The SteelMaster of Indwallin, Book 2 of The Gods Within (23 page)

“In any case,” Tulellcoe added, “we can’t stay here. Not for four or five days. There are too many people looking for you in every shadow, and they have descriptions of each of you, and they know this ship came from Aud, and when these sailors get drunk I doubt all of them will hold their tongues.”

Morgin nodded. “Then we leave now.”

Val shook his head. “If we’re going to strike out across country we’ll need supplies, and right now the shops are closed up tight. We’ll have to wait until morning.”

That night Morgin lay in his bunk and saw time and again the eyes of the strangers on the dock as they looked at him and Mortiss after the sailor had made the sign to ward off evil. Eventually sleep came, a troubled and restless sleep.

~~~

The First Legion and the company of Benesh’ere traveled east for some days, advancing deep into enemy territory. They came upon a large river and followed it further east looking for a place to ford. And when they found the wide shallows Morddon, through Morgin’s memories, realized they were following the Ulbb, and had come upon Gilguard’s Ford, though in this time and place neither the river nor the ford had been named.

Morgin recognized the ford only because of the lay of the land, for that was all that remained unchanged. In Morgin’s time the ford was in the midst of a great forest, while in Morddon’s the Ulbb meandered through green rolling hills only sparsely populated by trees and a few clumps of bush.

Metadan decided Gilguard and his Benesh’ere should remain at the ford to keep their back trail clear in case the legion found itself in need of a hasty retreat. Then the legion crossed the Ford and moved on into what would someday be called Yestmark. They were only an hour or two beyond the ford when Metadan gave orders to pull the scouts in, and without outriders he chose to continue advancing the legion. Throughout that night and the next day he and his lieutenants argued about that decision repeatedly, but Metadan insisted, and of course they obeyed, and so they advanced blindly.

As sunset approached on the following day they bivouacked near a small stream, spent the night in the open without pitching tents. Early the next morning one of the perimeter guards came sprinting toward Metadan’s tent. “Riders,” he shouted. “Goath. About a dozen of them. Waving a flag of truce.”

While the legion moved hastily to break camp, Metadan ordered Morddon and his lieutenants to saddle their horses quickly, so Morddon left his mess kit unpacked. He had an uneasy feeling about this, especially since he could recall Morgin’s memories of Ellowyn’s stories of Metadan’s treachery.

The green rolling hills where they met the Goath were covered by few trees and only low grasses. As they approached the truce party, which waited out of bowshot on a nearby hill, they could see to the next hilltop, though not beyond. Like the group Morddon had followed, the Goath troupe was a mix of Kulls, jackal warriors, and human Goath, with a jackal captain in charge.

Metadan halted his escort about twenty paces from the Goath truce party, and for a moment they stared at one another. Then he demanded, “What do you want with a flag of truce?”

The jackal captain’s lips curled back into a snarling smile, exposing yellow-white teeth. “You have already given me what I want,” he barked. “You have done well, angel. You will receive the price you demanded.”

Metadan flinched. Cynaban, Metadan’s senior lieutenant, looked at him innocently and asked, “What does he mean, my lord?”

Metadan frowned uncertainly, and in the silence that followed Morddon spoke calmly. “Metadan has betrayed us.”

Metadan turned slowly toward Morddon. “Be silent, whiteface.”

Morddon looked at the archangel, but he spoke to Cynaban, and told him of the group of Goath he’d been following, and how they’d rendezvoused with what appeared to be an angel, and how Morddon had followed that angel back to the legion to learn Metadan had arrived only minutes before him. “He has betrayed us,” Morddon finished.

Cynaban shook his head, but doubt appeared in his eyes. “That’s impossible. What price could they pay to the foremost warmaster of the twelve legions?”

The jackal captain laughed and answered, “Power. He covets the power of the gods.”

Cynaban turned to Metadan and demanded, “Deny this. I beg you to tell me you did not betray us.”

“Of course I deny it,” Metadan shouted. “I would never betray my brothers. It’s not you they want, but him.” He pointed at Morddon.

“Then it’s him you betrayed?” Cynaban asked.

“Yes,” Metadan shouted. “No. I betrayed no one. He belongs to the Dark Lord. He escaped and they want him back.”

Cynaban frowned, and a stream of tears began pouring down his cheeks. “A slave escapes his evil master, and you would return him to his slavery, and you would do so merely for power?”

“He’s not one of us,” Metadan shouted. “He’s all they want. The rest of us can go free.”

“Free?” Cynaban asked as he shook his head. “My soul would never be free again. And he is one of us. He has fought beside us in many a battle, and in betraying him you have betrayed us all.”

Cynaban and Metadan’s lieutenants backed away from the archangel. Morddon moved with them and they left Metadan alone astride his horse. “But you’ll all die with him,” Metadan pleaded. Tears formed in his eyes also. “I never meant for that to happen.” He nudged his horse forward to join them. “No,” he shouted. “Let them have him. He’s nothing to us.”

Cynaban shook his head silently, tearfully, and he spoke one simple word: “No.”

Metadan reached out to Cynaban, extending his hand. “I cannot betray you.”

Cynaban struck out at the hand, slapped it away. “You already have.” To emphasize the point he drew his sword and leveled it at Metadan’s throat. “You betrayed one of us; you betrayed all of us.”

Cynaban stared at him hatefully for a long, last moment, as if to etch the memory of that final meeting in his mind. Then he turned his back on him scornfully and signaled for Morddon and the others to follow him. They left Metadan with his new companions.

~~~

“We are surrounded,” the scout told Cynaban.

The new warmaster of the First Legion had not allowed Morddon to go out with the rest of the scouts. “If it’s you they want,” Cynaban said, “then we’ll make sure it’s not you they get.”

He quizzed the scout. “How many?”

“We’re easily outnumbered twelve to one,” the scout said. “They must have closed in on us during the night. They’ve been waiting behind the hills around us.”

Cynaban shook his head sadly. “It appears that all along they intended to betray the betrayer.”

The scout said, “But Lord Metadan—”

“Never speak that name again!” Cynaban shouted. “He is the betrayer, the Fallen One. That is the only name he bears.”

“Yes, my lord.”

Cynaban thought for a moment. “There’s no sense in waiting here to be butchered. We’ll go on the offensive, surprise them, head southeast, make for the ford on that river we crossed two days ago.”

“The river is named the Ulbb,” Morddon said. “And it’s called Gilguard’s Ford.”

“Why Gilguard?” Cynaban asked.

“I don’t know.”

The legion stripped down to battle gear and trail rations. They knew they were doomed, and yet they went about their preparations as if their impending deaths were nothing more than the next task given to them by an unyielding master. These beings displayed no emotion, no fear, no uncertainty. Cynaban’s anger at Metadan, and Metadan’s sorrow, were the only emotions Morddon had ever seen from an angel. Watching them prepare for their own deaths was an eerie sight: beautiful, silent, and determined.

They took only minutes to prepare themselves, and with no word or command they mounted their horses and formed up in ranks behind Cynaban. Without requesting permission Morddon nudged Mortiss forward and joined Cynaban at the fore of the legion, and while he waited silently at Cynaban’s side it occurred to him he had never seen an angel die, not up close. Since joining the First Legion Metadan had used him exclusively as a scout, so he’d never been part of a large battle. But he’d heard the stories of how, at death, an angel’s mortal body withered away as the substance of its being returned to its master. Today, he would learn firsthand if there was any truth to that.

Near midday a large force of Goath appeared on the crest of the next hill. Cynaban looked over the terrain between them. “We’ll charge due south, try to cut our way through them, then turn southeast and keep moving fast.”

Cynaban raised his sword above his head, then sliced it to the south and charged. Morddon spurred Mortiss, slapped her flank with the flat of his sword, and with the rest of the legion charged silently behind Cynaban.

They dropped down into the depression between the two hills, then charged up toward their enemy without so much as a single battle cry. The Goath were only a little surprised, and turned to face them before they met, but the legion had the momentum of their charge and they cut into the Goath horde like a spear. The battle turned instantly into a free-for-all, and Morddon’s old killing reflexes came out easily. The Goath outnumbered them badly, so he let Mortiss have her rein and he cut about him with his sword while Morgin protected him with a deep shadow. But to stay and fight was a mistake, for the Goath hordes covering their flanks quickly joined the battle and the odds grew steadily against them. They lost half the legion in that first battle before they broke through.

To reach Gilguard’s Ford they headed southeast, but the Goath constantly intervened, forced them directly south instead. Before dark they engaged large Goath forces three more times, and by nightfall they numbered less than six hundred. The night turned into a running battle of hide and seek and kill, and when dawn broke sharp and clear Morddon was part of a troupe of about one hundred warriors. He prayed there were more still alive somewhere, perhaps in isolated groups now separated, each making its own way home.

They could have hoped for bad weather to cover their trail, but the gods did not favor them that day. About midday, while traversing a small stream, a company of jackal warriors ambushed them.

Fighting in the middle of the stream Morddon cut down one jackal, turned on another and cut him down, spun about and met another’s sword with his own. Their swords locked together and for an instant they fought a still, silent battle of strength. But then Morddon reached out with his free hand and gripped the jackal by the throat, picked the deformed beast out of his saddle and snapped its neck.

Something hit him between the shoulder blades and he went down into the stream. He stood up as Mortiss struggled to her feet, neighing and spluttering with her nostrils flared and her eyes wild. He struggled into her saddle, heard an angel cry, “This way, whiteface!” and he spurred her in that direction.

That night he and about thirty angels hid in a small clump of forest. They were done for; exhausted, no food for themselves or their horses. They posted a token guard and tried to get some rest.

The next morning it appeared they’d lost their pursuers, so they rode for a while unmolested. But before noon they came across an open glen where a large battle had recently been fought. The ground was littered with dead horses and dead Goath, and many of the horse’s saddles bore the emblem of the First Legion. But of angels, there were only empty bundles of clothing, no corpses.

The glen was bordered on two sides by a small woodland, the air still and silent. The small group of angels with Morddon paused for some reason over the remains of their brethren. Perhaps there was some ceremony or remembrance they practiced, so Morddon, with his curiosity aroused, dismounted to examine one of the clumps of empty clothing.

He bent down and poked at it with the tip of his sword. There were several rents in the tunic—sword cuts he guessed—but no blood, no odor, nothing of the stench of death. He did find a small white feather caught in a fold of the cloth, and he wondered if perhaps the tales were true.

A shout broke the silence about him just as something stung him in the neck. He managed to get his sword out, then his knees weakened, the ground seemed to tilt crazily, he staggered a few steps and collapsed. His head swum as a terrible lethargy overcame him, and he lay there watching arrows arc above him to cut down his companions. His vision was clouded, but after each angel went down and stopped struggling, something fluttered up from the still corpse and rose to the heavens on snow-white wings.

He tried to rise but his arms and legs had gone numb, with his mind in no better shape. The ground shook with the rumble of a large company of horses riding nearby, and then a troupe of jackal warriors rode into his field of view. They dispersed quickly to check the fate of his comrades. One group evidently discovered an angel still alive. Morddon saw the glint of a sword raised in the sunlight, then again he had the blurred impression some sort of white bird rose from the corpse into the sky.

The captain of the jackal troupe rode directly to Morddon with several of his warriors at his side. They circled him warily on horseback with their swords drawn, as if they feared him greatly, then cautiously dismounted and approached him. One of them nudged him with a sword, then he heard one behind him bark, “He’s been well stung. The dart is still in his neck.”

At that they relaxed; the captain sheathed his sword, leaned down and looked into Morddon’s eyes. “Good,” he barked. “He still lives. Her majesty would have had our heads if we’d killed him. Tie him up good, and keep any and all steel away from him.”

They bound Morddon’s hands and legs with heavy ropes, and though it took a dozen of them to lift him, they threw him over the back of a horse and tied him there like a sack of grain. They rode to the northwest for the next three days, and in late afternoon entered a sprawling encampment with large pavilions staked in the center.

Their arrival started a chorus of barking and yipping from hundreds of jackal warriors and their camp followers. They dumped Morddon painfully on the ground. The paralyzing drug had worn off, though his arms were now numb because of the way they’d been bound. They untied him and staked him out on the ground in the middle of the camp with his arms and legs spread. Then the jackal captain told an aid, “Tell Her Majesty he’s ready.”