The Shaman (48 page)

“Sever
the head!” the judge cried, following down the aisle Dariad had cut. “Hack it
off, that we may be sure he is dead!”

Dariad
yanked his sword out of the giant’s chest, but another nomad came running up
with his sword high and swung it down at the Ulharl’s neck. It bounced off,
ringing, and the nomad stood staring.

Dariad
gathered himself for another effort and swung down. His blade cut halfway
through the Ulharl’s neck.

“Enough!”
the judge cried. “Surely nothing can live so sorely wounded!”

“We
must finish what we have begun,” Dariad grunted, and swung again. This time the
head rolled free, and the nomad looked up to see his tribesmen staring in awe.
He frowned. “What? Have you never seen a blow struck home before?”

“Aye,”
said the judge, “but never a stroke at which another man had failed.”

All
across the field the monsters howled in terror as word of the giant’s death passed.
They turned and ran, flowed, and flew. The African war chief cried out in
anger, and his warriors pursued, slaying as they went.

“Not
all!” Ohaern cried. “Let a few escape, to lead us!”

Dariad
called to his men, and a few of them galloped after the Africans, calling to
them. The black warriors nodded, though with exclamations of disgust.

Ohaern
stared. “When did they learn one another’s language?”

“In
the cavern,” said Lucoyo, “while you conferred in the spirit world.”

The
Africans continued their slaughter, and the Biharu, not to be outdone, rode in
among them and helped when monsters turned at bay, snarling—but all in all,
there were a dozen monsters left to lead them through fields and over causeways
into the center of the plain, where the walls of Kuru towered in the distance.
The warriors, Biharu and African alike, gave a shout of joy and proceeded to
ride down the remaining monsters. They turned to fight, pulling into a knot of
scales and beaks and talons, hissing.

“Hold
back!” Lucoyo shouted, and some of the Biharu relayed the message to the
Africans, who hesitated just long enough for the half-elf to shoot a dozen
arrows into the knot of monsters. The Africans shouted approval and threw their
extra spears. Monsters howled, biting at the shafts; some came roaring out to
seize and maul the humans, but more often than not their targets slipped aside,
and their comrades chopped the monsters to shreds. Ohaern stood and watched,
amazed to see manticores and lamias so quickly cut apart—though it was scarcely
surprising, with a dozen battle-mad warriors to each of them.

Then
he looked up and saw a horde of monsters approaching across the plain, driven
on by whip-wielding giants. More titans came behind them, leading the soldiers
who poured out of the gates of Kuru. The shaman shouted, “Pull back! Rally! The
defenders come!”

The
warriors looked up, saw, and pulled back into their own bands. Heartened, the
embattled monsters came roaring after— and died, with a score of spears in
each. Lucoyo’s arrows found vital spots, and some died with only one shaft
buried in a heart or a brain.

Then
a roar went up from the attacking army as the largest giant of all shouldered
through the gates of Kuru, driving his lesser kin before him. A shout of alarm
went up from Ohaern’s people, and Lucoyo cried, “What monstrous form is
that?”

“It
is Kadura,” Ohaern answered, from his newfound shaman’s lore. “It is Kadura,
first of the misbegotten spawn of Ulahane, eldest and most hate-filled of the
Ulharl.”

“Can
it be killed?” An African warrior called out in the Biharu tongue.

Surprised,
Ohaern turned to him and called back, “As surely as any mortal can!”

“Then
we kill!” the African said with determination, and his companions shouted in
affirmation. Together with the Biharu, they marched toward the monsters,
singing songs of death.

But
shouts echoed from all around the city, and looking up, Ohaern saw other troops
of hunters and nomads charging into the fray. Monsters and soldiers came
pouring out of other gates, and the battle was joined in earnest, all around
that blood-colored city.

Ohaern,
however, was not about to let his army face the monsters alone. He called out
two spells that he had heard Manalo chant, and flame fountained up from the
plain in the midst of the Kuruite host. Monsters and men alike screamed and
crowded frantically away, and a towering fiery form demanded, “Who calls?”

“I,
Ohaern!” the shaman answered, though every nerve in his body screamed at him to
run. “I call you by the promise you gave to Manalo! I implore you, salamander,
turn upon this host and burn them to ashes!”

The
salamander turned its head, pondered the horde of men and monsters, and said, “I
owe them nothing, and owe their master spite. I will.” Then its mouth opened
wide and a jet of fire swept over the creatures below, turning them instantly
to ash. They screamed and pulled back, jammed back, scrambled back over the
living bodies behind them, and a semicircle of confusion spread inward over the
plain even to the city walls as the salamander began its slow, steady advance,
charring all before it. Ohaern’s troops pulled back in alarm, too—at first, but
when they saw that the elemental fought their foes, they began to follow in its
wake, slaying those at the circle of its ashen half ring, but giving a wide
birth to the creature itself.

Behind
them came marching another army, of beings who looked half finished, doughy and
soft. Their leader came up and cried out to Ohaern in his own odd language.

“Agrapax’s
homunculi!” Lucoyo cried. “What did he say?”

“He
said, ‘You have summoned us by Manalo’s call. What would you have us do?’ “
Ohaern translated, then replied to the homunculi in their own tongue. “Slay
those minions of evil!”

The
homunculi answered with a shout and turned to charge, clumsily but
irresistibly, into the Kuruite host.

“The
allies are summoned and the fight is joined.” Ohaern drew the broadsword from
its sheath across his back. “It is time for me to join them.”

“You
are too valuable!” Lucoyo cried. “They will fail and be slain if you are
killed!”

“Lomallin
will protect me from Ulahane.” Ohaern hefted his sword. “This will protect me
from men. Come, Lucoyo! There is glory to be won!”

Just
then, though, Kuruite soldiers erupted into the air, screaming and howling, in
a curve that expanded outward like a wave rolling in from the sea, and the
ground trembled beneath Ohaern’s feet—but stopped short of the armies of nomads
and hunters and began to roll back.

“The
dwerg!” Ohaern shouted. “Grakhinox and his kindred, shaking the ground beneath
our foes, sliding it out from beneath their feet! Charge in and slay while you
may!”

Apparently
all the other shamans heard, for the nomad armies howled and charged in,
reaping death about them.

Then
a howling rose from the plain, a howling more like that of a wolf or dog than a
man, and another army came charging in to slay monsters and Kuruites with
whetted swords and sharp fangs, an army that looked to be as much jackal as
man, and all throughout Ulahane’s horde, knots of similar jackal-men turned on
their allies to bite and chew and slay.

“The
Klaja!” Ohaern cried. “He has returned as he said, and brought hundreds of his
people with him! Who would have thought they hated Ulahane so, or sought
revenge upon him for having made them! Come, Lucoyo! Or there will be no glory
left for us!”

“I
could live without it,” the half-elf grumbled, but he followed his friend into
the battle.

There
followed a timeless interval of fear and panic and stabbing and slaying, trying
desperately to keep sharp fangs and sharper spears from Ohaern’s body. Lucoyo
followed his friend back-to-back, with frequent glances over his shoulder to
make sure Ohaern had not charged away from his rear guard— but he frequently
did, leaving the half-elf to curse and retreat, parrying and thrusting
frantically until his own spine jarred against something that he hoped was
Ohaern’s back. Fortunately, he was almost always right, and on the other two
occasions, the Kuruite soldier was more surprised and less ready than the
half-elf—also, it would seem, more mortal. The slaughter seemed to go on and on
forever, and only the increasing weight of his sword and the sight of the red
slick on his forearms told Lucoyo that a few of his enemies’ blades had reached
past his own. He hoped frantically that Ohaern was faring better than he.

Then
a scream went up all across the field. Fighting stopped as attacker and
defender alike paused to look upon a sight that froze them in their tracks.

A
city gate burst asunder and a figure taller than the walls of Kuru strode
forth—a scarlet figure of death and depraved delight that Ohaern had seen
before, a figure with a skull-helmet atop a head whose cavernous eyes glittered
with malice and whose fangs clashed with anticipation.

The
armies of men, who had stood bravely against Kuruites twice their number and a
horde of monsters that would have frightened a dozen ordinary people, now
moaned in fear and shrank away from that terrible visage. Ulahane laughed aloud
with cruel delight and advanced, sweeping all before him with a chain of fire
and a curving sword twice the height of a man.

“Lomallin!”
Ohaern cried. “If ever you have stood by humankind, stand by us now! If you do
not save us from this paragon of evil, we are lost, and the younger races
doomed! Strike now, I pray, if still you exist!”

But
there was no answer, and Ulahane’s laugh of delight boomed out over the plain,
forming itself into words. “Fool! With an army of fools! Lomallin is dead! I
slew him myself—as I shall do to you, to all who oppose me! I shall do what all
my misbegotten sons could not: slay the defenders of humankind! Slay those
treacherous Klaja who turned their hands against me! Even the salamander I
shall rend asunder and stamp down deep into the earth, to crush—”

A
lance of green light stabbed down from the sky to bathe the Scarlet One in its
beams. Thunder rolled as green and scarlet mixed, and Ulahane stood in
light-born black, a living, screaming shadow. The scream endured as his eyes
fell in and smoke boiled out of their sockets—smoke that swirled up into the
heavens to take on the form of Ulahane, even as his body still stood frozen on
the plain below, frozen even as the green light receded, gathering itself back
up into the heavens, where it took on the form of a man, a giant with a gentle
face now creased in sternness, a green and glowing form that cast aside its
glowing robe to stand in a loincloth only, hands open and ready for battle.

They
stood a moment, while the armies below held their breath—the red ghost and the
green, squared to one another and readying themselves for what they knew must
be their final battle, for both their bodies were dead now, and victory could
be gained only by destroying the ghost that remained. Far below them, men
forgot their own battle in their dread anticipation of the ghost-battle above
them, between godlike spirits who seemed to tower up into the very stars.

More
than “seemed to”—for Ulahane roared and reached for a star. He caught it and
hurled it, a flame-tailed ball of light sailing straight toward Lomallin’s
heart.

Lomallin
seized a star of his own and hurled it at his foe—or rather, at his missile.
Star met star and exploded in a soundless burst of light that dimmed the two
ghosts for a moment. When they became clear again, the watchers saw that Ulahane
had seized a string of stars and was whirling it about his head, like an Ulharl
with his chain, as he advanced on Lomallin.

The
Green One reached out and plucked one star after another, then as Ulahane came
close, hurled them into his face. Silent explosions filled the night as star
met star and burst. Ulahane fell reeling back, but even as he staggered, he
caught the raw star stuff about him, then advanced again, molding the glowing
mass and forming it into an axe of light with a blade half his own height. He
swung it at Lomallin, but the Green One sidestepped, and the force of the blow
swung Ulahane’s ghost about. Lomallin stepped in and laid green hands against
scarlet skin, only laid them, but smoke boiled up where they touched, and a
skreeling scream filled the night as the red ghost bucked and thrashed, trying
to rid himself of Lomallin’s touch. Finally he dived, leaving the Green One
behind. Below, his own men and monsters howled with fear and fought to escape
the spot where he seemed doomed to strike—but the Scarlet One turned his dive
into a spring, leaping back up into the sky even as he remolded the axe,
shaping it into a war club. As he came back level with Lomallin, he hurled the
weapon at his enemy. Lomallin reached out and caught it, though its momentum
whirled him about in a circle—and as he whirled, he reshaped and modeled and
forged. Ulahane leaped in, thinking to take the Green One unawares, then pulled
back, as if remembering the pain of Lomallin’s touch—and Ohaern cried, “It was
true! In dying, Lomallin gained greater strength than Ulahane!”

A
moan swept through the army of evil even as Lomallin hurled a spear of light
straight at the heart of Ulahane. The Scarlet One dodged and whirled, but the
spear followed his every movement until it exploded against Ulahane’s chest,
flying apart into five shooting stars that fell to earth. One fell straight
down toward Ulahane’s forces; his armies howled with fear and scrambled to get
away, slaying one another and trampling one another in panic—until it winked
out, as did the fragments that fell to the east, west, and south. But the
largest fragment shot away to the north, trailing fire beyond the horizon, even
as Ulahane’s ghost broke into a thousand points of light that flew apart,
winking out one by one—and below on earth, his charred husk crumbled to dust.