‘Is he all right?’ Sparhawk whispered hoarsely through the window.
‘I’m fine, Sparhawk,’ Talen whispered back. ‘You’d better get moving. This won’t take me very long.’
Sparhawk and Kalten dropped back to the parapet. ‘Let’s go,’ Sparhawk said shortly, and the three knights and the Atan giantess moved quickly around the narrow parapet to the south side of the tower.
‘Quietly, Anakha.’ Xanetia’s voice seemed to come out of nowhere.
‘Are they stirring yet, Anarae?’ Bevier whispered.
‘Some few sounds do emanate from the guardroom,’ her voice replied.
There were two large, unglazed windows at the front of the tower, one on each side of the broad door. Sparhawk cautiously raised his head above the lower edge of one of them and peered inside. The room, as Aphrael had reported, was fairly large. It was sparsely furnished with benches, a few backless chairs, a couple of low tables, and it was lit with primitive oil lamps. There was a narrow door on the right side of the rear wall with two statue-like Cyrgai, one on each side, guarding it. The stairway on the left-hand side of the room, also guarded, was enclosed on three sides by a low wall. The second doorway, the one leading into the guardroom, was also on the left side, not far from the top of the stairs.
Sparhawk looked intently at the guards, closely studying their weapons and equipment. They were well-muscled men in archaic breastplates, crested helmets and short leather kilts. Each had a large round shield strapped to his left arm, and each grasped an eight-foot spear in his right. They all had swords and heavy daggers belted at their waists.
Sparhawk moved his head away from the window. ‘You’d all better take a look,’ he whispered to his friends.
One by one, Kalten, Bevier, and Mirtai raised up slightly to peer into the room.
‘Is this locked, Anarae?’ Sparhawk whispered, pointing at the door leading out onto the parapet.
‘I did not think it wise to try it, Anakha. Cyrgai construction is crude, and methinks no door-latch in the city may be attempted soundlessly.’
‘You’re probably right,’ he breathed. ‘Let’s pull back around the corner,’ he told the others, leading them round to the east side.
‘It’s getting lighter,’ Kalten noted, pointing toward the horizon.
Sparhawk grunted. ‘We’ll go in through the windows,’ he told them. ‘We’d just jam up if we tried to go through the doorway anyhow. Bevier, you and Mirtai go through the one on the far side of the door. Kalten and I’ll go through the one on this side. Be careful. Those spears seem to be their primary weapon, so they’ve probably had lots of training with them. Get in close and fast. Take them down in a hurry and then block that door to the guardroom. We’re going to have to hold those stairs, too.’
‘I’ll do that, Sparhawk,’ Mirtai assured him. ‘You concentrate on getting our friends out of that cell.’
‘Right,’ he agreed. ‘As soon as they’re free, I’ll unleash the Bhelliom. That should change the odds up here significantly.’
And then a clear voice raised in aching song that soared out above the sleeping city.
‘That’s the signal!’ Kalten told them. ‘That’s Alean! Talen’s finished up! Let’s go!’
‘You heard him!’ Sparhawk said, stepping back so that Bevier and Mirtai could get past. ‘I’ll give the word, and we’ll all go in at the same time!’
Bevier and Mirtai crouched low as they ran past the window on the near side to take positions under the window beyond the door. ‘Stay clear of this, Anarae,’ Sparhawk murmured to the invisible Xanetia. ‘It’s not your kind of fight.’ He frowned. There was no sense of her presence nearby. ‘All right, Kalten,’ he said then, ‘let’s get to work.’
The two of them silently crept forward, swords in hand, to crouch beneath the broad window. Sparhawk raised slightly to look along the parapet. Bevier and Mirtai waited tensely under the far window. He drew in a deep breath and set himself. ‘Now!’ he shouted, setting his hand on the window-ledge and vaulting through into the room.
There had been four Cyrgai inside before. Now there were ten.
‘They’re changing the guard, Sparhawk!’ Bevier shouted, swinging his deadly lochaber in both hands.
They still had the element of surprise, but the situation had drastically changed. Sparhawk swore and cut down a Cyrgai carrying a pail of some kind – the captives’ breakfast, most likely. Then he rushed the four confused guards milling in front of the cell door. One of them was fighting with the lock while the other three tried to get into position. They were disciplined, there was no question about that, and their long spears did raise problems.
Sparhawk swore a savage oath and swung his heavy broadsword, chopping at the spears. Kalten had moved to one side, and he was also swinging massive blows at the spears. There were sounds of fighting coming from the other side of the room, but Sparhawk was too intent on breaking through to the guard who was trying to force the cell door, to turn and look.
Two of the spears were broken now, and the Cyrgai had discarded them and drawn their swords. The third, his spear still intact, had stepped back to protect the one feverishly struggling with the lock.
Sparhawk risked a quick glance at the other side of the room, just in time to see Mirtai lift a struggling guard over her head and hurl him bodily down the stairs with a great clattering sound. Two other Cyrgai lay dead or dying nearby. Bevier, even as he had in Otha’s throne-room in Zemoch, held the door to the guardroom while Mirtai, like some great, golden cat, savaged the remaining guards at the top of the stairs. Sparhawk quickly turned his attention back to the men he faced.
The Cyrgai were indifferent swordsmen, and their oversized shields seriously hindered their movements. Sparhawk made a quick feint at the head of one, and the man instinctively raised his shield. Instantly recovering, Sparhawk drove his sword into the gleaming breastplate. The Cyrgai cried out and fell back with blood gushing from the sheared gash in his armor.
It was not enough. The Cyrgai at the cell door had abandoned his efforts to unlock it and had begun slamming his shoulder against it. Sparhawk could clearly hear the splintering of wood. Desperately, he renewed his attack. Once the Cyrgai broke through that door –
And then, without even being forced, the door swung inward. With a triumphant shout, the Cyrgai who had been battering at the door drew his sword.
And then he screamed as a new light flooded the room.
Xanetia, blazing like the sun, stood in the doorway with one deadly hand extended.
The Cyrgai screamed again, falling back, tangling himself in the struggles of his two comrades. Then he broke free, ran to the window and plunged through.
He was still running when he went over the balustrade with a long despairing scream.
The other two Cyrgai at the cell door also fled, scurrying around the room like frightened mice. ‘Mirtai!’ sparhawk roared. ‘Stand clear! Let them go!’
The Atana had just raised another struggling warrior over her head. She threw him down the stairs and turned sharply. Then she dodged clear to allow the demoralized Cyrgai to escape.
‘Stand aside, Sir Knight!’ Xanetia commanded Bevier. ‘I will bar that door, and I do vouchsafe that none shall pass!’
Bevier took one look at her glowing face and stepped away from the guardroom door.
The Cyrgai inside the room also looked at her, and then they slammed the door shut.
‘It’s all right now, Ehlana,’ Sparhawk called.
Talen came out first, and his face was pale and shaken. The boy’s tunic was ripped in several places, and a long, bleeding scrape on one arm spoke of his struggle to get through the narrow window. He was staring in awe at Xanetia. ‘She came through the window in a puff of smoke, Sparhawk!’ he choked.
‘Mist, young Talen,’ Xanetia corrected in a clinical tone. She was still all aglow and facing the guardroom door. ‘Smoke would be impractical for human flesh.’
There was a great deal of noise comin
g from the guardroom. ‘They seem to be moving furniture in there, Sparhawk,’ Bevier laughed. ‘Piling it against the door, I think.’
Then Alean came running out of the cell to hurl herself into Kalten’s arms, and, immediately behind her, Ehlana emerged from her prison. She was even more pale than usual, and there were dark circles under her eyes. Her clothing was tattered, and her head was tightly bound in a bandage-like wimple. ‘Oh, Sparhawk!’ she cried out in a low voice, holding her arms out to him. He went to her and enfolded her in a rough embrace.
From far below there came a savage bellow.
‘Anakha!’ Bhelliom’s voice roared in Sparhawk’s mind. ‘Cyrgon hath awakened to his peril! Release me.’
Sparhawk jerked the pouch out from under his tunic and fumbled with the drawstring.
‘What’s that shouting?’ Talen demanded.
‘Cyrgon knows that we’ve released Ehlana!’ Sparhawk replied tensely, drawing Kurik’s box out of the pouch. ‘Open!’ he commanded.
The lid raised, and the blue radiance of the Bhelliom blazed forth. Sparhawk carefully lifted out the jewel.
‘They’re coming up the stairs, Sparhawk!’ Mirtai warned.
‘Get clear!’ he said sharply. ‘Blue Rose!’ he said then. ‘Canst thou bar the way to our enemies, who even now rush up yon stairway?’
The Bhelliom did not answer, but the waist-high wall surrounding the head of the stairs collapsed inward, crashing down into the stairwell with a great clattering and a billowing cloud of dust.
‘Advise Aphrael that her mother is safe.’ Bhelliom’s voice was crisp. ‘Let the attack begin.’
Sparhawk cast the spell. ‘Aphrael!’ he said sharply. ‘We’ve got Ehlana! Tell the others to move in!’
‘Can Bhelliom break Cyrgon’s illusion?’ she asked in a tone every bit as crisp as the Sapphire Rose’s had been.
‘Blue Rose,’ Sparhawk said silently, ‘the illusion of Cyrgon doth still impede the advance of our friends upon the city. Canst thou dispel it that they may bring their forces to bear upon this accursed place?’
‘It shall be as thou wouldst have it, my son.’
There was a momentary pause, and then the earth seemed to shudder slightly, and a vast shimmer ran in waves across the sky.
From the leprous white temple far below there came a shrill screech of pain.
‘My goodness,’ Flute said mildly as she suddenly appeared in the center of the room. ‘I’ve never had a ten-thousand-year-old spell broken. I’ll bet it hurts like anything. Poor Cyrgon’s having an absolutely dreadful night.’
‘The night is not yet over, Child Goddess,’ Bhelliom spoke through Kalten’s lips. ‘Save thine unseemly gloating until all danger is past.’
‘Well, really!’
‘Hush, Aphrael. We must look to our defenses, Anakha. What Cyrgon knoweth, Klæl doth also know. The contest is at hand. We must make ready.’
‘Truly,’ Sparhawk agreed. He looked around at his friends. ‘Let’s go,’ he told them. ‘We’ll spread out along the parapet, and keep your eyes open. Klæl’s coming, and I don’t want him creeping up behind me. Is that stairway completely blocked?’
‘A mouse couldn’t get through all that rubble,’ Mirtai told him.
‘We can forget about the guards,’ Bevier announced, removing his ear from the guardroom door. ‘They’re still rearranging the furniture.’
‘Good.’ Sparhawk went to the door leading out to the parapet. It opened with a shrill protest of rusty hinges. ‘Don’t start getting brave,’ he cautioned his friends. ‘The fight’s between Bhelliom and Klæl. Spread out and keep watch.’
The eastern sky was pale with the approach of day as they came out onto the parapet, and Cyrgon’s agonized shrieking still echoed through the Hidden City.
‘There,’ Talen said, pointing toward the basalt escarpment beyond the lake to the south.
A mass of figures, tiny in the distance and still dark in the dawn-light, were streaming out of ‘the Glen of Heroes’, moving into the basin before the gates of Cyrga.
‘Who are they?’ Ehlana cried, suddenly gripping Sparhawk’s arm.
‘Vanion,’ Sparhawk told her, ‘along with just about everybody else – Betuana, Kring, Ulath and the Trolls, Sephrenia –’
‘Sephrenia?’ Ehlana exclaimed. ‘She’s dead!’
‘You didn’t really think I’d let Zalasta kill my sister, did you, Ehlana?’ Flute said.
‘But – he said that he’d stabbed her in the heart!’
The Child Goddess shrugged. ‘He did, but Bhelliom cured it. Vanion’s going to take steps.’
Talen came running round the parapet from the back of the tower. ‘Bergsten’s coming in from the other side,’ he reported. ‘His knights just trampled about three regiments of Cyrgai under foot without even slowing down.’
‘Are we going to be caught in the middle of a siege here?’ Kalten asked with a worried expression.
‘Not too likely,’ Bevier replied. ‘The defenses of this place are pitifully inadequate, and Patriarch Bergsten tends to be a very abrupt sort of man.’
There was a sudden eruption far below, and the roof of the pale temple exploded, hurling chunks of limestone in all directions as the infinite darkness of Klæl shouldered his way up out of the House of Cyrgon. His vast, leathery wings spread wide, and his blazing, slitted eyes looked about wildly.
‘Prithee, Anakha, hold me aloft that my brother may behold me.’ The voice coming from Kalten’s lips was detached.
Sparhawk’s hand was shaking as he raised the Sapphire Rose over his head.
Kalten, moving somewhat woodenly, gently put Alean’s clinging arms aside and stepped to the stone rail at the front of the parapet. He spoke in a tongue no human mouth could have produced, and his words could quite probably have been heard in Chyrellos, half a world away.
Enormous Klæl, waist-deep in the ruins of Cyrgon’s Temple, raised his triangular face and roared his reply, his fanged mouth dripping flame.
‘Attend closely, Anakha,’ Bhelliom’s voice in Sparhawk’s mind was very quiet. ‘I will continue to taunt mine errant brother, and all enraged will he come to do battle with me. Be thou steadfast in the face of that approaching horror, for our success or failure do hang entire upon thy courage and the strength of thine arm.’
‘I do not take thy meaning, Blue Rose. Am I to smite Klæl?’
‘Nay, Anakha. Thy task is to free me.’
The beast of darkness below savagely kicked aside the limestone rubble and advanced on the palace with hungry arms outstretched. When he reached the massive gates, he brushed them from his path with a whip of lightning clutched in one enormous fist.
Kalten continued his deafening taunts, and Klæl continued to howl his fury as he crushed his way through the lower wings of the palace, destroying everything that lay in the path of his relentless drive toward the tower.
And then he reached it, and, seizing its rough stones in his two huge hands, he began to climb, his wings clawing at the morning air as he mounted up and up.
‘How am I to free thee, Blue Rose?’ Sparhawk asked urgently.
‘My brother and I must be briefly recombined, my son,’ Bhelliom replied, ‘to become one again, as we once were, else must I forever be imprisoned within this azure crystal – even as Klæl must remain in his present monstrous form. In our temporary combination will we both be freed.’
‘Combine? How?’
‘When he doth reach this not inconsiderable height and doth exult with resounding bellow of victory, must thou hurl me straightway into his gaping maw.’
‘Do what?’
‘He would with all his soul devour me. Make it so. In the moment of our recombination shall Klæl and I both be freed of our present forms, and then shall our contest begin. Fail not, my son, for this is thy purpose and the destiny for which I made thee.’
Sparhawk drew in a deep breath. ‘I will not fail thee, Father,’ he pledged with all his heart.
Still rag
ing and with his leathery wings clawing at the air, Klæl mounted higher and higher up the front of the palace tower. Sparhawk felt a sense of odd, undismayed detachment come over him. He looked full into the face of the King of Hell and felt no fear. His task was simplicity in itself. He had only to hurl the Sapphire Rose into that gaping maw, and, should a suitable opportunity for that not present itself, to hurl himself – with Bhelliom in his outstretched fist instead. He felt no regret nor even sadness as the unalterable resolve settled over him. Better this than to die in a meaningless, unremembered skirmish on some disputed frontier as so many of his friends had. This had significance, and for a soldier, that was the best one could hope for.
And still Klæl came, climbing higher and higher, reaching hungrily for his hated brother. No more than a few yards below now, his slitted eyes blazed in cruel triumph and his jagged fangs dripped fire as he roared his challenge.
And then Sparhawk leapt atop the ancient battlement to stand poised with Bhelliom aloft in his fist. ‘For God and my Queen!’ He bellowed his defiance.
Klæl reached up with one awesome hand.
Then, like the sudden uncoiling of some tightly-wound spring, Sparhawk struck. His arm snapped down like a whip. ‘Go!’ he shouted, as he released the blazing jewel.
As true as an arrow the Sapphire Rose flew from his hand even as Klæl’s mouth gaped wider. Straight it went to vanish in the flaming maw.
The tower trembled as a shudder ran through the glossy blackness of the enormity clinging to its side, and Sparhawk struggled to keep his balance on his precarious perch.
Klæl’s wings stiffened to their fullest extent, quivering with awful tension. The great beast swelled, growing even more enormous. Then he contracted, shriveling.
And then he exploded.
The detonation shook the very earth, and Sparhawk was hurled back from the battlement to fall heavily on the parapet. He rolled quickly, came to his feet, and rushed back to the battlements.
Two beings of light, one a glowing blue, the other sooty red, grappled with each other on insubstantial air not ten feet away. Their struggle was elemental, a savage contesting of will and strength. They were featureless beings, and their shapes were only vaguely human. Heaving back and forth, they clung to each other like wrestlers in some rude village square, each bending all his will and force to subdue his perfectly-matched opponent.