Diamond Warriors (38 page)

'You asked Master Matai if he might be able to divine the
where
and the
when
of the landing of the Galdan fleet,' he told us. 'Although we can have no certain knowledge of this, we have been able to formulate a good guess. Master Matai?'

Abrasax turned toward the Master Diviner, who said, 'The
when
of the landing will depend on that of the fleet's sailing. And that date, I feel in my heart,
is
nearly certain.'

He went on to tell us that he had spoken with the aloof Hadrik as to the Galdans' and Karabukers' preparations for war. Hadrik had offered his calculation that the Galdan fleet could not possibly have made ready to sail before the middle of Marud.

'And the fleet,' Master Matai told us, 'must sail from Tervola, for no other port can accommodate such a gathering of ships. And so our enemy, as you call them, will have to sail up around the Ram's Cape and then cross the Terror Bay, at this time of year, mostly against wind and tides. Ten days such a journey will take, perhaps twelve - more if there are storms. But the Galdan sea captains will do everything they can to avoid such storms. As I should know, for my father's father commanded a bilander named the
Maiden's Hope.'

Master Matai's fine face broke into dozens of radiating lines as he grew more thoughtful and seemed slightly embarrassed. 'And the captains will almost surely seek for fair weather by casting for good omens.'

'Ah, will they go to a haruspex then?' Maram asked. 'Who could think to find clues to the future in the bloody guts of a slaughtered goat or some other poor beast?'

'No, they will
not
go to a haruspex,' Master Matai told him, smiling as he shook his head. 'And neither will the fleet's diviners practice hydromancy or sortilege. No, certainly not. They will look to the stars, even as we do.'

He paused, then added, 'But not
quite
as we do. In Galda, outside of our schools, they practiced the Old Eaean astrology - and still do. It remains more superstition than studied art. In employing that system, which posits the earth as the center of all things, I have found a strong omen most propitious for sailing: when Argald covers Belleron, with Elad on the ascendent. Which occurred on the second of Soal.'

'Five days ago,' I said. 'If the Galdan astrologers also found this omen, then do you believe that the fleet would have waited to sail?'

'It is too strong for them
not
to have found it. And followed it. And so, yes, I believe they would have waited.'

'Then if you are right, the fleet will make landfall in another five days - perhaps seven. Therefore we must cross Delu, nearly a hundred miles, in five days.'

Through mountains and across hills, I thought, this march might nearly kill my men.

'We can always hope for a great sea-storm,' Maram put in.

I looked down the table at Estrella, sitting within a deep calm, as she often did. I remembered how, with the aid of a blue gelstei that she had gained from the Lokii, she had summoned a storm in the middle of the Red Desert. But I did not think that even this strangely powerful girl could direct a storm at an unseen fleet of ships across hundreds of miles.

'The only storm we can count on,' I said to Maram, 'is that of our spears and swords when we surprise our enemy. And so we
must
reach the sea by the 12th, at the latest - if Master Matai is right.'

Here Master Juwain, whom the Seven had asked to join them, looked at me and said, 'I believe he is, Val. We have all of us given this much thought.'

'But sometimes,' Liljana said to him, citing his greatest fault, 'you think
too
much.'

She did not need to add that in the Skadarak, Master Juwain had been seized by a terrible temptation to steal Liljana's gelstei and force his way into Morjin's mind.

'It is true, I know,' Master Juwain said. 'Sometimes I've wanted to suppose that I could divine the Red Dragon's plans and outthink him.'

He sighed and took a sip of tea. 'And that is the path of pride and ruin. It might prove even worse, however, to suppose that the Red Dragon will always outthink us. He is not so brilliant as he thinks he is.'

He took another sip of tea as he looked from Kane to Bemossed then added, 'In his powers, he might be greater than anyone else in this tent. He
might
be. But when we put our minds together. to say nothing of our spirits, I believe that we can penetrate his plans.'

'Yes, by determining the
when
of the fleet's sailing.' I said, bowing my head to Master Juwain and then Master Matai. 'But what of the
where
of its landing?'

At this Master Matai cracked a bright smile and said to me, 'Now we enter into the realm of legend and supposition. But legend, if accepted unquestioningly, can gain the force of what is real. And supposition, if carefully constructed, can be a set of steps leading to the truth.'

Then he went on to relate a bit of history and tell us where he thought the Galdan fleet would land: 'In the year 1610 of the Age of Swords, Darrum the Great of Galda led a fleet to invade Delu. And King Alok Arani sailed forth with the Delian fleet to meet them in a great sea battle in the Terror Bay. It is recorded that they fought to a draw, though both sides claimed victory. The Delians lost a greater number of ships, while the Galdans lost King Darrum - to a fire arrow that pierced his eye, it is said.'

Master Matai took a slow sip of tea as if he had all the time in the world to relate his story. I waited for him to continue, as did Kane, Liljana and the rest of us.

'It is also said,' Master Matai finally told us, 'that the Galdans did not bear King Darrum's body back to Galda nor did they sink him into the sea. Instead, a Galdan ship named the
Sky Dragon
landed in secret on Delu's White Coast. The Galdans buried him beneath the sands there. They said that if Darrum the Great could not conquer Delu in life, he might yet in death. For the place where his bones lay, they said, would ever after be Galdan soil. And someday, the Galdans would come to this place and claim it for their own.'

Maram, who could stand the suspense no longer, fairly shouted at Master Matai: 'Well, where on that forsaken coast
is
this place? You must know, or you would not torment us so!'

Master Matai took yet another sip of tea as if relishing the discipline of patience. Then he told us, 'If the legend is true, they buried King Darrum between two great rocks rising up from a broad, flat beach.'

'The Pillars of Heaven!' Maram said. 'When I was a boy, I stood beneath them! The beach from which they arise is called the Seredun Sands.'

Upon his pronouncement of this name, something inside me clicked as with a key perfectly fitting into a lock.

'The Pillars of Heaven, indeed,' Master Matai said. 'In Galda, for ages, the soothsayers have foretold that one day, Darrum the Great's spirit would return to guide the Galdans. It is said that an army marching through the Pillars over King Darrum's bones will gain invincibility and the greatest of victories.'

I nodded my head at this, then asked, 'And where on the White Coast is this Seredun Sands?'

'Near its midpoint, a few miles to the north,' Master Matai said.

I closed my eyes for a moment, calculating distances and time. Then I looked at Master Matai and Abrasax, and each of the Seven, and I told them, 'Thank you. Then tomorrow we will set out for this beach.'

I did not give voice to my fears for what might befall upon these distant sands, nor did I imagine that Abrasax and the other good Masters of the Brotherhood would wish to hear them.

The next day, just before dawn, I sent envoys riding over the Ianthe River toward King Santoval Marshayk's palace in Delarid. As soon as my army entered his kingdom - the Delians would call it an invasion - alarms would be sent out in any case. I wanted King Santoval to know the general course that my army would take and why we marched.

'Is that wise?' Maram said to me as we stood before the bridge over the Ianthe. 'My father's court is full of those sympathetic to Morjin. I'm ashamed to tell you that the Way of the Dragon has put down some very deep roots in my homeland's poor soil. My father, himself, will certainly fear Morjin more than he does the Galdans - or you. And so
someone
will certainly send word to Morjin of our plans.'

'Yes, someone will,' I told him, 'no matter what we do. Our army cannot move through Delu unnoticed. But if Master Matai is right, the Galdans are now likely five days at sea. We must hope that in the next five days, Morjin will not have time to learn of what we intend. Or if he does, that he will not be able to inform King Mansul.'

'Always,' Maram said, 'we seem to find ourselves in circumstances in which fate forces us to hope too much.'

'Is it too much, then, that when the odds favor us, the dice should fall our way?'

'No, my friend, it is not - not unless Morjin breathes his foul breath upon them.' He sighed then shook his head. 'But at least we can count on one thing: my father will oppose neither our army nor our enemy. He will wait to see how things fall out between us.'

'If we gain a victory,' I said, 'we can hope that he will join us.'

'We can
hope
that,' he told me. 'But that it seems to me, truly is wishing for a miracle.'

After that I led our army into Delu, No garrison guarded the passage into this realm, nor did the local lords send any knights or soldiers to oppose us. For hundreds of years, there had been peace between Delu and Kaash, and the Delian kings could not afford to spend any force protecting such a wild frontier. Few people lived in this mountainous region, and those who did kept to themselves and tried to mind their own business. They might have fled at the approach of an army marching out of a foreign land, but we Valari had never pillaged or raped, even in the worst of wars. Then, too, I sent out envoys through the countryside to inform the poor farmers and hunters that we would not requisition supplies but would pay good gold and silver for whatever food and forage the local Delians could sell us. In this way, we gained their good will and acquiescence to our purpose, if not their friendship.

The roads we found to take us toward the east had nearly crumbled into dirt tracks or sheets of scree, but at least we were able to get our wagons down them. The first day of our passage through Delu proved the most difficult for we had to work our way up and over a pass known as the Eagle's Nest. On the other side, however, the Morning Mountains lost elevation with nearly every mile, and soon fell off into a succession of lines of old, worn hills. As the land grew ever more gentle, the rises were blanketed in black ash, oak, chestnut and red poplar while through the valleys grew beech, walnut and elm. Wild grape hung thick about the trees' trunks, and it was the time of year when the plum trees grew heavy with their purple fruits. Maram, often riding alongside me, remarked that Delu was a fair land that had a sad, violent history. He might, I thought have been speaking of Ea herself and all the misfortunes of the last eighteen thousand years.

The next four days we spent in our rush to the sea. Urgency drove us to pound forth over rocky roads and fairiy swim our way through slips of mud and around bogs. Twelve wagons suffered broken wheels or axles, and we had to abandon them. And my men
truly
suffered, mostly from cramping muscles, shin splints and bleeding feet; no matter how hard they might be, men were still made of flesh that could too easily be exhausted broken or worn by wet boots right off their bones. Forty-six warriors had to fall out of their columns on the third day of our march, and by the fifth day, another hundred and twenty. I could not, however, simply abandon
them.
We cleared out stores from another two dozen wagons, inside of which the wounded rested and waited for Master Juwain and our other healers to attend them. It was a measure of my warriors' spirits, I thought, that to a man they pleaded with Master Juwain to make them whole and ready for the day of battle.

On the 11th of Soal, I sent outriders to the east to scout the countryside ahead of us, all the way to the sea. That night, as we made camp in a valley full of walnut orchards and potato farms, one of these riders returned with good news - and bad.

'Sire,' a young knight named Sar Galajay said to me in the relative quiet of my tent, 'the sea is close: less than half a day's march from here. We found the place called the Seredun Sands and the Pillars of Heaven. And great rocks they are, black as coal and rising two hundred feet above the beach. Such white sands! I've never seen their like! It is a
perfect
place for a battle! The beach is half a mile wide and stretches north and south for as far as the eye can see. Three hills block the way to it. If we are careful, they will cover our approach. The enemy would have no sight of us, only ...'

His voice died into the crackling of many fires and the other sounds of our encampment. I waited for him to go on, and he added, 'Only, there is no enemy! Nothing but empty sands and the wind blowing them into little mounds like sugar.'

'Thank you,' I said to him, nodding my head. I tried to fight down my great disappointment and make good of his news. 'Then the hardships of our march have not been in vain. Surely our enemy will make landfall tomorrow or on the day after that.'

Sar Galajay did not gainsay my optimistic words or point out that Master Matai might have been wrong and our enemy might land far to the north or south of the Seredun Sands - or indeed, might have come ashore already. While Lords Sharad, Tanu, Harsha and Tomavar looked on, Sar Galajay tried to pick up on my forced high spirits, saying to me, 'We are hoping you are right. Sire. Sar Siravay and Sar Torald remain in the hills above the beach, watching for our enemy's approach.'

Later that night, I stood around a fire with Kane and Bemossed, and others, listening to Alphanderry sing. He gave the warriors verses from an ancient epic to inspirit them and ignite their valor. He praised the warriors' true essence, which shone the same in all men and women, as it did within the One, and could never be extinguished: