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the lords and ladies at this outing lay dead beside the noblest of Jathelle's
court. A few of the hawks had fluttered from their broken cages and loosed
tethers, flying about in hopeless confusion. But most of the hunting birds
were mere lumps of bloody feathers.
Yet not everyone had fallen. The officer of the bodyguard and four of his men
were fighting boldly against their adversaries, as were several of the nobles.
They strove to protect the wounded, who were trying to crawl away from the
catastrophe. In the midst of it all, Jathelle stood, shouting defiance. She
had taken up a dead soldier's pike; with it she stabbed and struck valiantly
at the seething black clouds and their terrible denizens.
The pike's once-gay ribbons were limp and stained with ichor, as Jathelle's
pretty costume was. With her fair hair about her breast and bare shoulders she
was now truly a battle maiden, awful in her wrath.
Tyrus raced onto Drita Meadows, hurrying to reach Jathelle's side. The lesser
demons he had banished were beginning to gather into the cloud ahead of him,
as were those who had ravaged the hawking party. The
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darkness whirled above Tyrus like night's blood coagulating. That arrow of
wizardry was drawing itself out of the mortal wound it had made in the
earth the destroyed Meadows.
The lords of the clouds were readying to leave with the imps and demons. Tyrus
gazed at them in shock. Skeletons in armor! Their horses'
caparisons and the warriors' tabards were moldy and rotting with the touch of
extreme age. Their armor was fashioned in styles common to empires long
vanished. The double-headed axes of Traecheus and the fabled red dragon of
lost Ryerdon adorned their garments and cloaks.
These badges were famous no, notorious! A pantheon of legendary traitors,
these! They were Rür-shai who sold his people to the barbarians, Prendrae who
betrayed Traecheus and nearly brought the entire world to ruin& they were men
dead countless generations ago!
Their eye sockets were empty. Faces were grinning skulls. Bones rattled within
the rusting armor. Their chargers, too, were naught but skeletons strung
together with rotting tendons, their noisome entrails dragging below the
once-brilliant trappings. The stench accompanying this horde of mythic
villains was nearly overwhelming, far beyond that of the imps and demons who
had attacked Tyrus and Erejzan and the bandits.
Dead! Men and horses dead! Years past numbering dead!
Dead men who had found no rest. Traitors, they had been turned from
Keth's portals, forever damned, condemned to roam the land below and never
find life again! Wanderers between death and life, these lost souls of every
Tyta'an province here entered the sight of humankind again to do
Vraduir's bidding.
Some bore symbols and brands of realms unknown. With the fabled betrayers of
Traecheus and Ryerdon, they rode, aiming for the cloud, climbing into the air.
The ghastly army had come from the swirling blackness and now it was being
recalled.
Darkness and wind were weapons, battering at Tyrus. Squinting through knives
of ice, he saw the foremost of the skull-headed warriors riding toward him.
The dead chieftain had taken a hostage Ilissa!
The princess was held, in gauntleted, bony hands, before the skeleton warrior
in the saddle. She was fighting desperately, struggling to get free, even
though his horse was flying half a length above the ground.
Jathelle ran in the abductor's wake. She raised the pike above her head,
preparing to throw it, then hesitating, fearing to harm Ilissa. She continued
to run after Hissa and her cruel captor, her expression contorted with anger
and hatred.
"Fight me! Turn and fight me! I will be your hostage, you filthy clenru!
Fight me
! Come back and fight me! Let her go& !"
She was near enough now to strike and Jathelle thrust the pike savagely into
what should have been the hamstring of the warrior's horse. To her horror, the
bones parted and the entire leg of the horse's skeleton tore free of the rest
of the animated carcass. Bones and strewings of decayed tendons rained down on [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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