Chapter-4-4

⁠—⁠—⁠— IV ⁠—⁠—⁠—

“The village of the Sem!”

It was closer than the invaders had thought.

Surprised by the ease with which they had discovered their goal, the Mongauli soldiers erupted with shouts of glee.

The village that lay before them was a simple affair, a collection of huts looking like upturned bowls made of white, hardened mud. The structures stood clustered along a dry stream bed that ran through the center of the valley. In the middle of the space they sheltered was a small clear area, perhaps a gathering place. Thin wisps of purple smoke rose from some of the huts as though the Sem who lived there had just kindled their cook fires to prepare a meal. Several stakes had been driven into the dry streambed, upon which were hung the skins of some animal—and round dangling objects that the Mongauli soon realized were the heads of men hung out to dry in the hot Nospherus sun.

Not a single wildling was in sight.

Perhaps the quickest of the Sem who had fled before the blue knights’ charge had run into the village and raised the alarm, warning their wives and children of the coming danger, and the tiny barbarians had abandoned their belongings and rushed from the village in haste. Or perhaps the furry primitives had simply panicked and run inside their huts, where even now they sat clinging to each other in abject fear, mother holding child, elder holding grandchild, sister holding sister, silently invoking the name of their monkey god, fearing the coming of the devils in their gleaming iron skins atop their giant four-legged beasts.

Or…

Marus slowly raised his faceplate. His alert eyes scanned the village, looking for clues, hints that might indicate what had become of the Sem that lived here. Instinct told him that they were not in those huts.

“Garanth.”

“My lord?”

“This is a large village,” Marus spoke softly. The rustling of the sand in the soft wind had all but stopped. This could be a valley of death—a ghost village—it was so quiet. The wildling shelters sat still and sullen between the valley walls, and not a single hairy body strewing the path that the Mongauli had come could offer any information.

The oppressive silence was soft as cotton, but as stifling as a yidoh’s insidious clutch, enveloping the knights in its gigantic veil. Tension spread through the mounted riders. They stilled their breath. Someone toward the back of the line let his hand drop slightly, inadvertently striking his sword against his armor and giving off a loud metallic clang. Several knights gasped and held their breath.

But nothing happened, and the silence stole back in like Nospherus sand that sifts to fill a hole in the desert and obscures all that has gone before. Nothing stirred within the quiet huts; there was no movement in the streambed. The riders stared at the severed heads hanging in the sun, as though their swollen lips might part to tell them where the villagers had gone, but the heads, too, were silent.

“Captain…” Garanth uttered, his voice heavy, as though he had just stepped into the hallowed Temple of Janos and feared to break some edict of silence. He brought his horse up alongside Marus’ steed but paused hesitantly, unsure of how to continue. Marus turned and looked at him, reflecting on the busy decades during which this man had ridden by his side—his old subject, his confidant, his friend. Their age was the same, and ever since they first stepped onto the field of war at the age of fifteen, they had witnessed every battle together. Neither man had ever been seriously wounded; through all the grueling campaigns they had managed to avoid sword, mace, and arrow, and the crippling falls from horseback that had claimed so many former companions. In Parros, Cylon, Terelle-Alam, and finally stationed at Tauride Castle…

As Garanth rode up alongside the count, a sense of security filled Marus, and the old friendship that had matured over long years of reliance and loyalty welled up in his warrior’s heart. They had known each other when their hair was blond and their beards were first growing; now their hair was as white as snow. He did not want to see that friendship ever die.

How far we have come…

“Captain?”

Marus awoke from his reverie with a start. This was no time for reminiscing. He had just opened his mouth to give Garanth his orders when a sudden yell cut through the silence of the valley.

“Hraaah!”

The entire corps started, as jarred as if they had missed a step while walking down a staircase; some almost lost their balance and fell from their horses. One of their number had inexplicably broken ranks and was now riding straight down into the village at a furious speed.

Marus was aghast. “What is this? No one moves without my orders!”

Garanth gaped, dumbstruck for a moment before he recovered enough to yell for the rider to stop. But the knight rode on, leaning so hard over his horse that he nearly toppled from his saddle. He was galloping down into the valley as though his life depended on it.

“Garanth!” Marus looked around at him and nodded.

Garanth gave the signal to attack, his arm tracing a swift arc through the air, and a moment later the cavalry was in motion. With a sound like rolling thunder, the blue knights of Mongaul charged down into the Sem village.

Marus’ eyes opened wide and he shouted out to Garanth as they galloped. “Was that Eru who raced ahead?”

It was, the aged count thought. It was Eru of Argon. Trying to prove himself, that youthful fool. Even if only women and children are left, this is a Sem village and we’ve fallen prey to their traps before. Who knows what they might have planned?

Yet even as he cursed Eru’s foolhardiness, he saw that the young knight had made it through the middle of the village without mishap and was now riding up the slope at the other side of the valley.

“What is he doing?” Marus demanded, pulling on his reins. The rest of the blue knights had reached the first of the huts and they were slowing down, moving more cautiously now.

As Marus watched, Eru rode still farther away from the corps, up onto the rise that overlooked the far side of the village.

Then he lifted his hand and lowered it sharply.

At his signal, the valley began to growl and shudder around the Mongauli riders. The very ground beneath them shook as the sound rose to an incredible roar. For a moment, they had no idea what was happening. When they did realize, it was already too late. From the tops of the high hill-walls on every side, an avalanche of boulders came rolling down into the valley.

The soldiers screamed.

With inescapable speed, the boulders spun down the valley’s sides, as though spit from the mouth of a volcano, bouncing off the rocky slopes and crashing down on top of the knights. The Mongauli’s iron helms and armor could do little in the face of such destructive force, and the men were crushed as though they were made of paper, flattened beneath the rampaging rocks. In a matter of seconds, the valley that had been so silent was filled with screams of pain and shrill cries for help.

When the dancing dust that had been thrown up by the boulders as they careened off one another began to settle down, those who remained of the proud blue knights of Mongaul could see that their mighty corps had been transformed into a sorry band of cursing and crying wounded men. They lifted their dimming eyes and peered through the turmoil, and they saw them, hundreds of little devil faces gazing down from among the rocks atop the valley walls.

They were the faces of the Karoi—the first that had been seen by the Mongauli since they crossed the Kes—but to the knights below, they were indistinguishable from those of any of the other wildlings. They were evil and monkey-like, to be hated and feared.

The huts in the valley where the blue knights now found themselves were Karoi homes; this was their village. When word of the invaders first reached them, they alone of the Sem had been unwilling to march to war. But when the news arrived from the Sem gathered at the oasis that the Mongauli army was searching for their villages, that indeed they were drawing closer to their rocky hills, they had sent out scouts. The few that returned had confirmed what the other Sem had told them, and they had realized that they had no choice but to join the fight.

Gaulo, the leader of the Karoi, had put aside his past differences with Loto, Tubai, and Ilateli, and in an impassioned meeting at the oasis the night before Guin left to find the Lagon, he had agreed to join them in the struggle against the oh-mu. Guin had needed a force of Sem to prepare an ambush, and Gaulo had volunteered the Karoi. It was his Karoi warriors who now looked down from atop the cliffs, awaiting the signal to attack. Gaulo, perched at the head of the valley, made a swift pushing motion with his arm. With a roar, a second wave of boulders came rolling down mercilessly upon the heads of the Mongauli.

“Watch out! Lord Captain, get down!”

Garanth sprang from the saddle and grabbed his captain by the leg, dragging him off his horse and pushing him behind a heavy boulder that had lodged against the ruins of one of the Sem huts. He hoped that the stone and the horses standing in front of it would be enough to shield them from this new onslaught.

They had been lucky to escape the first avalanche, but it seemed unlikely that their luck would hold. The sound of huge rocks rumbling and cracking against each other drowned out the screams and laments of the knights. All around them the simple hardened mud huts of the Karoi were crushed to pieces as the stones thudded and rolled across the valley floor.

“Lower your head! Get down!” screamed Garanth. Marus was in a daze, seeming not to understand what was happening to them.

“Eru, what have you done?” muttered Marus. He tried to stand and search for the errant knight as though he was back at camp surveying his ranks, as though no giant boulders were rushing down upon his force to reduce his men to bloody gore.

“Lord Captain, it’s a trap! We’ve fallen into—”

Garanth’s voice was suddenly cut off.

Marus turned just in time to see a boulder slam into his loyal lieutenant’s face. The count gasped and came to his senses.

“Garanth! Garanth!” he shouted, running toward his friend. Garanth lay sprawled on the ground, his feet facing away from Marus. Where his head should have been, a giant white boulder had come to rest, giving the perversely comic illusion that his white hair had suddenly ballooned to an enormous size.

“Garanth!” Marus shouted as though his words could shatter the stone, then threw himself against the great rock, pushing it aside. But as it rolled away he staggered back, aghast. Where Garanth’s head had been, there now remained no more than a sticky gelatinous paste of stony white, gray, and red.

“Garanth!” Marus screamed so hard he could taste blood in his mouth. He looked up and down the valley, his face wild. It seemed that the Sem had prepared in a hurry, for they were already out of rocks—at least, no more were falling. The valley floor was strewn chaotically with those that they had already pushed down. More than half of the once proud blue knights of Tauride Castle were dead. They lay scattered, crushed and broken, some now nothing more than pitiful lumps of blood and flesh.

Of those who had not been killed outright, many were pinned or trapped by the larger stones, and their moaning and the pained whinnying of their horses filled Marus’ ears. It was a few moments before he realized that the loudest and most piercing of the screams was his own.

He fell quiet then, gazing up to the top of the nearest valley wall and the countless furry faces of the Sem. The wildlings were colored with warrior’s paint, and they now held up their bows above their heads and cried their piercing war cries.

Then Marus saw him: a tall man in the armor of Mongaul, below the Sem, halfway down the valley wall.

“E-ruuuu!”

A cry, barely human, came from Marus’ grimacing mouth. He could clearly see the lone knight’s long blue cloak, his blue armor—knight’s armor, bearing the crest of Mongaul—the longsword at his waist, and his long blue leather boots. Eru lifted a mailed hand and slowly took off his helm, topped with the crest of Tauride Castle; he threw it down among the rocks with casual disdain.

The face that was now revealed was fine-featured, dusky, and burned by the sun. He is so young, the count thought, and he did not see that the young knight’s features were taut and trembling. The obsidian eyes, usually filled with humor and a cold cynicism, were open wide, and they seemed about to overflow with barely contained emotion. His mouth trembled—he was biting his lower lip hard—and his hand clutched at the edge of his cloak. He could not spot Marus down below until the old count slowly took off his own helm, revealing his white hair.

Istavan of Valachia lifted a trembling hand and brought it swiftly down.

“Kiiiiyaa!”

“Iiiie Iiiie!”

Almost dancing with excitement, the Karoi scampered down the valley side, passing Istavan where he stood watching. They came in threes, each group carrying a large urn between them. When they drew near the bottom of the slope, they upturned the urns and poured their contents down onto the valley floor.

“Wh-What is this?”

The survivors of Marus Corps, wedged between boulders, or holding onto the wounded and the dead, peered warily at the liquid being poured down on them. They all feared the black poison of the Sem, but this was clear and odorous.

A horrified shout rose up from the knights.

“Oil!”

“Cactus oil!”

“Those Sem mean to burn us alive!”

“Janos protect us!”

“They wouldn’t. They wouldn’t…”

Yet already a unit of Sem that had been lying in wait had appeared at the top of the cliff, bearing arrows with flaming tips in their hands. They blazed like a row of torches at a funeral procession.

For a moment Marus’ face, white as paper, was drawn tight. In the next moment, his features twisted and crumbled with the weariness of utter defeat. A hoarse voice spilled out from his loose lips.

“You… you schemed? You wore the armor of Mongaul… of Mongaul… and chanted its name, and yet… and yet, this?”

Count Marus summoned the last of his strength and rose to his feet, leaning on his sword as if it were a cane.

“You traitor—you rat! Eru of Argon!”

The count reeled. His vision narrowed suddenly, as if he were staring into a burning spyglass. No longer could he see his men dying around him, or the Sem at the top of the cliff, or the flaming arrows that the wildlings held ready to fire, or the immanent disaster that awaited him. Only one thing filled his gaze, and it was the young knight Eru—Istavan of Valachia— standing above him on the valley side.

“You will pay dearly for this. You… Even if my body is crushed, I will avenge Garanth!”

Suddenly, with amazing speed, the count drew back his hand and flung his sword like a spear toward Istavan. It was an incredible throw, higher and farther than even a champion could have hoped to hurl such a weapon. Istavan yelped and dodged aside, but he could not avoid the streaking blade entirely. It cut into his right ear, sending out a spray of fresh blood.

“Yaaah!” the mercenary howled, clapping his hand to the wound. He raised his other hand in anger and shouted, “Now! Do it!”

“Iiiiaaah!” screamed the Sem archers, and they loosed their blazing volley into the sky. Within moments the valley of the Karoi was engulfed in flames.

The fire ignited the flowing cactus oil and swept wildly toward the Mongauli troops and their horses at the bottom of the valley, charring them like meat in a frying pan as it rushed over them. Quickly the flame spread, burning hotter off the fat of man and horse. Those who were not caught immediately by the conflagration ran madly looking for a way out, but the Sem had filled in every path out of the valley with their boulders, and several wildlings now stood at each blocked exit waiting for the men to try to climb out. Shouting victoriously, they rolled down more rocks now from on high and shot at the panicked knights with their poison arrows. When the fire showed signs of weakening, the Sem women hurried up with more urns and added more cactus oil to the blaze to ensure that its fury did not diminish.

The valley became a roaring sea of fire, a rock-filled crematorium where the Mongauli burned alive. Blackened like the shades of the damned, the knights jumped and jerked in a dance of death, stumbling blindly back and forth while the cruel flaming tongue of Migel Firegod licked them until they were dead.

Yet in the middle of that blazing hell, Marus still lived. Oil stained his body, and the fire had reached his feet; it had swallowed the blackened corpses of his men all around him, and now it licked hungrily at the noble captain. Already, the edge of his cloak was smoldering, but still he stood tall on that killing ground.

His white hair flew upwards in the heat, and his face was painted red by the light of the blaze, as though he were Migel himself, come to pass judgment in the court of Hell. His blood-shot eyes never wavered, following Istavan as he retreated from the fearsome pyre toward the top of the cliff.

Stricken by a sudden power he did not understand, Istavan froze. He was exhausted, and the heat was unbearable. He knew that he had to get to the top of the valley wall; yet, he turned around. He was cursed. He could not take his eyes off of Marus.

Then, with a swift noise like that of a rushing wind, the flame consumed the body of the count. It was as if the old warrior had been gently bestowed a kiss of fire by the air maiden Aeno, or lifted away to a higher plane by the swooping fire-chariot of Ruah Sungod. Surrendering his body to the flames, Marus stood until his white hair burned. His blue armor turned red hot as he was transformed into a giant human torch.

Just as he was about to disappear into the flame forever, the count’s eyes opened wide.

“Eru of Argon!”

The eerie voice reached Istavan at the top of the cliff. It seemed to echo throughout the valley, louder than even the maelstrom of fire below.

“Eru of Argon! Mongaul will never forget your name, you rat! Eru of Argon! Eru of Argon… Eru…”

Just when Istavan was about to cover his ears and scream “I’m not Eru!” the count’s body collapsed backward into the deadly flames without another sound. Hardly a thing moved in the valley, then. Only the fire continued its feasting without pause.

Istavan’s face was pale.

“Please,” he spluttered. “Please forgive me. It wasn’t my idea, the oil… Guin thought of this! By the head of Cirenos he wears, if you’re going to curse someone, make it him, not me!”

Then, as though trying to shed his assumed identity before the curse could find him, he frantically yanked off the blue armor of Tauride Castle that he wore and threw it into the fire. His eyes were filled with tears.

It was some time later when the remainder of the Mongauli army, having finally dealt with the ambush at the pit-trap, made it to the valley where Marus Corps had met its fate. They had seen the smoke rising and had hurried as swiftly as they could. When they arrived at last, it was only to realize that they were far too late. The Sem had vanished, and their warriors and village-folk were nowhere to be seen. All that the invaders found in the valley, lying among the boulders and broken mud huts, were the sad remains of Tauride’s corps of blue knights, charred as dark as despair, caught forever in twisted shapes of pain.

Guin’s plan had worked beautifully.