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Chapter Twenty-nine


Hark! from the tombs a doleful sound.

Isaac Watts
Hymns II


Except for those duties considered indispensable by Hightower, the army rested and tended its wounds for two days. They slept, bathed, ate and slaked their thirsts with as much water as they wanted.

Condor’s Roost kept a bulging pantry against time of war. They dined on unfamiliar southern dishes; jellied meats, shrimp in sweet syrup, spits of highly garnished goat and dog, and honeyed parrot. Debris was cleared away from the pass to open the way south. There was sufficient manpower to rotate crews frequently, so no man had to work more than an hour or two each day.

The fortress’ forges came to life, as northern smiths began reshoeing those horses needing it. Gear was being repaired, food and water supplies readied. Springbuck threw himself into preparations, determined to keep the appointment of the Trailingsword. There were now two weeks left in its seven times seven days.

On the third day following the end of the siege, he was called to the ramparts. Hightower was there, shading his eyes against noon’s punishments; he showed the Ku-Mor-Mai where, at the end of the valley, a column of fours had come riding. An alarm was made. This could as easily be bad news as good.

When the newcomers were halfway down the valley and the fortress’ walls crowded with its former besiegers, sharp-eyed watchers began to call the blazonry that was arriving, the snarling tiger’s mask. But there were many others, more soldiers than there’d been in the sundered element. Springbuck directed that the gates be kept closed and the drawbridge up until they had proof that this was no ruse.

Another device could be seen, a green unicorn. Gabrielle strove to see who was under that flag. The end of the column appeared, the four war-drays of Matloo, and Springbuck’s misgivings began to subside. Another emblem was visible, a raised fist holding a length of broken chain, showing Freegate was there.

On the open ground outside Condor’s Roost, there were unexpected reunions. Brodur was there right enough; Hightower thumped him on the back like a proud father, for having brought his men through. With the Scabbardless was a haunted Andre deCourteney bearing Blazetongue on his hip, and Reacher, King of Freegate with his sister Katya and Edward Van Duyn and allies in thousands. But it was clear that they’d been through bitter battles.

Andre saw that Gabrielle already knew the very worst tidings he had for her.

The arrivals’ formation dissolved rather than being dismissed. They pitched camp in the valley, with the men of Coramonde giving what help and hospitality there was. The newcomers had fought all three of the races who served as military arm to Salamá. Now they rode with Odezat war banners for saddle blankets, and jeweled Baidii daggers or Occhlon scimitars hung from their cantle guards. There were profusions of bright silks covering such armor as they chose to wear. Still, it was clear enough that this was an army in retreat.

After the disaster of Ibn-al-Yed’s Gauntlet, Brodur had decided, in concert with Drakemirth and Balagon, to skirt the Demon’s Breastwork at its southwest end. He’d sent word of what had happened back to the city of the Yalloroon, then begun a forced march.

But not all bad luck had come to light by that time. There’d been survivors, apparently, of Hightower’s very first skirmish, and they’d managed to escape to the west. Occhlon and Baidii, massed all through that region to repel the landings they’d expected after losing the Isle of Keys, had made an instant move to throw Coramonde back into the ocean. The ships from Seaguard had stood out to sea, safe for the moment, with the remaining troops and the Yalloroon aboard, and Brodur’s messengers also. There’d been no time to get word back to the Scabbardless.

The following day, the Mariner fleet had come on the scene, propelled by winds called up by Andre deCourteney. When matters were sorted out, Andre had decided to go on, making his landing nearer the end of the Demon’s Breastwork, where he could rendezvous with Brodur. The vessels from Coramonde were to stay on station off the city of the Yalloroon, in case any part of their army attempted to withdraw in that direction.

But Occhlon trackers had evidently picked up Brodur’s trail, though he was unaware of them, and the bulk of the southerners had gone after him. The Scabbardless was moving as quickly as he could, not knowing how well or ill the Ku-Mor-Mai had fared beyond the Gauntlet. As he’d neared the end of the Breastwork, his scouts had begun to pick up signs of a Southwastelander ambush. The trap had been directed the other way; Brodur had nearly blundered into it from behind.

Reacher’s army was coming down from the northeast. The southerners were laying the sort of trap they preferred, built around the water holes and oasis at the end of the Breastwork; strategic ground was of less importance to them than control of water. Reacher, in search of both a way south and water for his army, had been led by the terrain straight into the ambush; even his Horseblooded outriders had failed to discover it. But Brodur had struck from the enemy’s rear, dislodging the Odezat, Salamá’s mercenary divisions, from their positions. The engagement had lasted a day and most of the night, ending in the annihilation of the Odezat and the linking of the two northern armies.

With that Andre deCourteney had arrived, looking for one ally only to find two. He’d given his news to them, and scouts had confirmed that the major part of Salamá’s army was coming on from the west, with the four or five men for each Crescent Lander.

With the Horseblooded, Glyffan lancers and other light cavalry buying time and hampering the enemy advance, the allied armies had dashed south, determined to keep the schedule of the Trailingsword, though it had meant letting themselves be bottled up, away from the sea. By the time they’d gotten to Condor’s Roost, their pursuers had been no more than a day behind them; it had cost many lives to win even that little lead.

As they tallied it all up, assembled in the fortress’ officers’ mess, the various leaders who didn’t know one another came to do so. There were stories ancillary to it, told in brevity, but one that was recounted in full was the fall of the Trustee of Glyffa, illustrating Bey’s increased prepotency and the Masters’ feelings of invulnerability. Gabrielle had already cried all her tears; she listened to it now, unflinching.

When Andre had done he turned to Swan. The High Constable still wore her white-winged, mirror-bright bascinet, and the blue cape of her office, but her armor had seen so much use and damage that she’d appropriated an Occhlon general’s, a fine suit cut from the scaly skin of a giant wastelands serpent, all sinuous browns and blacks and grays. She rose now, with the Crook of office the Trustee had carried since the old woman’s adeptbood, covered with sigils and scrollwork of Power. Swan bowed, and put it into shocked Gabrielle’s hands, saying, “Now the daughter takes up what the mother has bequeathed. Glyffa attends your words, oh Trustee.”

Gabrielle took it, and it was as if her mother were near. Much of her grief fell away; the Crook felt familiar in her white hands. She looked to Swan, whom she’d never met, but whose name had reached her in her mother’s communications. “I will need all support, to employ this well.”

Swan clasped her hands behind her back, as was her habit, thinking of all that was left to accomplish both in Glyffa and the South wastelands. “Your legacy will be human weal, and fulfillment.” A tear caught in the long lashes; she repeated the pronouncement, “And your name will live forever.”

Gabrielle made no remark, but was willing to wager Swan could play a demanding game of chess; the Trustee had chosen her lieutenant with typical perception. Even Katya, who’d had her frictions with the sorceress, beamed cordial approval.

Springbuck thought one of the more notable events of the gathering went unnoticed; Balagon and Angorman sat side by side, and if they weren’t overly friendly, at least they had put their animosities to rest. On the weary, perilous ride south, their two sects of warrior-priests had, of necessity, come to the mutual peace of allies. A reconciliation of the two leaders seemed only logical; the two accepted it in the Bright Lady’s name.

All courses were locked in now. The Ku-Mor-Mai said, “Gathered, we may, at the minimum, have the satisfaction of confronting the Five. But it will only be if we go with greatest haste.”

Andre replied, “Speak with more hope. The Trailingsword conjoined us in this certain time, under precise circumstances, by the Bright Lady’s ordination. Salamá has much to fear from us, even without the Lifetree. As for their armies, the Occhlon and the others are kept together by fear of the Masters; if we can diffuse the power of the Five, Southwastelander alliances may well unravel.”

Andre tried to feel as hopeful as he sounded. Reacher had mentioned that phrase the Occhlon general had let slip, the Host of the Grave, but no one recognized it Hightower thought it might be another name for the huge armed array now following them south, but Andre privately doubted that.

Van Duyn was considering the news of Gil MacDonald. Somehow that made the scholar feel tired; he’d very much have liked to be back in the Highlands Province, building a life.

They moved through the pass that evening, after stripping Condor’s Roost of whatever provisions, water, weapons, horses and fodder and feed they could use. Crews worked through the night, reblocking the pass with every rock they could pry loose. Word came down to discard all excess burdens; Mother Desert had taught them her lessons. The first Southwastelander scouts were seen coming into the far end of the valley by the last men to come down off the heights.

In the area they entered there was more greenery, and more water. They cantered along past fields and irrigation ditches, meeting no resistance, but abundant eye-popping. Many workers ran for their lives, but most stared in undisguised astonishment Defended by Mother Desert, they’d never seen an invading army before, only their own men riding out to serve Salamá.

The army went quickly, no longer troubled by the hardships of the wastelands. Springbuck kept outriders, mostly prowler-cavalry and Horseblooded, far in advance and wide on either flank, and maintained a well-manned rearguard. They kept strong security when they bivouacked, but no attacks came. The country had been drained of virtually every man able to bear arms. Now it was the very old and very young men, along with the women, who kept life going in the Southwastelands.

Gabrielle seemed a different woman now. She rode with the Sisters of the Line around her, the Crook of office in hand, conscious of the weight of responsibility that had fallen to her. She kept intimate company with no one now, not the Ku-Mor-Mai or his Warlord either. And when she spoke of Salamá, there was a light in the sorceress’ eye that belonged in a hawk’s.

Swan kept close, to advise or assist her. The Constable’s horse, cleaned and curried now, was recognizable as Gil MacDonald’s chestnut, Jeb Stuart. Springbuck, who’d heard something of her involvement with his friend, made it a point not to bring the American’s name up, unsure if she thought of him as dead or alive.

They came to the end of the thriving farmlands in a week, having passed through the eastern corner of them, and entered an unfilled, arid stretch, unpopulated and frequented only by the occasional vulture or jackal. Springbuck became nervous, and stepped up his patrol activity.

But when they’d been in the badlands for four days, disheartening word came from the rearguard. Southwastelanders had pursued them down through the fertile regions, closing much of the lead the northerners had gotten at Condor’s Roost. The desert hordes were less than a day behind, outnumbering them badly. Springbuck’s allies were split into two schools of thought. One espoused by the Snow Leopardess, urged that a portion of the Crescent Landers stop and hold back the southerners while the remainder went on to Salamá. The other faction, led by the deCourteneys, said every man and woman might be needed in the Necropolis; splitting up their force would invite ruin. The Ku-Mor-Mai held this the wiser course, to push on and strike with full strength at the Five. Reacher concurred, and Hightower and Swan. Katya accepted it, though she’d meant to command the delaying action herself.

They picked up their pace, hoping the enormous corps behind them would be slower. Rearguard scouts reported that the gap was closing, though; the Southwastelanders had stripped themselves of all their slower elements. Within another day their vast dust cloud was visible.

At the end of the arid stretches, the northerners came to a plain that extended as far as they could see, like the bottom of a dry, dead sea carpeted with gray ash, hot and still. Banners hung limply, and the moisture on their skin and in their mouths was cooked away as soon as it formed. Looking up to estimate the time, Springbuck saw the sun was gone. The sky was light, but as monochrome as a bowl of lead.

Gabrielle said, “We are come to the precincts of Shardishku-Salamá.” Andre’s hand felt of the scabbard of Blazetongue.

The northerners rode out onto the plain, but as soon as the last of them had come, they all heard a sustained skeletal rattling, as if uncounted bones were clacking together. Not even the deCourteneys could guess what it meant The Crescent Landers went on, but they’d passed beyond day and night. Here, it never became dark, although no special spot of light in the gray canopy indicated the sun.

In their wake, many hours later, came the hordes of the Southwastelands. The desert men drew up before the desolate plain, spent from their chase. They looked among themselves, arrogant Occhlon, aristocratic Baidii and wily Odezat, having followed as far as they dared. This place was under the direct scrutiny of the Masters, prohibited to all. The rulers of the Necropolis would exact punishment now, and doubtless show displeasure to their lapsed guardsmen, the Southwastelanders, as well. It would take much penance and sacrifice to appease them.

The desert men reined around and went back the way they’d come. There was nothing else to do; in their minds, the intruders were already dead. No one could survive or escape from the lifeless plain where lay Salamá, The southerners passed back up into the arid regions at a lesser pace, sparing their beloved horses, but anxious to be gone. When they’d left, and their dust had settled, a single man led his weary mount out of concealment. He’d come south behind them, unable to pass them and their patrols to join the northerners.

He climbed tiredly into the saddle, his horse bravely summoning what reserves she had. Ferrian, once Champion-at-arms over the High Ranges, patted her dirt-encrusted neck. He’d had to steal her, last of the many horses he’d ridden since he’d come, late, to the Southwastelands. She’d carried him courageously, but he wasn’t sure she had the stamina to overtake the other Crescent Landers. He had long since stopped regretting that Wavewatcher and Skewerskean hadn’t overtaken the Mariner fleet before its troops had disembarked. He couldn’t think of setbacks now, though; the final remnant of the Lifetree had gone in beneath the umbra of Shardishku-Salamá.


In the rose garden of the Library at Ladentree, Silverquill looked up. His mouth fell open. The Birds of Accord gathered in a great flock, circling the Library.

As he watched, they turned south, called by their ties with the Lifetree. The Sage shaded his eyes, watching the Birds vanish to mere specks, and whispered the most earnest prayers he knew.


The plain was dead, antiseptically so, without so much as an insect to be seen. The northerners came to feel they’d left the world of the living altogether. With no way to take bearings, Springbuck was given directions by the deCourteneys, who appeared to sense where they were going. He lost count of the rests the army had taken, and had no way to measure progress accurately. Water supplies dwindled steadily, and everyone began to show signs of exhaustion except Reacher, Gabrielle and Andre.

A crunch under his hoof made Fireheel flinch. The Ku-Mor-Mai flicked at the ash with the tip of his sword. A length of brittle bone, a human femur, was there, broken by the gray’s step. Springbuck stared at it for a moment, then stirred up the soot around it. The rest of the skeleton, unguessably old, lay among scraps of harness and bits of metal trapping. Hightower had come up and his horse, too, snapped bones beneath its tread.

They’d wandered into the last resting place of a slaughtered army. Probing the soot with lances and swords, they exposed rotted shields and corroded armor. One skull was still circled by a gleaming fillet, holding a big black pearl to its white brow.

No one was inclined to scavenge. Springbuck got them moving again; for more than a mile they wended their way among remains, hearing the fragile cracking of an army they took to be a kind of predecessor. Once beyond the relics, the Ku-Mor-Mai took his followers a long way beyond the bonefields before he let them stop again.

Andre was first to notice it, an indistinct irregularity on the horizon. As time went on, it became a serration-line of silhouettes, eerie designs difficult to discern. The still air made distances deceptive, and their approach toward that outline seemed to take days.

Then they had their first sight of Shardishku-Salamá, the city taking on definition of a perplexing, somehow distorted sort. Some of the structures there were lit with wavering flame.

A dark line had appeared, extending across their route, between them and the city. Some began to say it was a treeline, end of the desolation. Springbuck couldn’t make it out, but Hightower could, saying he thought it no treeline. In time, they realized it was another army, nearly spanning the horizon, coming closer.

They gaped in disbelief at the sea of foemen. Numbly, they groped for shields and donned armor once more.

A half-mile separated them when the opposing force halted. They flew no banners, and there was no sound of horns or challenges. Springbuck could see little, except that his force was outnumbered overwhelmingly. He called for Hightower and a standard-bearer, and rode up. Reacher fell in beside him, and the Ku-Mor-Mai was glad for his company. He felt a chill despite the hot, stagnant air.

No parleying group came from the other side, so Springbuck rode on. He heard a sharp inhalation from the herald, and his own caught in his windpipe. His nerves, trapped between the primal need to run and a firm decision to go on, threatened to fail him. Drawn up before him in their terrible ranks were those who could only be the Host of the Grave.

They stretched away to either side, as far as he could see, eyes glowing in black sockets. They waited in perfect silence with nothing to say, nothing to fear, desire or question. Severed forever from happiness or grief or thought, they waited, ideal household troops of Shardishku-Salamá, like so many statues of slate.

Springbuck summoned up saliva, licked his lips. “Do you contest our passage?”

One figure broke formation and advanced. He was wearing panoply that had once been rich and burnished, beautiful to see. Now it was green, crumbling with age. He sat a cadaver-horse, whose eyes were lit like its rider’s. A reek of charnel decay wafted from them both.

Springbuck’s skin crawled as if it were too tight on his bones. Fireheel snorted and dug at the sooty ground. The corpse was implacable and unhurried. Springbuck’s horror fought hard to take control of him. The face he saw was rotting, areas of bleached skull showing through. The voice, when it came, was toneless, a whispering rattle from a throat-box long unused.

It said, “Where your horses’ hooves stand, that is as far as you ever go toward Shardishku-Salamá.”

With defiance he didn’t feel, the Ku-Mor-Mai answered, “That has been said before. We have come for our just returns.”

The whisper-rattle came so mutedly that they had to bend forward to hear. “We tend the affairs of the ages here. Die.”

There was the metallic complaint of its sword, grating out of its sheath.

“Back to ranks!” shouted the Ku-Mor-Mai. All four of them yanked their reins, and rushed madlv back in a shower of soot. Hysteria went at their backs. What good would lancers, swordsmen, war-drays and warrior-sisters do, when their opponents were already slain? Springbuck cast one look backward, and shrank from what he saw. The corpse-army was coming on, not slowly and not quickly, but irresistibly.

When Springbuck and the others reached their own lines, their enemies had covered half the distance in pursuit. The Ku-Mor-Mai snapped orders to arrange his formation. He’d thought for a moment of withdrawing, but to what avail? The dead would never tire or pause; they’d simply roll across the plain until they eventually engulfed their exhausted enemies.

He explained quickly what they faced. “Gabrielle, can you do anything?”

She balanced the Crook in her hand and traded glances with Andre. “I do not know,” she confessed, “how can one affect shadows and carrion-meat?”

Springbuck racked his brain for a way to stave off that attack or escape it. Then, on his own, Fireheel caracoled, and again, turning and rearing at the onrushing Host, whistling his fierce invitation. He didn’t care who was coming; the gray only wanted the chance to fight.

Springbuck whipped Bar, the Obstructor, from its scabbard; the sword left a white swath of light in the gray air. Hightower bellowed invective of his own, sweeping free his two-handed greatsword. Red Pilgrim came up, and Blazetongue and the myriad weapons of the Crescent Lands. Some found comfort in a gesture, crouching behind lances or dropping visors. Others just eyed the Host, seeing that the die was cast, and accepted it in their hearts.

The Host of the Grave made little sound, riding as if from nightmare. The living dreaded their touch more than the bite of their swords, but spurred their horses on.

That singular onset began, men and women in death-lock combat with corpses. Beyond the desolation, in timeless Shardishku-Salamá, the Five, assured and imperturbable, awaited the battle’s inevitable outcome.



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