Child of the Sword, Book 1 of The Gods Within (50 page)

Morgin shook his head. “They’re not holding
at all. They lose ground with each skirmish and are slowly forced
westward. Eventually they’ll have to withdraw onto a wide glen near
the summit of Sa’umbra. It’s the only place where the gap isn’t so
narrow. The final battle will probably take place there.”

“Did you see this glen?” Wylow asked.

“Yes. From a distance. It was broad daylight
and there was fighting at the time. I couldn’t find a way to cross
the battle line, but I climbed to a good vantage and was able to
see it from this side.”

“Was there an enormous stone, about the size
of a large castle or holding, sitting all by itself on the far side
of this glen?”

“Yes. A massive black rock. Very
impressive.”

Several of the Inetkas nodded their heads
knowingly. “Csairne Glen,” Wylow said. “I know it well.”

That name clearly held some significance for
just about everyone there, but for Morgin it held no more than a
slight ring of familiarity.

“When will your father be pushed out onto
the glen?” Eglahan asked.

Morgin shrugged. “Two days hence, perhaps
three.”

“What kind of rear guard has Illalla
established?”

“Nothing extensive. He must believe that the
only enemies he has to his rear are what’s left of my uncle’s men.
He’s placed a few sentries here and there, and a guard of about
fifty men on the road.”

“And where are your warriors?” Wylow
suddenly demanded. “We have a bargain, you and I.”

Morgin looked at the Inetka leader
carefully, and he lied without hesitation. “They’ll be here when
the time for battle is at hand.”

“And when will that be?”

“When the main battle begins on Csairne
Glen.”

Wylow stood angrily. “They’d better be here,
Elhiyne.”

Morgin had finally had enough. He slipped
into a shadow, appeared to vanish into thin air, reappeared
suddenly behind Wylow, though the Inetka was not yet aware he was
there. He whispered into Wylow’s ear, “A bargain made in a dream,
Lord Wylow, is still a bargain.”

Wylow jumped as if struck, spun about to
face Morgin, but Morgin had already vanished.

~~~

Mortiss waited for him just beyond the light
of the fire. As usual she seemed to know what would come next. He
realized now it was idiotic to have deceived Eglahan and Wylow, and
so it was time to get out before it all fell apart. He was checking
Mortiss’ saddle harness when France and Tulellcoe and the Balenda
approached him. It was the Balenda who voiced the obvious, “You
won’t be able to keep Wylow waiting for two days.”

“If he’s still alive in two days,” France
said. “If he keeps shootin’ off that big mouth of his, Eglahan’s
likely to kill him.”

Morgin turned to face them. Tulellcoe looked
at him squarely and demanded, “What bargain do you have with
them?”

Morgin carefully explained the bargain he’d
struck with both Eglahan and Wylow, and oddly, not one of them
questioned his ability to fulfill the terms, nor did they even ask
how he would do so, and he realized then that while he could run
out on Wylow and Eglahan, he could not run out on his friends.

“Wylow won’t wait two days,” Tulellcoe said.
“We’ve got to get Roland to start giving ground now, to retreat as
if his forces are already spent. If he withdraws onto Csairne Glen
tomorrow, while his men still have strength to fight, and while
Wylow is still here to fight with us, then maybe we have a chance.
But how do we contact Roland? I can’t reach him, not with Illalla
and Valso watching the netherworld so closely.”

Morgin felt sick to his stomach at what he
was about to say. “Maybe I can. Shadows are just as effective there
as here.”

“Are you sure you want to try that?”
Tulellcoe asked.

Morgin shook his head. “I don’t think I have
a choice. Will you help me?”

Tulellcoe shrugged. “Do I have any more
choice than you?”

“No,” Morgin said. “No you don’t.”

~~~

“There is an intruder,”
that other
said to Valso. Valso started with surprise.
That other
had
actually spoken to him. It had formed true words within his
thoughts. Always before their communication had consisted of mind
images that, while not vague, sprang from an undefined otherwhere.
But now it spoke to him with words. True words! Such a phenomenal
change in their relationship could have only one meaning:
that
other’s
power had begun to grow. It was preparing to come
forth, make itself known again on the Mortal Plane, and soon it
would reveal its mastery.

“There is an intruder,”
that other
said again.

For the first time Valso paid attention to
the meaning within the words, and his excitement ended quickly. “An
intruder? Where?”

“In the netherlife.”

Valso suddenly knew fear. “That can’t
be.”

“Nevertheless it is,”
that other
said. “It walks upon the soul of the netherworld, and such an
affront must not be tolerated.”

“Then crush it,” Valso said. “Destroy it.
You have the power.”

“No,”
that other
said. “It is much
too early to make myself known.”

“But if you destroy it, it will know
nothing.”

“But if I intervene directly, there are
others who will sense that. And that is why you must destroy
it.”

“Me? But I don’t have the power.”

That other
smiled deep within Valso’s
soul. “I will give you the power, and you will become the most
powerful mortal alive.”

Valso caught his breath. “To be so honored!”
he said. “I have not the words to thank you.”

“Your service is the only thanks I
require.”

~~~

Roland sat in his tent staring unhappily at
the four canvas walls. Dawn was all too quickly approaching, and
with it would come another day like the last: more fighting and
more dead. Illalla would use his men without mercy, and so the
Decouixs would die in greater numbers, but they would still gain
ground. The Elhiyne army would retreat: reluctantly, slowly, but
inevitably. Roland had considered the situation carefully time and
again. There were some things he could try: tricks that might
delay, traps that might hinder. But he had come to the bitter
realization that delay and hinder were the only tactics left to
him. Nothing would change the final outcome.

Hope! They needed hope. Some kind of hope.
They needed a plan, something with some possibility of success, not
this doom under which they fought: delaying, knowing that it was
useless, hoping for a miracle that they knew would not come.

Morgin! Why did his mind keep returning to
Morgin? For all they knew he was dead by now. Poor Morgin! And damn
Olivia!

Roland sensed AnnaRail’s coming before she
arrived. He stood to greet her, and she, knowing that he would be
aware of her coming, entered without the need for preface. They
spoke no words, but wrapped their arms about one another and held
each other close for a long moment. He loved the softness of her,
and her strength.

When they separated she spoke softly. “You
sent for me, my lord?”

“Yes,” he said. “I need your help. I had a
dream last night, and I can’t remember it.”

“This dream was important?” she asked,
almost more of a statement than a question.

“I don’t know. But it’s been nagging at me
since I awoke. I can’t put it out of my mind.”

Another woman would have reminded him that
now was not the time for interpreting dreams, that dawn would come
momentarily, that there were more weighty matters to consider. “Can
you tell me something about this dream?” she asked.

“No,” he said, shaking his head with
frustration. “I remember nothing.”

“Very well,” she said. “Let us sit down
then. Here, on your cot.”

He did so, and she sat down beside him. She
took his hands in hers and spoke softly. “Now darling. I want you
to close your eyes and relax. Let your mind wander and tell me of
the first thing that enters your thoughts.”

“I’ve already done that,” he said more
harshly than he intended. “Morgin comes to mind. Morgin and nothing
else. Just Morgin. Over and again Morgin.”

She looked thoughtful. “Hmmm! That is
curious. Very curious.” She reached into a fold of her dress to
some hidden pocket there. She withdrew a small linen pouch that
opened at the touch of her fingers, and from it she took several
small pieces of tattered cloth. She chose one particular scrap,
saying only, “This one was his, I believe,” then she replaced the
rest. From another pocket she produced a small piece of charcoal
wrapped carefully in dried leaves. With it she wrote Morgin’s name
upon the scrap of cloth, then returned the charcoal to the leaves,
and thence to her pocket. Next she crumpled the cloth between her
hands, rolling it into a tight ball. That done, she turned to
Roland and said, “Think now of Morgin. Think of him and nothing and
no one else.”

Roland thought of the last time he’d seen
Morgin, riding away on the black mare. He concentrated on that
image as AnnaRail extended her left arm with the crumpled piece of
cloth resting in her upraised palm, and with her right hand she
began making passes above it. As she did so, she muttered some
incantation that Roland could not understand.

After several minutes of conjuring she drew
her right hand back suddenly, snapped her fingers, and the piece of
cloth in her hand burst into flames. The flames sparkled for a
moment then died, leaving a small cloud of gray smoke that swirled
upward, rising slowly toward the roof of the tent.

The cloud moved with a life of its own,
bunching here, thinning there. Then it coalesced slowly into an
image of Morgin. Roland realized then that he was looking at his
dream.

The image swayed and shifted sickeningly. It
was poorly defined, though it was definitely Morgin, but it was a
changed Morgin that Roland looked upon. The face was the
same—young, boyish, open—but the eyes had lost the innocence of
youth and now seemed haunted and distant, and just a bit
insane.

“Father,” the smoky image pleaded
desperately. “Please listen to me. I haven’t much time. I can’t
hold this existence for long, and there are those about me that
would end it prematurely. When the battle begins anew, retreat to
Csairne Glen. Do so slowly, as if your strength is finally depleted
and you must reluctantly withdraw. Illalla must be made to think
that you have weakened early, that he is about to win—”

Morgin’s image suddenly flickered out of
existence, then returned slowly. But now it was smaller, hazier,
blurred. The weakened image spoke on as if it was unaware of the
interruption, though Roland knew that some of the message had been
lost. “. . . some of your forces until the right
moment. Trust me, father, please. We—”

Morgin’s image staggered, not a thing of
AnnaRail’s magic, but part of the dream. His face twisted with
pain, he put a hand to his head and groaned, then disappeared
altogether. Roland waited for more, but none came. And now that he
had seen it, he knew that it was done. The dream was gone.

“What did you see, husband?” AnnaRail
asked.

“Didn’t you see it too?”

“No, my love. It was your dream, not mine.
Would you like to tell me about it?”

He smiled. “I saw hope, I think. Maybe hope
for us all. Come. We must find the others, and quickly. We have
some changes to make before the fighting begins anew.”

Morgin shot awake suddenly, sat up with his
heart pounding in his throat, but with the memory of many such
awakenings he realized instantly that he’d been dreaming his dream.
His mouth was filled with an odd metallic taste, his ears rang, and
the forest about him glowed with an eerie light. His only memory of
the netherworld was a choice he’d made somewhere deep within a
dream, a choice between retreat before reaching Roland, or the
temptation of vast power.

France sat nearby watching over him, staring
at him oddly. The swordsman seemed different, far away, detached.
“Are you Morgin?” he asked, an odd tone in his voice. In fact the
entire situation seemed oddly odd.

“Of course I’m Morgin,” Morgin answered, but
even he recognized that something was different. “I think,” he
added as an afterthought.

“Yer Morgin all right,” France said, nodding
his head. “The others want you to join them when you’re ready.”

Morgin looked at France carefully, and
sensing the distance between them he asked, “Stay close, France,
will you? I need you.”

France smiled, but the distance remained,
though the swordsman tried to hide it. “Sure, lad. You an’ me eh?
But we’d best be joinin’ the others.”

Morgin found it impossible to hold his
shadows at bay; his time in the netherworld had strengthened their
hold on him, and as he followed France toward the center of the
camp he didn’t like what he saw in the eyes of the waiting troops
that parted to make way for him. He could see that they’d actually
begun to believe the legends, that to them he was now some sort of
supernatural freak, a strange being out of myth that might at any
moment explode in their faces.

Wylow and Eglahan and their respective
lieutenants waited for him angrily. Wylow turned on him instantly,
though he hesitated for a moment at the prospect of addressing a
specter of shadow. But he recovered quickly. “Where are the
warriors you promised? We have a bargain, and I’m waiting for you
to live up to your end of it.”

Morgin ignored him, turned to Eglahan
instead. “What’s the situation up in the gap?”

Eglahan answered warily. “The battle has
been progressing all morning. My scouts report that the Elhiyne
forces have weakened earlier than anticipated and are just now
retreating onto Csairne Glen. They’ve formed the final battle line
across the width of the glen. The Decouixs act as though they’re at
festival, laughing and joking. They should begin the final battle
shortly, and it will be a slaughter.”