Quest for the King (39 page)

They had stopped at a small meadow, which the prophet and the
colonel were already crossing. Lord Nasa drew in a breath and listened. After a moment he nodded. "So the Qadar are after us-the
famous scourges of the night skies!"

"Yes. I am sure that they will hunt by day or by night until King Gaal is safely out of the country-indeed, out of this continent!" the queen
continued. "But night is their usual time. And we are about to cross
a meadow, and the sky above our heads is quite clear of clouds."
Having expressed herself in this way, the queen urged her horse
forward. The rest of the company followed.

Lord Nasa frowned, and Lisa called out, "I hear the Qadar!
Shouldn't we . . ." She left the sentence unfinished. Moonlight revealed fear in the faces of many of the soldiers.

The prophet called to all who had been following. "Stand in the
open!" he cried. "I want you to see for yourselves that we need not
delay for any of the assaults of the dark powers. Our movements, as
I told you, are hidden from them for the time being. The assaults will
not occur. The Qadar above us right now are about to attack something else,
not us!"

"I see them!" Lisa cried. "There! Against the moon! It's like last
time!" She pointed to the big orange harvest moon that lay low, just
above the trees beyond the clearing.

Slowly the company gathered in the open meadow. Soon they could
see about half a score of small specks against the fall moon. Some of
the horses were restless, wide-eyed, and began to rear in spite of their
riders' efforts to control them.

One of the specks grew larger and seemed to be hurtling down to
attack them.

"My stars!" Wesley murmured. "The wretched thing's seen us! Didn't the prophet say-"

"Have no fear!" the prophet called. "The Emperor makes no mistakes!"

One of the soldiers muttered, "The old man is gone mad!"

Necks craned skyward. The swooping Qadar could no longer be
seen without the moon as a background, so they strained their eyes
to see where it was. But soon every member of the company could see
that not just one, but all of the Qadar were hurtling, apparently toward
them, from the skies. They themselves seemed to be the object of the
attack.

"Stay where you are! Do not take shelter!" the prophet called.

Steadily the bearers of deadly peril swooped nearer. The bloodcurdling shrieks they vented unnerved some of the soldiers, in spite
of the prophet's assurances. A few horsemen had more difficulty than
ever in controlling their rearing horses.

"It's not working! What if there isn't any protection?" Lisa murmured. "I don't care what the prophet says. It's my life!" She saw once
again a vivid picture of the terrible night on which she had ridden
with the wounded Princess Suneidesis, fleeing the Qadar across darkened skies. It reawakened her past terror. Quite suddenly she rode
her horse to the shelter of the nearest tree. Several of the soldiers
followed her.

The prophet was pointing skyward and explaining, "They are not
diving toward us! I do not know what they are attacking, but woe
betide whoever or whatever it is."

By now it was easier to see that the swooping Qadar were not
hurtling toward the company, but at something in the forest a little
ahead of them. A moment later they had disappeared. The riders who
had taken refuge slowly returned, looking sheepish. Lisa knew her
face was red, for she could feel the flush. She hoped the moonlight
would be merciful to her. "I thought of that awful time when Theophilus had been so stupid," she told Mary. "Princess Suneidesis was
unconscious. Man, was I scared! Anyway, now I've demonstrated how
stupid I am, and made an ass of myself."

The prophet smiled to himself. In future the company would be
more likely to realize that their protection was real.

Mary, more than Lisa, seemed to have recovered from all her old
fears. Since the meeting with the little king, her manner had changed
radically. She had even learned how to help others in their fears.
"What did you tell me was the full name of that `equine angel'
Theophilus?"

In spite of her embarrassment Lisa smiled. Already the party had
resumed their journey. Once they were inside the trees, Lisa began
to giggle. "Theophilus Gorgonzola Roquefort de Limburger V," she spluttered. Then, a little self-consciously she said, "I'm probably giggly
after being so scared. You know, Theophilus hardly smelled at all,
even when he was sweaty, and never of strong cheese."

They had not been in the trees for long before the shrieking of the
Qadar could be heard overhead again. "Seems weird not to be
crouching under a tree when you hear the Qadar overhead," Kurt
said to his brother.

"You're right," Wesley replied. "An' I can't blame Usa for her panic,
either."

Kurt grinned. "I remember her crashing through the stained glass
windows of Chocma's palace to escape the Qadar. Man, she almost
didn't make it! Both she and the princess were pretty far gone."

"Think we'll have a chance of seeing what they were after?"

"The prophet didn't say. I guess it depends on where this path
goes."

As matters turned out, the site of the Qadar attack did lie on their
route. Fifteen minutes later, as they descended into a valley whose bed
formed a channel for a half-dried stream, the prophet pulled on his
reins and stopped. "The Qadar have been here." He urged his horse
forward, and they followed him into an incredible scene of carnage.

A circular area that extended about three hundred yards on either
side of the stream had evidently been very recently stripped of every
tree so that it was illuminated by moonlight. Uprooted trees lay everywhere in disordered confusion. Boughs of trees had been torn from
the trunks, as though indiscriminate rage had been unleashed. But
among the boughs and the uprooted trees were dismembered human
limbs and heads. Horses had been torn apart piecemeal. Chilled with
the horror before their eyes, the company was gripped with silence
and stillness. Even the warfare-hardened soldiers seemed shaken.

"Oh, how horrible! Horrible! I'm-gonna-barf.~" Lisa murmured
weakly.

Mary said, "We see this sort of thing on the news programs daily
at home. But like this, it-in your own experience-it gets to you far
more."

Wesley and Kurt reined their horses before the crater of an uprooted tree. Gradually their eyes grew used to the play of light and shadow.
Everywhere they looked, the destructive rage and fury of the Qadar
attack was evident. The entire company was sickened and stunned.
"Man, oh, man! Look what we just missed!" Kurt murmured.

The prophet's words broke over them all. "Listen to me. The men
of this group of warriors had been sent to do to you exactly what the
Qadar have done to them. You have already experienced the ferocity
of the fighters. Look well at the horror you now see. It was intended
for you. It represents the wrath of the Emperor, who controls the
errors the shadow lords and spirits cannot anticipate." He paused
before continuing. "I did not realize the group had penetrated so
close to us. It is an elite unit, designed to kill and dismember opposing
armies. They did not realize they were as close to us as they were."

"Hm!" the colonel added as he dismounted to make his way among
the carnage. "The woods seem to be full of army units. This is now
the third we have encountered on our return-the group in the cave,
the two hundred or so that attacked us, and now these."

Their words brought home to everyone the grim nature of the tasks
before them. Every eye was turned to the prophet, except those of
Colonel Integredad, who was now busying himself searching for identification signs on the enemy soldiers. At that moment he straightened
his back and turned to the prophet. "You are right, as usual. This unit
has been formed from Playsion troops. But how is it that the Qadar
did not realize whom they were attacking?"

The prophet smiled grimly. "Even forces loyal to Gaal are inclined
to murder one another in their blind fury." He sounded uncharacteristically cynical, but he continued. "As for the Qadar, they are
trained to respond to movement. They were looking for us-but our
movements, as you saw, are hidden from them. They saw the movements of this group and . . ." His voice trailed away as he waved at
the chaos and destruction about them.

Though some of their horses drank from the bloody waters of the
stream, they spent as little time as possible at it. "We cannot stop to bury the remains, much as I would like to do so, but must press on
if we are to accomplish the first part of our mission," the colonel said,
"unless you, sir, feel we should."

The prophet shook his head. "These are horrifying times. If you
notice, carrion crows are already circling overhead, waiting for our
departure. The book her majesty committed to one of your soldiers
describes scenes in which scavenger birds gorge themselves on rebel
remains. It is a sign of the Emperor's judgment on them."

They continued for nearly two days before anything else happened.
As dawn began to pale the sky to gray they camped, rising in the late
afternoon to eat and to prepare the next day's journey. Then, toward
dawn of the second day, the prophet called a halt and addressed
them.

"We seem to be approaching large numbers of goblins that will
move across our path. I can sense their nearness. We may well collide
with them if we do not take care. They can neither hear us nor feel
us, though if they should collide with us or our horses I am not sure
how they will react. However, let me assure you that they will neither
hear nor sense any movement we make."

Almost at once they encountered the edge of the goblin multitude.
There was little or no undergrowth in the trees at that point, so they
could see some distance ahead. Everyone could see myriads of goblins
in the moonlight, sweeping through the woods that lay in their path.
The company stood still, and the goblins passed through only their
forward positions.

The prophet understood goblin speech, and for some time he listened. His wrinkled face grew longer as he did so. "Never have I
known such numbers before!" he said slowly. "The earth has spewed
up these foul hordes from the depths at its core. In the fires of deepest
earth they thrive, whereas water destroys them."

The queen waited, watching him closely. Slowly he shook his head,
and for a few moments said nothing more. Eventually he began to
speak. "I understand, now, why the rains have been withheld for so
long. Rain is their ruin! It dissolves them, unmasking their very beings and personalities so that they exist no longer, spawned as they are by
darkness! Yet why are they here?"

After a few moments the queen spoke. "You were listening to their
speech. What are they saying?" she asked.

"They are under orders from the Lord of Shadows, and are themselves to submerge the region around Bamah by the weight of their
numbers. Some will pack the area around the temple, and a few, I
imagine, will be inside it. Your majesty's hope that we would surprise
the spirits of the dark regions is now no more. It appears they are
expecting us."

"Then it is doubly important that we find the passage that leads to
the temple."

"We shall find it. Of that I am sure."

Lisa heard what they said, and the words hit her like a weight falling
down on her shoulders. Everything now seemed to depend on her. What
if she could not find the entrance again? What if the order "in the
name of Gaal," the password, would not work when you said it from
outside the entrance? Perhaps it was meant only to work from the
inside of the passage! In that case they would be no further ahead, and
the whole enterprise would fail.

The leading horsemen were kept busy as they tried to keep any
goblins from colliding with their horses. The goblins came in all sizes,
most of them smaller than human beings, their heads large and bulbous. Many had animal-like forms and exuded a great stench.

The whole company was kept busy directing their horses, which
snorted and reacted nervously. They did not altogether succeed in
avoiding collisions, and numbers of these occurred.

"Oh, shoot!" Lisa muttered. "I thought that one would pass beneath
my horse, but it caught its head on the horse's belly. The next one's
banged into it-an' now they're fighting with each other."

A number of fights broke out as the goblins blamed one another
for the collisions. In the end the company decided there was little
chance of their being discovered, and rather enjoyed the confusion.
But the horde of goblins took almost an hour to pass by, and none knew how long they had been swarming through the trees before they
reached them.

Colonel Integredad joined the queen and the prophet when they
again moved forward. "Your majesty, I am debating the matter of the
route of our retreat from the temple. My present thought is to return
by the way we came-that is, by the tunnel."

The queen turned her head to the prophet. "Perhaps you have
some thoughts, sir prophet."

"I know that whatever happens, your majesty must escape and survive. Even if you have to go overseas and form a government in exile,
it is important for the sake of the Emperor's plans, and for the survival
of the royal line, that you escape."

"I could not agree more heartily," the colonel interjected. "For my
part, I would prefer that your majesty not even venture within the
temple."

The queen smiled. "I am determined to see that wretched place
destroyed. And who can say, in a venture of this kind, where the safest
place for me would be. For my part, I prefer to be surrounded by the
most valiant fighters. In this kind of undertaking there is nowhere
free from risk!"

"Then why does your majesty not consider taking refuge in Ashleigh, the home of Lady Dolores of Ashleigh, where the young king
and his parents will stay?"