——— 4 ———
——— IV ———
Of course, the mirage-like image that Astrias and Pollak had seen as they rode across the plain was even clearer to the sharp eyes of Guin and Istavan high on a ridge above them. The two fugitive warriors first noticed it as a long, hazy line of rippling dust between them and the dark sparkle of the Kes.
After a while, the wind shifted and the dust cleared, revealing its source.
“Down. Now!” Guin commanded, leaping from his horse even as he did. The Raku warriors did not need to be told twice.
In a flash, they were down on their bellies amongst the rocks. Some had even nocked poison arrows in their bows and were searching warily for a target.
“Hold! Fire no arrows!” Guin hissed in the Sem tongue. “Stay low and do not move. If you wear anything that catches the light, put it under you!”
Istavan crawled behind the horses, which he had induced to lie down. After a few moments crouched in the open he realized that the black armor he wore would stand out like a signal upon the white ridge-cliff. Keeping close to the ground, he slithered over to Guin’s side.
“Is that what I think it is?”
Guin merely nodded and growled deep in his throat.
Istavan swallowed and stared at the hair-raising sight away below them.
“By Ruah and his fiery host! Doal!”
Guin paid no attention to Istavan’s curses. All eyes on the ridge-top were fixed on the the barren plains below, for what they saw was far more terrible than what any of them had expected. A vast army of Mongauli soldiers had crossed the river and set up camp in the wildlands, lining the eastern bank of the Kes so that not a square yard of earth was showing for at least a league along the water.
Istavan’s trained eye judged the host to be over ten thousand strong. The Marches sun glinted off the Gohrans’ armor, their tall helms, and their weaponry, creating an unnatural shining lake that pushed against the desert like water brimming against a dam. “There’s a company of the white in the middle. Those red knights on the right are probably the rest of the keep guard from Alvon. And the sea of blue on the left would be reinforcements from Tauride Castle. I wouldn’t be surprised if Count Marus was out there leading the Eighth Blue Knights himself. And those black knights in the rear would be from Talos Keep.”
Guin nodded, listening intently.
“Then again, they might be the first contingent of a full-fledged expedition from Torus. It’s a possibility.” Istavan spoke with apparent calm, but there was a slight tremor in his voice. “That’s about ten to fifteen thousand men, I’d wager. Five thousand crossbowmen, three thousand infantry, and a good five thousand cavalry. You see the way they’re lined up? That’s a variation on the Mongauli quinticolor formation. They’re missing one of the five colors, but they’ve still got enough to do their classic compass attack: one force from the north, one from the east, one from the south, and one from the west. D’you know why the Mongauli paint their knights like that, Guin? For one, it helps ’em not kill their own in battle, but more than that, it’s so the general can see how each part of the force is faring and figure at a glance where to send reinforcements.”
“They’re just welcoming back Astrias’s band,” Guin noted. Then his voice grew thoughtful. “That warrior girl is their general, Istavan?”
“Aye. You see the white knights there? And their pennons? The flags flanking the one in the middle are the archduke’s and Gohra’s. The one in the middle’s the banner of the archduke’s daughter.”
“And this girl intends to lead an army into the no-man’s land, and conquer its rocks and its dust, and its wildling tribes, peaceful or no.” Guin spoke with a tone of such utter contempt that Amnelis would have been driven mad had she been present.
“That Mongauli general is one of the most famous warriors in the Middle Country. The archduke’s only other child—his son, Mial—is a weakling, sick from birth, you see. Rumor has it she’s planning on succeeding her father when he passes on. She’s even got a fake moustache made just for the occasion!” Istavan chuckled. “Mongaul’s got the same problem that Parros does!”
“What do you mean?”
“The hen is strong, and the rooster just shuffles around chirping with his birth-shell still stuck on his arse!” The mercenary held his hand over his mouth to hold in his sudden mirth.
Guin shook his head. “If you are speaking of Rinda and Remus, I think you’ve been misled by the boy’s soft hair and softer personality. You’re missing the dragon that sleeps inside, friend. I know that boy will—” Guin suddenly broke off as his keen eyes noticed a change in the forces arrayed below them.
He stated, with a sort of calm: “The army is moving.”
It was a fantastic sight, awesome and uncanny, yet familiar, like an epic palace mural that has been seen for years but takes on a sudden power when one day its true meaning is finally understood. The Mongauli formation was an enormous three-petalled flower, red, blue, and black, surrounding a stamen of dazzling white.
Each petal that unfurled in the desert had a triangular shape made up of three tiers, the footmen outermost, the bow-men in the middle, and the horsemen innermost. The whole moved smoothly and without pause, as though it was not comprised of thousands of men but was a single giant organism. Its movements were guided by invisible threads that ran from the center of the formation; the white core controlled the flanks and the rear as though they were the limbs of a puppet and it the puppeteer. And though she could not be seen, there was no doubt that at the heart of the inner core, surrounded by dozens of flags and hundreds of loyal knights, was Amnelis.
“Blast it!” Istavan cursed abruptly. “How in Doal’s name did they get such an army here in such good shape in so little time! They would have to have been planning this for months!”
“Perhaps they were,” Guin agreed. “Our arrival may have been the spark they needed, or perhaps we added oil to an already-burning fire. Either way, it seems that Mongaul made plans to conquer the Sem and the Lagon of Nospherus almost as soon as they worked out the taking of Parros. The Mongauli were concerned that, while they were reaching toward Parros, someone—perhaps one of the other archdukes, perhaps some Parros sympathizers—might attack Mongaul from behind where its forces would be thinnest.”
Guin thought for a moment. “By joining with the Sem and routing Astrias’s company, we gave credence to their worst fears—the orphans of Parros in league with the wildlings!”
Istavan nodded. “Aye. Then this is probably not the entire invasion force. I wouldn’t be surprised to see another twenty to thirty thousand coming down from Torus. They’re likely already on the highroad.”
“Crimson Mercenary, we must take care not to lead them straight back to the Raku village. Against this host, an ill-prepared village of two thousand would not stand for a night. They’d be slaughtered in a twist, and us with them.”
Guin turned to the warriors behind them and translated their conversation into the wildlings’ tongue. The young Raku were worried. Their leader, whom they called “Siba,” asked Guin in his high-pitched voice what he meant to do.
Guin told them in their tongue, “I intend that we return to your village with great stealth, and to make ready for battle. Or else the last days of Nospherus are at hand.”
Istavan, picking up on the flow of the conversation, snorted into the dust. “You think a handful of monkeys can stand against this many veteran troops? If you do, then I’m touched, I really am touched!”
Guin looked directly at the mercenary and spoke calmly. “We know the enemy’s plan, and they do not know that we are aware of them. This gives us the advantage. Moreover, they certainly do not know the precise location of the village. The Mongauli have not ventured more than a day’s journey on horseback into Nospherus. Loto’s village is hidden in a valley and it is hard to find. We may have five, even six days to prepare, Istavan.”
“Why do you always know these things, leopard-head?” mumbled Istavan gloomily. “I suppose you know the exact location of this Sem village, to which you have never been?”
“Do not misunderstand,” Guin explained. “I do not know all these things… nor am I certain about their village’s location. It is only that I can see it dimly, and the lands around it, as though through a fog.”
“Whatever you say, Riyaad-man.” Istavan continued impatiently, “Look, I don’t much care whether we run back and help them evacuate, or we run back and prepare for a doomed defense, but let’s do something, for Doal’s sake!”
Guin nodded and turned to give orders to the Sem warriors. The reconnaissance force had seen what it had come to see, and now all made swift preparations to leave. On the plain below, the Mongauli invasion force undulated with the strange grace of a giant amoeba as it slowly headed for the Nospherus interior. The tip of the left flank was now brushing the very cliff they stood on.
Guin spoke quietly to his young band. “We will keep among the rocks until we are out of their line of sight. Then we can go down to lower ground and move more quickly.”
The small Sem nodded their assent and rose silently.
Shaking his head, Istavan, too, slowly began to rise from where he had gone to peer down one last time from the edge of the cliff. But as he did, his leather boot slipped on a patch of loose rock. He swayed and reached out hurriedly to grab Guin’s outstretched hand, catching it in time to stop himself from falling. But he had knocked loose a cascade of sand, and it coursed down the steep grade, sending a handful of small rocks clattering down the cliff side.
With one hand the mercenary reached instinctively for the sliding rocks, as though he could stop them from falling. It was too late. Far below, a scout from the left wing of the Mongauli army heard the clattering of stones, on his armor no less, and looked up. He stood there for a long while, peering up the cliff wall, then turned and made signals to his fellow patrollers, gesturing also towards the main formation. Then Guin and Istavan, peering out from their perch atop the cliff, saw the man ride back to the main body of the army, where he made his report to his waiting lieutenant. A movement began backwards up the ranks. The message was being passed back to the center.
Whether it was the general who had given the order or not, the watchers could not tell, but suddenly the entire army came to a stop, as though pulled back by invisible tethers. Someone was taking the scout’s report very seriously. Guin spotted captains bearing flags riding in towards the center of the army. An impromptu meeting must have been called.
“Now they know we’re here,” the leopard warrior said grimly. “The lady general means to send a squad or two out to look for us.”
Istavan made it a point of not offering an awkward apology. All around him, the Raku stared with accusatory eyes.
“We leave,” Guin announced. He ran to his horse and mounted swiftly. Istavan followed, eager to get going.
“We’ll ride north. To go east now would be to lead them to the Raku village. Once we are sure they are misled, we will change our course to meet up with the others and warn them.”
“Aii!” the Sem warriors bowed and exclaimed quietly, and the band began to move. Guin and Istavan rode swiftly north-ward along the ridge, weaving their way among the boulders, the little Sem running as fast as they could behind them to keep pace.
None of them could spare the time to look again at their enemies at the bottom of the cliff, where a small group of blue knights had broken off from the main host and was busily engaged in seeking a path up the steep, rocky incline.
“There!”
“Atop that mountain o’ rock!”
For the third time in as many days, the leopard-headed warrior and the mercenary of Valachia heard the shouts of Gohran soldiers behind them in pursuit.
“Hyah!”
Guin and Istavan urged their steeds into a gallop. Now it was no longer merely their own lives, but the fate of the entire Raku village that hung on their survival. Even Guin kicked madly at his horse’s flanks, and the fifty Sem who followed dashed on as fast as their swift feet would carry them, north-ward, toward where the Ashgarn Mountains towered, their peaks capped in eternal snow.
“Fly, Raku! Fly!”
“Riyaad! Aiii! Riyaad!”
The Sem moved as one over the dry Nospherus sands, which trembled and creaked under the pounding of their tiny feet. Glancing back, Istavan fancied he could hear them whispering in their strange tongue, pleading with the very sand they ran across: O sand-God, you who have given us life, you who have raised us. Now we give you life; dance, O sand-God. Become a veil to shield us from the eyes of the demons… become blinding ash, a stealer of sight. Save the children of Nospherus from the fury of man and horse.
The loud Mongaul-accented voices of the scouting party below them quickly turned into the whiz of bow shots, whirring through the air around them, ricocheting off rocks and streaking lines of blood where it grazed their speeding bodies. Puffs of dust leapt up from the ground ahead of them where stray shot sank in. Two or three Sem running at the very back were struck squarely and fell.
“Riyaad!”
Siba lifted up his bow and an arrow and knocked them together, signaling his desire to stand and fight.
“No, we must run!” shouted Guin, spurring his horse on faster. “Killing one or two won’t make a difference.”
“Gullah! Emiiru!”
Siba vented his rage, but he did not disobey the words of Guin Great Warrior. Once the Kaku had sworn friendship, they were loyal to the end, and Siba was a Raku.
Though the Mongauli soldiers were mounted and the wildlings were on foot, the little barefooted Sem had the advantage in this deadly race. The rocky ridge proved inaccessible from below, and so the soldiers, after firing several volleys at long range, were forced to make a long detour. Their horses were barded in iron plates, and the combined loads of barding, armored knights, and heavy war-tack weighed them down in the soft sand. The loose footing to the north of the ridge sucked at their hooves, and the fleet Sem sped ever further away. The soldiers cursed and lashed their mounts with their horsewhips, shooting their crossbows in frustration, but only two or three shots out of a hundred hit, and then finally even the rearmost Raku were far out of range.
At last the Mongauli, stymied by the rough terrain, were forced to cease their pursuit. They feared the wrath of their captain, but there was nothing to be done but gather up the bodies of the three Sem that their bow shot had felled and return with them to the main force. A strong wind had picked up, and it soon obscured the trail of footprints that was the Gohrans’ only clue to the destination of the fifty or so Sem that had gotten away. The trail led north toward the towering Ashgarn Mountains.
Twilight was coming to the wildlands again. The unwelcoming wind blowing down from the Ashgarn range tossed clumps of angel hair into the faces of the invaders, and the knights from Alvon looked up with apprehension at the dimming sky and sighed, fearing the eerie Marches night.
After galloping steadily for at least three twists, Guin let his band slow its pace, giving the horses’ weary legs much needed rest. They could no longer hear the voices of pursuers behind them, no longer did the bow shots fly. Coming gradually to a standstill, they caught their breath and called each other’s names.
“We have lost three warriors, Riyaad,” Siba reported.
I hope they are dead then, for their sake. Should they live, those gaudily painted demons will torture them horribly, Guin thought. But the words he spoke were stoic: “We were forced to take quite a detour. We will change course, now, and head east. Even if we have to risk traveling by night, we must warn the Raku of the Mongauli invasion as soon as possible. If we can be only a shake or even a grain faster, it may make all the difference.”
“I understand, Riyaad. We are not tired. We will run through the night.”
“No need to run. A fast march will suffice.”
They changed course now and marched eastward. It came as a relief to them all to be able to put their backs toward the sun. Never dimmed by clouds, the Marches evening sun had become a huge and glowering orange disk on the horizon as it dipped down toward the Kes River valley. A giant evil eye: Doal was watching over his domain.
They followed a downward slope into a narrow ravine. The land rose on either side, growing steeper and steeper until the band marched between low cliffs.
“By Jarn,” muttered Guin, wiping at the white silky strands that had begun to strike his face in increasing numbers. “By Jarn, there’s a lot of angel hair here.”
“Maybe we wandered into their town meeting,” said Istavan gloomily. He had been in a foul mood since his blunder atop the cliff had alerted the Mongauli to their presence, precipitating the whole mad dash through the Nospherus wildlands.
Guin did not reply. He looked around and gave a low growl, almost too low to be heard.
The cliffs, left and right, continued to rise until they were walking in a gorge. Between the shadow-spawning walls of rock, they could see very little of their surroundings. Perhaps cued by the fading light, more and more angel hair were beginning to gather. The Sem seemed unfazed by the strange white substance that merely melted when it hit their faces, and they walked forward, calmly wiping away the stuff with their furry hands. But Guin was becoming uncharacteristically anxious.
“Siba!” called out the leopard warrior in a harsh voice.
“Yes, Riyaad.”
“You are sure this is the right path?”
“Yes, this leads to the village of the Raku.”
“But look—the path becomes narrower and narrower!” Guin exclaimed, the worry clear in his voice. Istavan looked over at the leopard-headed warrior in shock. It was the first time he had ever known his strange companion to betray even a hint of fear.
Then they rounded a bend, and the entire party stopped, mouths agape. Before them stretched a scene out of a nightmare or the painting of a morbid artist gone mad.
The path fell away before them, spreading out into a large valley filled with a pale, bluish-white, eerily luminous lake!
Horror and disgust paralyzed their tongues, for the lake was no natural feature, but rather a vast pool of fearsome life, a thronging mass of thousands—no, hundreds of thousands—of dripping, squirming, jelly creatures. They had stumbled upon a valleyful of yidoh.
The warriors’ screams stuck in their mouths, and they felt the warmth of life drain from their limbs. They could not go forward, nor could they turn back. Numb with despair, they stood and watched.
And then they saw the seething pool undulate. The fell hive had noticed them.
And it was angry.
End of Book Two
The Guin Saga, Volume 2
was published on October 1, 1979 by
Hayakawa Publishing
and written by
Kaoru Kurimoto (栗本 薫)
with illustrations by
Naoyuki Kato (加藤 直之)
This volume was published on October 1, 2003 by
Vertical, Inc.
and formatted into an epub by
Elemhunter, from scans by xPearse.
This release is revision 1.0 (January 24th, 2022).
For formatting corrections, etc., contact
HabaneroScans@Gmail.com
Table of Contents
- Chapter One - Across the River of Death
- Chapter Two - The Barbarian Wilderness
- Chapter Three - The General’s Pavilion
- Chapter Four - A Valley of Yidoh
- Colophon