"We have the Righteous Horde," the big knight of Toom said, "and four thousand decent spearmen who defected out of Beldinook."

Gaborn weighed what the men had to say.

"Consider well," Binnesman cautioned Gaborn.

Gaborn glanced at the wizard. Binnesman had an odd green metallic tint to his face and eyes. His service to the Earth had drained him of his humanity decades ago. As an Earth Warden, he was in some ways Gaborn's senior. He'd given himself in service, and fulfilled his duties honorably, for hundreds of years. Gaborn had vowed to serve the Earth only a week ago. Gaborn respected Binnesman's counsel, but he did not want to follow it now.

"The wizard may be right, Your. Highness," High Queen Herin the Red said. "Against so many reavers, I would think we are too few."

"I never took you for a coward," Langley growled at her. "Did not the Earth command him to strike?"

The Earth has also been warning me to flee, Gaborn thought.

"Think on this," a lord from Orwynne said. "Of course Paladane and his people are in Carris...but so is Raj Ahten. Perhaps the reavers will do us a favor and kill the b.a.s.t.a.r.d. If the people of Carris die, too, it may not be an easy trade to stomach, but it might not be a bad trade."

"You forget yourself," Gaborn warned the knight. "I can't let hundreds of thousands of good people die just to be rid of one man."

Though Gaborn spoke of riding to Raj Ahten's defense, he was weary of trying to decipher the message of his dream from last night.

"Be forwarned that if we go forward, every man among us will stand at death's door today," Gaborn warned them. "Who will ride with me?"

As one, the lords around him cheered. Only Binnesman watched Gaborn skeptically and remained silent..

"So be it," Gaborn shouted. Putting his heels to horseflesh, he raced off for Carris. Every bone in his body ached with the Earth's pain.

Twenty lords followed him.

For now, that seemed enough.

CHAPTER 54.

FOUL BARGAINS.

Gaborn reached a low valley three miles north of Carris, and came upon the rearmost contingent of High Marshal Skalbairn's troops trudging across the ruins of a blasted land, through the reeking low mist that infused men with a profound feeling of illness.

Farthest away from him, Skalbairn led a couple of thousand knights at the van, followed by eight thousand spearmen marching in formation. Thousands of archers trailed near their rear.

Last of all came the camp followers: carters with huge wains full of armor and arrows and food; artillerymen who skulked behind knowing that they would be of little use in the coming battle; squires, cooks, washwomen, wh.o.r.es, and boys seeking adventure who had no business marching to war.

How can I save them all? Gaborn wondered.

Scouts at the rearguard blew battle horns, and the people turned to look back at the Earth. King and his "reinforcements."

If the sight dismayed them, they did not show it. The men in back suddenly raised their fists and their weapons and shouted in triumph.

Mankind had waited two thousand years for an Earth King. Now an Earth King had come to these few at last.

On the horizon, the cloud ceiling above Carris was red with flame.

The sound of a distant hissing roar rumbled over the ruined earth. The Knights Equitable continued cheering, but now the camp followers began to cry out. "Choose me, milord! Choose me!"

They turned toward him and some began to run forward to plead for the Choosing. Gaborn realized that if he did not act soon, he might be crushed in the press.

Gaborn raced his charger to a roadside farmhouse. Near the house, a sod barn for storing tubers lay next to the ground with its low roof of thatch rising like a small hill. Gaborn rode up to the barn and leapt from his horse, then sprinted to the rooftop and stood holding an iron weathervane shaped like a racing dog.

He gazed out over Skalbairn's Righteous Horde. He knew it would be no match for the reavers. Not if these men fought with nothing more than their own strong arms to defend themselves. Yet Gaborn needed this army desperately if he was to strike a blow.

Gaborn raised his left arm to the square and begged to the Earth Powers he sought to serve. "Forgive me for what I must do."

He gazed over the army and shouted in a voice loud enough so that all could hear. "I Choose you. I Choose you all, in the name of the Earth. May the Earth hide you. May the Earth heal you. May the Earth make you its own."

Gaborn did not know if it would work. In the past he'd always sought to look into the hearts of men--to judge them fairly to see if they were worthy before offering his gift.

He'd never sought to gather so many at once.

He only hoped it would work. The Earth itself had told him in Binnesman's garden that he was free to Choose whom he would, but Gaborn did not know if he was free to Choose men he thought unfit.

Far away, at the very van of the cavalry near the hilltop, rode High Marshal Skalbairn.

He sat ahorse, in his full black plate mail, and turned toward Gaborn. He lifted his visor and tapped the side of his helm beneath his right ear, as if begging Gaborn to repeat what he'd said.

Gaborn had not used the Earth Sight to gaze into the hearts of every man and woman in the horde. He'd looked into the heart of only one. Marshal Skalbairn--and had sworn never to Choose him.

Now he repented of that vow, but not for the sake of Skalbairn. He hoped only that if Skalbairn fought valiantly, his deeds might save the lives of a few hundred or a thousand common folk who were more worthy of life than was Skalbairn.

As the lines of power formed between Gaborn and thousands of new subjects, Gaborn silently whispered words that only the High Marshal could hear.

"That is right," Gaborn said, shame making the blood rise hot to his face. "I Choose you, though you have slept with your own mother and fathered your own crippled, idiot sister. You have committed abomination and have loved the deed as you love your own child. Though I abhor what you have done, I Choose even you."

I am free to do this, Gaborn told himself. I am free to Choose. He felt in his own heart, wishing that he could know the Earth's will in this matter.

If the Earth objected, Gaborn was not aware. He did not feel his power drain from him or notice some other sign of the Earth's reprisal. All he felt was death's heavy hand waiting to smite every man, woman, and child in the valley before him. And with it he felt the Earth's command, still vague and as yet undefined: "Strike! Strike now!"

Gaborn spoke to the heart of every man and woman in his army, relaying his message.

High Marshal Skalbairn nodded, signifying that he had heard Gaborn. Then he turned and blew his greathorn, sending his warriors to charge into battle.

Gaborn's eyes look haunted, Erin Connal thought as she rode for Carris. Erin had often seen that same expression, that same heavy weight on her mother's brow. Everyone thinks Gaborn is invincible because he is the Earth King, she realized. They don't know how many nights he sits awake, worrying for them.

Erin guessed from his expression of horror that little good would come from this battle. She resolved to stay at his side, to protect him to the last. I could use my body to shield his, she thought, if I have to. I might be able to trade my life for his.

Erin glanced from Gaborn to her left, to the wizard Binnesman at his far side. Binnesman rode a great gray Imperial warhorse that he'd stolen from Raj Ahten more than a week ago. The beast had so many endowments of wit and brawn that it hardly looked like a creature of flesh and blood. Fierce intelligence shone in its eyes, intelligence equal to a man's in measure but not in kind. No, his mount looked not at all like an animal. It looked like a force of nature, or like a creature of granite.

Though the brown mists that smelled so much of rot made Erin feel weak, she still wanted to kill something. Not one something, she told herself. Many somethings. Raj Ahten, her father's a.s.sa.s.sin, for one. She wanted to slay reavers, enough reavers to wash away her cold anger.

The sky overhead was leaden, the sun fading like a cinder over the hills. Her mount breathed deeply, its nostrils flaring, its breath coming out cold. It wanted to run, knew it was time to fight.

Yet she had to keep the pace slow to accommodate the footmen of the Righteous Horde. She had not yet seen a reaver.

The smell of horseflesh came strong all around her, and the knights trotted along wordlessly, the ching of ring mail singing in the wild autumn air, the sound of the occasional lance or shield clacking against armor, the thud of hooves, the snorting and neighing of horses.

Erin bore no lance, for she'd not wanted to carry one all the way from Fleeds to Mystarria only to have it break on her first pa.s.s with some knight.

Now, with all the reavers ahead, she wished she were better armed. A reaver's crystalline bone was hard as rock, and many a weapon would shatter on impact with one of the monsters. But it would be hard to kill a reaver with anything smaller than a heavy lance.

She wheeled her mount, headed back toward the carters' wagons, looking for a wain with a long bed. "Lance?" she cried.

Ahead, a boy in a long-bedded wagon got up from his seat and jumped into a wagon bed to get a lance while the driver at his side continued to drive.

Erin grabbed the heavy lance.

Prince Celinor raced close to her on a mount borrowed from her mother's stables.

The young man was ashen-faced, his jaw set. "Lance?" he called to the boy, getting a weapon of his own.

He glanced Erin's way, patted a sheathed Crowthen war axe with its six-foot-long handle and huge single spike. It was a clumsy weapon for fighting men, but it had never been designed for men. The great p.r.o.ng was ideal for cracking a reaver's carapace.

"Don't worry," Celinor said. "I'll protect you."

His sentiment astonished her.

You'll protect me? she wanted to mock. He was not Chosen, after all. Of the entire horde. racing toward Carris, she realized, he alone had not been Chosen. Gaborn had raised his hand, Chosen every last blacksmith's helper and wh.o.r.e in the company. But Gaborn's back had been to Prince Celinor at the time.

No, if anyone would be needing protection it was, Celinor.

It will be up to me to watch out for him, Erin thought. Her loyalties were divided. She gritted her teeth and nodded toward Gaborn. "Stay by him!" she begged.

Celinor smiled wryly, adopted the tone of a patron d.i.c.kering with a street vendor. "So, I have been wondering, Horsesister Connal, what deed today would convince you that I'm worthy of a night in your bed?"

Erin merely laughed.

"I'm serious," he said.

"I'd not be worrying about it, if I were you. How could your head be so woolly as to think of such things now?"

"War and women: I find them both exciting. Is it valor you want? I'll be fearless. Is it strength and cunning you seek in a man? I'll give it a try. What if I, saved your life today? Would that earn me a night in your bed?"

"I'm not some serf from Kartish. I'd not be your slave just because you save my life."

"Not even for a night?"

Erin studied his eyes. Celinor smiled at her as if he jested, but behind that smile she saw concern, as if she looked into the eyes of a child.

He did not jest: He wanted her desperately, and he feared her rejection. He was not a bad man, she knew. He was handsome, and strong enough. He had fine composition. If she'd been looking for a man to sire a child on her, she'd have considered him.

So she dared not reject him out of hand. But although she found his looks and build captivating, it impressed her more that he understood the political consequences of what he asked, yet asked it anyway. He was not seeking a mere night of diversion; he wanted to court her as best he knew how. She was not some tender flower of a girl, after all, she was a horsewoman of Fleeds.

"All right," Erin said. "Prove yourself in battle today--save my life--and maybe I'll have you for a night."

"Agreed," Celinor said. "But that brings to mind another question. What does it take to prove myself worthy as a husband? If perhaps, let us say, I saved you three times?"

Erin laughed aloud, for she thought that unlikely. "Save me three times, and you will be having three nights in my bed," she teased. But then she spoke softly, provocatively. "But if you want to be my husband, you must prove yourself not on the battlefield...but in my bed."

Erin turned her gelding and drove on into the gloom. Her face burned with embarra.s.sment. She watched the leaden skies fade as the sun rode down in the west. It was not a beautiful sunset, not a roaring sky of flame or gold just a dimming of the day into night.

She glanced back at Celinor, who hurried to keep up.

Their horses crested a small hill. Across a valley stood a tall wall with an arched gate beneath it. "The Barren's Wall," someone said.

Beyond the wall, she glimpsed Carris, two miles distant. Its white towers stood tall and proud, but a great black rent marred its western facade. Boats were issuing from a floodgate in the south wall, bobbing on the waves as people fled for their lives.

On the castle walls, men cheered and cheered to see Gaborn's army. Warhorns blared, calling for help.

To the south of Carris, atop a dark leaning tower that twisted up like black flames, she could see reavers working feverishly.

Reavers were visible everywhere now. Tens of thousands of them swarmed on the plains and at the gates of Castle Carris. More marched northward in a line down from the mountains, each reaver taller than an elephant, but looking nothing like any creature to roam the surface of the earth.

Seeing them, she felt loathing.

On a hill north of Carris was a strange thing--a coc.o.o.n of fibers that looked like silk from this distance, wrapping the whole hill. At the hill's peak, a fell mage glimmered, clouds of brown fog whirling away from her. As Erin watched, the mage raised her staff and hissed, a roaring noise that filled the valley. A wave of dark wind issued from her in all directions.

In response, a thousand Knights Equitable suddenly raised voices in song. Many warriors spurred their mounts forward, toward the gate in the Barren's Wall.

Her horse began running. Erin had not willed it, had not pounded her mount's flank with her heel, but the horse suddenly surged forward beneath her, eager to race with the other knights.

The knights erupted into song, and Prince Celinor sang clearly at her side.

"We are born to blood and war, Like our fathers were, a thousand years before.

Sound the horn. Strike the blow!

Down to grief or glory go!"

Erin began racing, and the bloodl.u.s.t was so strong in her, she cared not whether she raced for her life or to her death. She couched her lance and spurred her horse, screaming in defiance.

CHAPTER 55.