The Dark Queen Read online

  The sterim. The wild desert storm that raced up into the Istarian mountains, gathering speed as it coursed over the plains, blinding and fierce in its fury. The elf's eyes glazed over, the brilliant lucerna closing once more, this time protectively against the anticipated wind.

  Fordus's lieutenants nodded. These words they understood. As always, the plan was simple and ele shy;gant and practical-the poetry of war translated by the strange, exotic Stormlight.

  It would work. They would "bring the desert to the Kingpriest," and his army would fall. It did not matter if they understood all of the words of the prophecy. They would win the battle.

  Excitedly, brandishing their weapons and mur shy;muring boasts and promises, the lieutenants dis shy;persed into the ranks of the rebels. Only three remained: Fordus, Stormlight, and the bard.

  "Where is the enemy now?" Stormlight asked, crouching by the commander. "What does the hawk say, Larken?"

  The bard held his odd gaze for a moment and then motioned with her hands. Three miles to the north, Stormlight. Lucas says they are three miles to the north. That's all you need to know.

  Stormlight and Fordus exchanged puzzled glances as the girl trotted away to join the receding column of troops.

  "Larken hates me, doesn't she?" Stormlight asked, a crooked smile pleating his smooth and ageless face.

  The commander shrugged. "Of course not, Storm shy;light. She's just poetic and high-strung. And you know she can only sing. It is a frustrating and sad thing when your hands must speak for you." He looked off over the northern plains.

  "Temper or temperament, it's all the same," Stormlight concluded, following the comman shy;der's gaze into level, grassy nothingness. "But the Kingpriest is at hand. There's no time. The wind is rising."

  The night passed in a haze of hot wind, and few of them found sleep in its discomfort.

  But they were ready. Shortly before dawn, Storm shy;light crouched in the high rustling grass, watching as the Istarian commander signaled to raise his battle standards-the white tower on the red banner-in the weak morning light. The elf slowed his heartbeat, his breath shallowing until he stood motionless, his skin collecting sand and ash from the passing wind, crusting and knotting. Serenely, he sank into a stony quietude, indistinguishable from a thousand stones that littered the rubble-strewn edge of the desert.

  When the Istarians had passed, he would slip from the stone disguise, appear in their midst with surprise and havoc.

  The elf rises out of the ground …

  His company of followers, the Que-Nara, hid in the high grass behind him, their faces painted brown, black, and yellow to match their flowing robes, the hard shadows, and the first slanting rays of the sun.

  He was the rock amid the reeds. He was the stony heart of the army.

  The left flank of the Istarian infantry passed not fifty feet from where Stormlight and his party lay hid shy;den. The horsemen spread out before the advancing army, a dark-haired Solamnic Knight in the vanguard with three of his subordinates.

  It was just as Fordus had predicted. The desert storm had gathered; a huge cloud of sand and hot blasting wind scoured the edge of the battlefield, seeming to await his command. The Kingpriest's army consisted of two thousand infantry, five hun shy;dred archers, and five hundred cavalry, among those a division of Solamnic Knights-the most formidable cavalry in the world. And yet the expected army looked curiously dwarfed, dimin shy;ished, as though half its number had deserted in the night.

  Stormlight stood serenely in the howling storm as the horsemen passed and the legion followed, heads lowered against the harsh, corrosive wind.

  The sterim had allied itself with the rebels. When shy;ever an army arrayed itself against Fordus, it seemed that even the weather plotted to shape the fortunes of the day.

  Fordus stood on a rise, in waving knee-high yel shy;low grass, and faced the advancing Istarians. Bran shy;dishing a vicious-looking short axe, he shouted to his troops, challenged the approaching Solamnic cavalry…

  Then he ducked and vanished.

  The Solamnic outriders gaped and scanned the ranks, but Fordus was gone, true to his ghostly leg shy;end. Almost at once, a volley of arrows and stones rushed to meet them. Raising their shields against the onslaught, they forgot all about the rebel com shy;mander.

  Meanwhile, Fordus slipped and dove through the high wind-driven grass. He moved swiftly, in a crouch, racing through the no-man's-land between the armies into the midst of the Solamnic horse. He weaved almost soundlessly amid churning legs and huge equine bodies, bound at unnatural speed for the western wing of his army-Larken's wing, waiting in hiding along the right Istarian flank, with the bard's hawk spiraling above like a soli shy;tary predator.

  Running with uncanny, sure instinct, he side shy;stepped the first Istarian legionnaires, the blare of their trumpets canceling his soft footfalls on the dry ground. It was the moment of battle he loved, the first confusion in the enemy ranks, when he reveled in his fleetness of foot, his gift from the gods, his greatest deception, racing from one place on the field to another far-flung outpost with the speed of an antelope or the leopard that pursued it.

  He ran so swiftly that survivors would claim that Fordus Firesoul was in two, three places at once. That he was not even human, but a phenomenon-a prince of the air and the shifting weather.

  Crouching even lower, nearly tunneling through the rustling waves of grass, Fordus raced by the last of the cavalry so closely that his shoulder brushed against the white flank of a Solamnic mare. Into the far field he rushed, and suddenly two shadowy forms emerged from the nodding undergrowth.

  Istarian infantry. Swordsmen.

  In one immaculate movement, Fordus plucked a throwing axe from his belt and, scarcely rising from a crouch, launched it with a whirling sidearm motion at the head of the man on the right. The blade flashed neatly beneath the Istarian's chin, and, wheeling through the air in a bright red spray, embedded itself-in the other man's back. Both sol shy;diers gaped and fell to their knees, their arms jerking grotesquely at their sides.

  As their eyes glazed over, the rebel passed between them and recovered his axe with no further resistance.

  Just as Fordus reached his troops, he heard the Solamnic war cry from behind, answered by a whoop from the Que-Nara, the shrill trumpets of the charging Istarian infantry, and finally the sudden clash of metal against metal as the armies closed and the first serious combat began.

  Rising to his full height, Fordus peered over the whipping grass as the rear guard of the Istarian army broke ranks and rushed to join the battle. He saw the enemy's battle standards dip and nod as the last of them breasted the tall grass, bound for the heart of the struggle. The cloud of wind-driven sand moved onto the field just as they reached it.

  Fordus chuckled softly. It had all worked accord shy;ing to his plan. In five minutes, maybe less, the two flanks of his army would rise from hiding and attack the Istarian army from behind. Assaulted from all sides, blinded and coughing, the Istarian soldiers would battle surprise and chaos as well as his sea shy;soned rebels.

  The trap was baited, sprung, and closing. It was magnificent, clean and swift, like the tumble of a well-thrown axe through the air. And it was all too easy.

  In a matter of minutes, the battle was decided, though the sandstorm raged through the whole afternoon.

  When the Twelfth Istarian Legion hit the center of the rebel lines, Stormlight sprang from the rock-cloak and signaled his troops. The Que-Nara forces struck the reserves viciously with a flanking attack. Armed with the traditional weapons of the plains- bow and bola and hook-bladed kala-they tore fiercely into the unexpecting ranks. Reeling from the sudden onslaught, the Istarians panicked. The legionnaires dropped pike and sword, shield and broadaxe, and fled before the reckless barbarians, the fleet Plainsmen.

  Fighting with no more weaponry than his hands and feet, Stormlight cut his way to the midst of the Istarian ranks, the stony crust of his skin slashing arm and leg and throat like a
fierce, serrated blade. Spinning around a grizzled lancer, he felled a swordsman with a crisp stroke of his hand. Two mercenaries rushed to meet him. He dove between the baffled pair, and as they turned to strike, the elf drove his heels into their faces with a quick, power shy;ful handspring.

  Bounding to his feet, Stormlight spun high in a circle, his right foot catching yet another Istarian lancer in the throat. The man's javelin broke as he fell, impaling him and finishing what Stormlight had begun.

  With a deep breath, the elf looked around. There, on horseback, vainly trying to rally his troops, Gen shy;eral Josef Monoculus caught sight of the charging Stormlight and drew his ancient Solamnic sword to receive the rush of the enemy. With a cry and a cart shy;wheeling leap, Stormlight hurtled through the air, his heel crashing against the side of the general's helmet.

  With a soft groan and unfocused eyes, the Istarian commander fell heavily from the saddle. Stormlight bounded onto the horse's back and, raising a broken Solamnic standard, rallied the rebels to this spot in the center of the fight, laughing and singing an old Abanasinian war song.

  The men whooped when they saw Stormlight rise in the fallen commander's saddle. Descending from the grass-covered rise, they struck the leaderless Istarians from the other flank, dealing quick death as they slashed through the disorganized lines.

  From the high ground, Fordus watched a little absentmindedly as the rebels and the storm closed like a vise around the floundering legions of Istar.

  He saw the bird dive toward a distant cropping of high grass, an Istarian archer level his bow at the creature . . . And then, with a blinding magic that still bedazzled the rebel leader, no matter how many times he had seen it happen, Lucas vanished into a fireball, into a nova of red and amber as though the sun itself had opened and swallowed the bird.

  The hawk would return later, from the high air. It would bear stories to Larken of how the Istarians had fled from the desert rout.

  In the wake of the golden flame, a rider in Solam-nic armor burst free of the chaos, galloping north toward the foothills, toward safety.

  Toward Istar and reinforcement, the bard's fingers snapped out inches in front of Fordus's face. There is only one man who can outrun horses, outrun wind and light and thought…

  Stirred by Larken, Fordus gathered himself again and loped down the rise, gaining speed as he reached the plain. He struck an angle to the path of the rider, then broke into an all-out run, blazing through the dry grass at astounding speed.

  From the high ground, Larken watched and marveled and chanted, her song weaving through the drum's swift cadence until word and rhythm were indistinguishable, seeming to drive the heart shy;beat of the racing man as he closed with the rider.

  When the Solamnic horse refused to hurdle the banks of a dry creek bed, its rider had to rein the ani shy;mal down the hard, sloping incline, losing valuable time in the process.

  Fordus raced to the bank and stopped. Standing only fifty feet from the Solamnic, he drew his axe and sent it whistling through the air at the strug shy;gling rider.

  The axe drove home between helmet and breast shy;plate. Without another breath, the man slumped for shy;ward in the saddle, and the heavy Solamnic helmet toppled from his head.

  This was no knight. All of fifteen, he was, if that old.

  Larken, on the high ground a thousand yards away, saw the boy drop from the saddle, a shiny streak of red spreading from his throat onto the sand.

  The drum head felt cold and alien beneath her fin shy;gers, and her hands trailed off into soft, mournful sounds.

  * * * * *

  The flanking attack of the rebels demolished the hapless Istarian infantry. By early evening, when the air had cleared and the sand resettled, General Josef Monoculus, his right eye heavily bandaged, stood propped between wounded Istarian regulars as he handed his sword to Fordus Firesoul. No more than two hundred of the Istarians survived; the prisoners would be taken to the desert's edge and set free, forced to travel the thirty miles to Istar unarmed and on foot. The sand from the storm had already cov shy;ered the dead.

  Stormlight thought of the harsh trek across the grasslands and looked toward the defeated soldiers. Some of the Istarians would not survive; hunger and thirst and exhaustion would dispatch a small num shy;ber, and wild animals and bandits would seize a few more. But even a safe return to Istar did not mean that their ordeal was over. Many would fall prey to the grashaunts, the strange insanity that came from too long a stay in level and wide places. These wretches suffered from the delusion that the world around them was expanding, that if they strayed too long out of sight of home or friends, the distances would increase, and they might never find their way back. Such madmen would return to Istar, never again leaving the close confinements of barrack or cubicle or cell. They would waste away by their win shy;dows as they stared fearfully out into an uncertain world that was always receding.

  It was true: Fordus treated his prisoners sternly. The road ahead of the defeated legionnaires was the most perilous one.

  But not unfair. Indeed, the plains might treat them better than would the comrades and leaders who awaited their return to the city.

  Istar brooked no failure, no weakness, and what was defeat but failure and weakness?

  Rubbing his arm, bruised in dispatching a rather large and thickly armored Solamnic, a concerned Stormlight watched his commander.

  Fordus stared beyond the sullen Solamnic, beyond the assembled, defeated Istarians … to a point on the horizon no man could see.

  Stormlight shivered. Fordus had gone again to that place where none of them-not even the bard Larken with her voice and drum-could reach him. When the sea-blue eyes fixed pale in the distance, sometimes all life would seem to flee from them. They glittered, then, like ice, like cut glass, like the salt crystals rising from the desert flats, and there was no warmth in their light, no heart behind the eyes' brilliance. What Fordus wanted, what he looked toward, Stormlight did not know.

  "I accept the surrender of General Josef Monocu-lus," Fordus intoned by habit, the eyes of all resting rapt upon his windburnt, impassive face. "And I accept the surrender of his legions."

  He waved his hand dramatically over the atten shy;dant rebels.

  "And let those who lost dear friends," he pro shy;nounced, "console themselves that the losses were few and in my just and glorious cause."

  For a moment his voice faded away, caught on a high northerly wind and carried into the mountains to lose itself in thin air and desolation.

  Stormlight looked at his commander sharply. Con shy;sole themselves with few losses?

  His just and glorious cause?

  Now Fordus rose to his full height above the wounded Josef Monoculus and his trembling Istar-ian supporters.

  "And at this hour tomorrow," Fordus continued, "I shall grant these men unconditional freedom." The sea-blue eyes descended to the general, regarded him softly, warmly.

  There! Stormlight thought with a strange and sud shy;den relief. Fordus is back among us.

  "Your arms will be … confiscated, sir," Fordus explained, quietly and kindly. "You will be allowed to keep your armor and your provisions. Steer by Chislev and the sunrise."

  "I know how to find my way across this damned wasteland!" the Solamnic growled.

  "Then find it with my blessing," Fordus replied. He smiled absently, and Larken's drum began a slow, somber march. The Istarian troopers guided their commander back into the circle of his men, and mournfully, the defeated legion stacked its arms before the inconsolable general.

  It would be the Games for him back in Istar. The doomed gladiatorial struggle against barbarian, dwarf, and Irda. The fortunes of Josef Monoculus had risen, had fallen.

  There was some moral here, some fable for the devout, the scholarly. But being neither bard nor cleric, Stormlight climbed to the top of the rise and merely watched the sun set, his thoughts lulled by the warm light on his face and by the steady report of Larken's drum.

  Ford
us sat in the shadows as the sun descended.

  A barbarian youth, schooled for a year as the com-mander's orderly, untied his boots, and Fordus reclined broodingly, his big hands interlaced behind his head.

  A song to cheer you? Larken signed. There was a verse she had saved for this day, this victory, and she wanted the last of the sun for its singing.

  "No cheerful songs this evening, Larken," Fordus murmured.

  The melancholy had come upon him after the armored rider had fallen. He had watched the dead boy for a moment, the blood-matted blond hair wav shy;ing forlornly in the whistling, hot wind, the horse wandering lazily off down the dry creek bed.

  As Lunitari rose over the grasslands, purpling the waving grain with a slanted, bizarre light, Fordus brought himself back to the present. "I am tired of too easy," he said aloud, and the bard cocked her head alertly, reaching for the drum.

  "No songs about Fordus Firesoul tonight," he said.

  Larken nodded.

  "Sing of Huma," Fordus urged. "He had someone to fight. Someone to test him, heart and wit and hand. Sing of Huma."

  Her small hands tapping the rim of her precious drum, the bard began:

  Out of the village, out of the thatched and clutching shires,

  Out of the grave and furrow, furrow and grave,

  Where his sword first tried the last cruel dances of childhood . . .

  Larken's was a soaring voice, a firm and powerful instrument that erased time and space. Fordus closed his eyes and settled into the old story, which ran its course under the bard's skillful rendering.

  "Those were the times," he said, the song ended and the drum silent after a last, fading roll. "The times and the great adventures. When the shape of the story was larger than the lives of men.