddy in the firelight. “Someone just tell me if that monster had anything t’ do with the fall o’ the keep… or even if’e was just the omen that brought in the bad luck. I’d like t’ do a few things t’ the man responsible for getting me mates made into corpses by those wildling Sem.”

“Ah, let it rest⁠—it’ll do no good,” a third man put in. “If you could cut fate with a sword, we’d have no need of magic!”

The scholar gave a hollow laugh. “You know what I think?” he said, looking around to make sure he had an attentive audience. “Now I don’t want anyone spreading this. Fact is, it’s not the sort of thing I would say out loud if I didn’t trust each and every one of you. But I got a feeling that the Golden Scorpion Palace should never have laid its heavy hand on Parros.”

The knights around him gasped, looks of shock on their faces.

“No, no, think on it. All these odd happenings, starting with the fall of Stafolos, have had something to do with the Pearls of Parros and that spawn of Cirenos that’s guarding them.”

“Hmm…now that you mention it…” one of the men nearby nodded thoughtfully.

“We call the wheel that Jarn spins fate,” the scholar continued, “and the reed in his hand that guides his threads we call coincidence. Only Jarn knows which thread will fall into his pattern and when. But these last few days⁠—”

“I’ll tell you which way the weave is headed,” said one of the knights gruffly. “I’ve got a thread here I call a noose, and once I use it to string up those two pearls and their beast-nanny we’ll be rid of their curse for good!”

The knights laughed. Only the scholar seemed not to be amused. “If you listen to what I’m saying, you’ll see that it’s not our captives that are the source of this curse on Mongaul.”

The laughter quieted down. More knights gathered around the fire to listen. The scholar surveyed his audience with a satisfied look. He began to speak again as though he were giving a lecture to students in an academy.

“The beautiful city of Crystal, topped by the Crystal Palace, was a city of spells⁠—spells, mind you!⁠—and the dais of the shrine of Janos. That kingdom was thousands of years old! Things happened there that we Gohran newcomers could only see in our wildest dreams. Well, you all know that, but I’ll tell you something you don’t. There was another palace beneath the Crystal Palace, called the Forbidden Temple. And since the days of the ancients, casters and maidens have been enshrined there to watch over the sacred remains of the High King Aldross⁠—and still lurk in there. Every king-to-be had to go down into the Forbidden Temple to undergo a test⁠—a meeting with the mummy of the high king! We didn’t give any thought to any of that, but Parros is such a place!”

“Wait, man. Are you saying that freakish things are happening to us because our archduke, ever ahead of Kumn and Yulania, went ahead and took the crystal city for Mongaul? Is the blood of Parros on our hands?”

“Yes! And what’s more, if what’s transpired so far is all that ever happens to us, I’d count us luck⁠—”

The scholar’s pronouncement changed abruptly to a yelp when a horsewhip cracked against his shoulder. He looked up to see Kayn, the troop leader, staring angrily down at him from horseback. Immediately the scholar threw himself prostrate on the ground.

“Spread confusion through the troops with your careless words, and you’ll be fighting bigmouths in the Kes with your bare hands, soldier!” snarled the captain, his voice harsh with fury. “And the rest of you! Next time you hear any buffoon spouting groundless rumors like this, try stuffing grainballs in your ears. You’ll be all the better for it!” Kayn glared all around him, then spurred his horse and trotted away from the watch-fires.

The knights sat silently for a while, each lost in his own uneasy gloom. Then suddenly one of them shouted “Look!” and pointed up at the sky. The men looked up and gasped sharply in unison. While they had been talking, a gentle wind had picked up and blown away all traces of the white gauze-like curtain that had hung above them. Someone whistled in amazement. The sky was clear.

The milky white sea that had roiled above them had changed into a deep night sky, a vast high plain of ultramarine. For it also seemed that the night winds had blown away the unclean, almost sticky Nospherus air. Everything was somehow crisper and clearer. And the stars…

The knights stood transfixed, staring upwards. A starry sky was rare in Nospherus, where all too often the heavens were shaded with heavy clouds⁠—jealous clouds that never rained on the parched earth. It was said that Doal would not grant passage to the starlight. But tonight the Marches sky was plain before them. The astrologers tell that the constellations in the sky are not permanent as most would believe, that their alignments have shifted and wandered dramatically from what they were in ancient times. But to the ordinary men of Gohra, who knew only one night sky, the one of their lifetimes, the familiar shapes that were visible in the heavens now were deeply comforting.

Some of the celestial lights shone fiercely while others, like the giant red star of the War God, gave off a duller light. But amongst all of the familiar stars, each with its own legends, there were two that stood out brightest of all. The first was called the White Bear by common men. It was the Pole Star: a beacon to sailors since ancient times, hanging like a lantern in the cold sky above the black humps of the Ashgarn Mountains in the north. Its sagacious light shone down on mortal men doomed to follow their brief fatal paths. It witnessed their deeds, passed judgment upon them, and mocked their simplicity even as they looked to it for direction.

The second great star hung over the ancient, storied mountains of Kanan that silently overlooked the wildlands from their eastern edge. This was Maliniam, the Dawn Star, also white, and slightly fainter than the Pole Star, but no less impressive when it appeared glimmering over the shoulder of the great mountain range that was said to have the shape of a sleeping lion. If the White Bear was the watchfire of the gods, guiding travelers on their paths, then Maliniam was the unclouded single eye of Jarn, always commanding the earth below but never responsive to its pleas. Indeed, many called the dawn star “Jarn’s Eye.”

The stars drifted across the night sky, and their silent music calmed the hearts of the Mongauli knights and their captives. All listened to the sound of the heavens and all were lulled by it. Even if it was merely the calm before a great storm, for the moment not a few of them forgot that they were beyond Janos’ domain. They felt safe.

In the lady’s pavilion, the lights were out, and all was silent.

Under the same sky, a restless shadow moved quietly through the darkness. It was tall and slender, and though it was both armed and armored, it was evidently the beneficiary of long training in the art of stealth. It managed to creep along noiselessly, keeping close to the hard rocky ground. It moved smoothly, supple and alert as a Danayn water snake.

The shadow had been tailing the Mongauli host since they packed up the lady-general’s pavilion and set out towards the River Kes earlier that day. Always it maintained its distance, staying not too far and not too close, just remote enough to avoid the watchful eyes of the rear guard. Where there were boulders, it hid in their shadows. Where the land opened up into a wide plain, it crawled flat on the ground. When the sun was high in the sky, it stayed so far back that the knights were almost beyond its sight. When dusk came its pursuit became markedly easier.

There were a few close calls. Once, when the shadow came too near, Captain Astrias, a noble young man of Torus with an athletic frame and neatly trimmed black hair who was charged with leading the rear guard, saw something far behind the ranks catch and reflect the last rays of the setting sun. To his eyes it looked much like the metal buckle on a suit of armor. A scowl of suspicion came over the captain’s swarthy visage, and he raised his horsewhip and muttered “What was that?” aloud, to no one in particular.

One of the men nearby peered out across the rocky waste. “I see nothing, sir.”

The captain frowned thoughtfully. He was commanding the rear guard of a host led by the lady-general herself, and the responsibility lay heavy on his shoulders. He was prepared to ride back and see in person what, if anything, was back there, when a shout went up from the front of the line: “Bigeater!”

“Damn!” Astrias cursed and turned his horse to gallop back towards the main body of men. Soon all his attention was focused on keeping order among the ranks. The glimmering he had seen might have been a mirage or a trick of the eyes, and in any case, it was unimportant compared to the threat posed by the bigeater. If he remembered it at all, it was pushed out of his mind entirely when the angel hair came at nightfall.

So it was that the shadow had continued on unnoticed until the day became quite dark, and the knights set up camp and lit their giant bonfire to keep the angel hair at bay.

The shadow was, of course, none other than the mercenary Istavan of Valachia. Clad as he was in the jet armor of a Mongauli black knight, he was emboldened by the fall of darkness, feeling free to come quite close to the knights’ encampment. He was now weaving through the boulders towards the edge of camp, cursing under his breath.

“By the thirteen hag-daughters of Doal! Does this accursed place never rest? Damn the jelly freaks and damn this angel hair!” He paused to spit and think of what to curse about next. “The wispy stuff gave those Mongauli knights a turn, though, didn’t it?” Istavan would not have admitted it, but he had been more than a little worried himself when the swirling white mist had grown thicker than any angel hair he’d ever seen before.

“Then again,” the mercenary mused, “all this will make a fine old tale to tell my grandchildren, when I’m an old man, sitting on the stone step outside my house by the sea.”

Istavan was pleased to observe that many of the knights, wearied by the run-in with the angel hair and the battle with the bigeater, were now taking turns sleeping. The watch was light. Scrambling over a small outcropping, he saw what he was looking for: the commander’s pavilion, where the knight in the shining white armor whom he’d seen earlier was probably quartered. “Just who was that?” Istavan mused under his breath. “It might have been a trick of the sun’s glare, but I’d swear by the light of Jarn’s Eye that his hair was made of pure gold. A young leader, that one.”

Istavan thought back through the officers that he knew were among the ranks of the White Knights. There was Count Vlon, and Baron Lindrot, but they were too old to be the knight in white. Then there was Raias, Allion, Rentz…

Hmm… maybe it was Sir Allion? That would make sense, but still… Doal-spit!

Istavan had been weaving his way towards the pavilion to get a closer look at things when he heard low voices talking, men chatting on patrol, far too close for comfort. In his surprise, the mercenary had almost sworn out loud. Swiftly, he dropped into the safety of the nearest deep shadow and held his breath.

“A bit harsh, don’ ye think? A captive’s a captive, I know, but they’re only children!”

The answer came in the rough rasp of an older knight with a heavy accent. “’Tis not for us to question th’ general’s plans.”

“I know they’re to be put on the rack once we return, but still⁠—”

“Just think they’ve been put on th’ rack ahead of schedule, then, and stop yer worrying. I know I’ve had a few regrets meself, that girl there’s a prize. Still a bairn to be sure, but a passing lovely un. Ye can tell by her skin she’s royalty. I’d hate to see those pretty hands and legs on the wheel-table.”

“Shh!”

With a rustle, someone opened the entrance flap to the general’s pavilion. The sounds of a conversation spilled out into the night.

“Rest well, General.” The voice belonged to a heavy-set man dimly visible as he paused at the opening. But the voice that answered him was young⁠—extremely so⁠—and, Istavan thought, rather severe.

“Tell your men to be prepared to march at first daylight. The horse we sent ahead should have arrived at the fortification by now. We can expect a welcome force to come meet us halfway to the river. And make sure the watch is kept tonight. Ah, and tell Lindrot…”

“Yes?”

“Tell Lindrot to keep a close eye on the captives. I don’t want them biting off their tongues or any such foolishness.”

“As you command.”

“Astrias!”

Istavan heard a grunted reply from further inside the tent.

“Kayn will bring up the rear tomorrow. You’ll be riding in the middle. I know it can get tiring back there.”

“It’s really no… hmph, I understand, General.” The one who must be Astrias sounded vexed at the command, but spoke no further. The pavilion entrance flap was lowered.

Istavan crept closer. Perhaps he could look in through a slit in the side of the pavilion. He had to see who this general was who seemed so young, yet gave orders like a veteran commander. When he had peered down from atop the cliff earlier that day, he hadn’t been able to see him clearly enough to satisfy his curiosity. There was something about that intensity, that almost arrogant lilt to the voice that filled him with an impulse to see his face.

The Crimson Mercenary stealthily advanced until he had reached the side of the pavilion. Then, finding a seam in the side where the panels of cloth had been tied together, he began slowly separating them. He could hear low voices inside the tent. He was about to peer in when⁠—

“Aah!” Istavan yelped reflexively, then just as quickly slapped his hand over his mouth.

Something was on his other hand, a disgustingly bulbous, faintly luminescent grub-like thing. Sandworm larva! It must have jumped on back there in those rocks and come along for the ride. The nasty thing was on his gauntlet, trying to latch on and drain the blood from his hand. It had found the steel far too hard to penetrate and so it sat there, frustrated, waving its circular mouth in the air. The tiny red eye underneath its orifice was glaring at Istavan with the kind of malice toward life that only the spawn of Doal bear.

Yuck! Don’t do this to me, Doal!

It was only a tiny sandworm, barely hatched, but still it looked so horrid as it flailed there and threatened him mindlessly with its goblet-shaped head that, almost by instinct, he knocked it off his hand and crushed it beneath his heel. Istavan was a hardened mercenary (Spellsword, no less) who generally feared little that could not kill him outright. But, truth be told, he had always felt a little unmanned by slugs and leeches and their ilk. Even through the thick sole of his boot, the sensation of the thing squishing made shivers run up his spine.

“Who goes there?”

Distracted by the larva, he had let a patrol get too close! Quickly he abandoned his espionage and bolted as fast as he could out of the range of the patrol’s torches. Crouching low, he waited for the knights to decide that it had been an animal or a trick of the wind and lose interest. Eventually they did.

He had failed to catch a glimpse of the mysterious general, but the attempt had not been entirely fruitless. The very thing that had caused him to fail had suggested a new plan to the Crimson Mercenary. It might not have been the best plan⁠—in fact, he could think of a number of reasons why he should not follow it⁠—but he was running out of time. Pretty soon the first hoof-beats of Ruah Sungod’s chariot would be ringing in the eastern sky.

“Doal!” Istavan shivered and cursed. “Damn the odds! I might as well try it. And if this goes as I hope it will, by the fifty-tad-wide moneybag of Igrek Fortunemaker, I’ll claim a million-raan reward from those twins of Parros. I’m sure they’ve got that much ferreted away somewhere.” So saying, Istavan headed out into the Nospherus desert on a reluctant search, trailing oaths as he went.

About a twist later, the eastern sky began to brighten, and the Mongauli soldiers were just starting to believe that they would make it through the night alive, when a scream went up from one edge of the camp.

“He-e-elp! Sandworm! Sandworm after me!”

“Where? Where?”

“Sandworm!”

In moments, the camp became as frantic as a broken bee-hive. An impossibly large, leathery, segmented sandworm was plowing through the knights’ defenses, heedless of the flames, snatching up unlucky men in its path and draining them of life. Military discipline dissolved into chaos.

Of the foul denizens of Nospherus, sandworms were among the most fearsome. Gigantic, ravening life-forms, mindless and primitive, they felt no pain, and they would keep moving and attacking even if cut in two. Only by slicing them into tiny pieces or by destroying their primordial brains could they be stopped.

“Help!”

“Guard the pavilion!”

The air was rent by screams and the futile shouting of orders. The horses brayed and reared, and most of the knights were running in confusion.

A terrified captain came running into the pavilion. “My Lady! You are in danger! We must leave!”

Amnelis shook her head. “Send crossbowmen to the front! I’ll take command!”

The unattended watchfire had begun to smolder. In the gloom, no one noticed that a knight was approaching the captives, and no one saw that his armor was a curious mix of black and red.

A young knight still on guard protested when Istavan drew his sword and slashed away the captives’ bonds.

Istavan grunted, “Captain’s orders⁠—we’re to move them to safety!”

The knight, flustered, nodded briskly. “Need me to help?”

“No, have you a sword? Get after that sandworm! It just got another one of our brothers!”

Istavan had no need to pretend he was afraid. His voice was already trembling from the wild run back to camp with the sandworm he had lured out of its lair hot on his heels. The mercenary had used his own body as bait and had run like the wind itself, absolutely terrified.

“Doal-spit! By the two curving necks of Janos, this is the last time I help anyone!” he growled in a low voice as he cut away Guin’s bonds and handed him a shortsword.

Without a word, Guin and the twins stood up, shreds of leather falling from their wrists. They were free. They ran to the far side of the camp, away from where the defenders and the sandworm were engaged in a pitched battle. Istavan and Guin caught two horses that were running loose in panicked circles. The steeds were already saddled and bridled, and the two warriors mounted, each seating one of the twins with him.

“East,” said Guin.

“Hiyup!” the mercenary shouted, and gave his horse a swift kick.

His mount had already reached a mad gallop when an alarm call went up.

“The captives are escaping!”

Indeed, they were racing out into the wildlands dawn.