Lord of the Changing Winds (38 page)

T
he desert was as cleanly and elegantly beautiful as any airy palace or many-towered citadel built by men, Bertaud thought. But it was not a place meant for men, or for any creature of earth. Its starkness invited meditations on mortality and on the silence that lay behind life; the voice of the wind that sang across its twisted sharp-angled spires offered a suggestion of that greater music that lay behind the ordinary melodies of men. Its fierceness encompassed the fierceness of the griffins that made it; the passionate beat of its light and heat echoed the passion of griffin nature. Bertaud could imagine griffins emerging directly from the red silence of sand and stone, engendered by that powerful light, carved into shape by that ceaseless wind.

But it was not a place meant for men. It was drawing the very life out of them as they stood within its boundaries, as the sand might absorb blood spilled out upon it. And, it was clear, not even the earth mages, not even Meriemne, could resist that power. Not while it surrounded her, binding her strength and cutting her off from the living earth.

So there was a confusion and a haste that seemed utterly out of place in the patient desert: haste to load wounded men into litters and shaded carts, to cover dead men and lay their bodies out in other carts; haste to form men already fainting with heat and dazed by light into company ranks and send them east toward the cool country that waited so little distance away. Haste to lay plans for what they might find when they came there.

Iaor rode back and forth, with the vanguard for a short length and then back to the rear to check on the slowest of the carts. Here, he leaped down from his horse to lend a hand with an awning that would not stay up; there, he gave watered wine from his own supply to a wounded man. That was a king’s task: to be seen everywhere, to inspire. Bertaud left him to it and made his own slow way through the company, studying the men.

Two thousand and more men, he knew, had ridden south with the king from Riamne. Some, probably, had gone with Eles when Iaor had divided the army. Most had followed the king into the desert, and though Casmantium had not broken them, nor the griffins flung fire down upon them, still the battle, and even more the desert, had taken a toll. For every man struck down by spear or sword or arrow, Bertaud estimated, likely two had collapsed from heat and lack of water—though the army had carried a great deal of water, a man could not fight and drink simultaneously, and exertion under the pounding sun had sucked the moisture out of them.

Of whatever number had come into this desert with the king, perhaps a thousand remained strong enough and with heart enough for battle… if they should get out of the desert and into the green country and have time to rest and recover a little from the desert.

Kes rode with the army, perched high on the shoulders of the slim brown griffin who was her constant companion. Of them all, Kes rode with her face turned up to the sky as though she could not get enough light. She still wore the short brown dress she had made out of a Casmantian soldier’s shirt, and with her skin ruddy with sun and her tangled hair down her back like a fall of pale light, she looked little more human than the griffin. And yet in a strange way her very unearthliness seemed to suit her, as though she had somehow always been meant for fire.

Kes brought her gaze down from the brilliant sky when Bertaud looked at her. She smiled at him, a sweet, perfectly human smile, but her eyes were edged and lit with fire. When she slid down from the griffin’s back and ran across the sand to Bertaud’s horse, men shied out of her way. She did not seem to notice this, either, but turned to walk beside his horse and lift trusting, unhuman eyes to his. If she had not clearly been able to see, he would have thought her blind.

“Yes?”

Bertaud strove for a neutral tone. “Eskainiane Escaile Sehaikiu?”

“Yes—Eskainiane.” Her voice lingered over the name as though she spoke poetry. Her voice was not really a human voice any longer, although Bertaud could not have said precisely where the difference lay. Even the girl’s steps seemed to have lightened, as though at the next step, or the next, she might walk right off the ground and into the air. “Eskainiane Escaile Sehaikiu… he will find them. Indeed, I think he has found them. You know,” she said earnestly, patting the horse’s neck, “you can trust Eskainiane. He is open-hearted and… not kind, exactly…”

“Generous,” said Bertaud.

“Yes—generous. He will send… ah.” She said then, in a different tone, “He has sent Kairaithin, I think.”

The griffin mage came this time in a long, slow, smooth flight that carried him easily over the column of men and left him walking, in the shape of a man, beside Iaor’s horse. He did not even glance at Bertaud, who was forced to take a moment to put down a violent and extremely stupid surge of jealousy.

“Esteemed mage,” Iaor said to Kairaithin, with a nod.

Kairaithin gave the king a taut smile. “There is battle,” he said. “Beguchren Teshrichten is with the Arobern, and both are with the main part of their army outside the town called Minas Ford.”

“Minas Ford?” said Kes, much like someone told that the town of her childhood, distantly remembered, lies just beyond the next turn in the road.

“Eles
engaged
him?” Iaor said, in a completely different tone. “There is battle
now
?”

“The griffins must aid us again, then,” Bertaud said, trying for no tone at all.

Kairaithin turned to him swiftly. “I have destroyed the cold mages sent against us here. But outside this desert, I cannot match Beguchren. And would you have us come down outside our place of power, with our fire turned all to ash, upon soldiers armed with cold steel? Bows made with purpose to kill creatures of fire? No, man. We would be destroyed, and is that your desire?”

Iaor said, “We haven’t enough men to face down another army the size of the first—and our men spent with heat, and his men near fresh? Esteemed mage—”

“They
will
help us, my king,” said Bertaud with resolve, and stared into fiery black eyes.

Kes gazed, clearly curious and alarmed, from him to Kairaithin.

Kairaithin did not glance at her. His attention, hot as the savage desert, was narrowed to Bertaud. “I will find a way,” he said, straight to Bertaud, “if you will trust me for that, and do nothing on your own account.” There was no anger in the griffin’s voice, belying the anger in his eyes and his heart: He was, Bertaud understood, making a fierce effort to keep his tone neutral. It was, perhaps, the closest Kairaithin could publicly come to a plea.

Bertaud hesitated. He could imagine no greater dereliction of his duty to Iaor and Feierabiand than to allow the Arobern to strike through Minas Ford and then, unopposed, for Terabiand on the coast. Nor did he believe Iaor had any real chance of turning the Arobern from that purpose with a bare thousand sunstruck soldiers.

Yet at the same time he could imagine no greater wrong than to compel the wild, brilliant-hearted griffins to the service of men. No matter how desperately Feierabiand needed their service. He had dreamed of violent winds and lakes of molten stone: What would his dreams contain if he broke the griffins to harness like oxen? Or if he drove them all to their deaths in a cool green country where their fire could not burn?

He said at last, “Who could do so better than you, esteemed mage?”

Kairaithin inclined his head, backed up a step—waiting, Bertaud saw, to see that he would indeed be allowed to go—and then folded himself through space into the far heart of the desert.

Bertaud let his breath out. He said casually to Iaor, just as though nothing untoward had taken place, “He will do his best, I think, if only to humble the pride of Casmantium. I think he resents how his people were used as tools against us.”

The king nodded sharply. “I should certainly think so.” He glanced ahead and added with a good deal more interest, “Earth and iron, is there no
end
to this cursed desert?”

Kes, who had been gazing at Bertaud with alarming intensity, shifted her attention to the king. “You see that flat-topped spire? That one, with the double arch on the eastern side? The boundary is just there.” She added at the king’s raised-eyebrow look, “I always know.” Her tone was almost wistful. “But cannot you see it? It is dark, like the edge of night against the day.”

Bertaud thought he could. Iaor only shook his head.

“It is not far,” said Kes, and walked away toward her griffin as though simply forgetful of the king, or of his rank. But she moved with that odd lighter-than-air grace, and Bertaud thought she had not so much forgotten Iaor’s rank, as become, griffinlike, disinclined to care for it.

The creature had waited for Kes patiently. She lowered her beak to brush the girl’s hair and turned for her to mount, then spread dark wings and reached for the heights. Bertaud watched them go. He knew, uneasily, precisely what it was like to spread wings and mount the sweeping stair of the wind. Precisely what it was like.

“I wish we might fly, and spare our feet,” grumbled Iaor. “Or that the horses might, and spare their strength. Just there, is it? Well, I suppose I do see it, as the girl said. About time. Pass the word, Bertaud—men to form up once we cross that line. Water all around, and we’ll try to get the sun-dazed men back on their feet, but with Eles possibly pressed by whatever the Arobern has with him, we cannot delay.”

“Leave the sunstruck to guard the Casmantian prisoners,” Bertaud advised.

The king nodded sharply. “Yes, that will do. That’s a duty for which they should be fit. The horses—I think they will have done what they can merely to get us to the boundary. You have ridden this recently. How far from the boundary to Minas Ford?”

“Half an hour’s ride, no more.”

“And the griffins?
Will
they aid us?”

“Yes,” Bertaud said fiercely, but then more moderately, “I think they will, my king.”

“Well, we must not depend upon it. We must have surprise, if we can keep it—find Uol and have scouts sent ahead to see what waits for us—if we can find the disposition of men, that at least may favor us—earth and stone, Bertaud,” Iaor added in a different tone, “how can a worn and paltry thousand stand against all the Arobern undoubtedly has brought to this war? Who ever heard of such a war as this, pulled out of a peaceful summer without a whisper of warning?
Can
the griffins aid us when we stand on good earth and not on their burning sand?”

Bertaud opened his mouth to say that he was sure they could, and closed it again. He did not know. He said at last, “I think they will try. As we will. The men know what this battle is for.”

Iaor lifted one hand and rubbed his face; he looked suddenly as though the past days had suddenly caught him up. Then he let his breath out, dropped his hand to his horse’s neck, and straightened in the saddle. “Well, if we dare not lose, then we must win, griffins or no,” he answered his own question, and pressed the horse into a canter.

Bertaud did not follow. He, too, looked along the slow-footed column of Feierabiand soldiers and wondered what these men would be able to do at the end of a day such as they had had.

The leading edge of the column turned around the spire that Kes had pointed out, and suddenly the pace picked up; the men in front did not spare breath for shouting, but nonetheless as they found the desert boundary in sight before them, their weary relief was transmitted instantly straight through to the men at the very rear. Even the Casmantian prisoners matched that pace; even the horses drawing the carts of the wounded and dead stepped out with a will. Bertaud’s horse lifted its head and flared red-rimmed nostrils, sensing that ahead lay air that did not burn with fire; it wanted to run, and after the briefest moment he gave the animal its head. It leaped forward over the sand as though flung like a spear.

The line between desert and ordinary land was sharp and clear as though lain down by a deliberate hand. On the other side of that line, it was raining.

Bertaud stared at the rain, coming down slantwise and heavy through the air; at the heavy skies above; at the water washing downhill past living trees and over living earth, and he laughed out loud as his horse broke from a canter to a stretched-out gallop. It shot across the boundary and tossed its head up, shying sideways as the rain came down against it. It was, after the desert, like charging into an icehouse and being pelted with sleet. Bertaud flung back his own head and opened his mouth, eyes closed, rain running down his face like tears. But he could not have said himself whether they were tears of grief or joy. Both, perhaps.