The Diamond Warriors. David Zindell

They must prevail, though it seemed impossible. Just as it seemed impossible that Lord Tanu would really command his knights to ride over me. Lord Tanu, though, did not make threats wantonly; I knew that he would let his knights’ horses drive me down to the road’s hard stones.

      ‘One last time, Lord Elahad, I’ll tell you to get off this road!’

      I felt him steeling himself to press his knees against his horse and urge the great beast forward. Just then, from behind me, I heard the slap of boots against stone, as of someone running hard. I turned to see Estrella darting and weaving among the knights gathered behind me as she practically sprinted toward me. Daj followed close at her heels. I was never to learn how these two children found their way out of the castle; it seemed that once they had escaped, however, they had run the whole distance down to the pass. Estrella rushed up to my side, and threw her arms around me as she stood against me gasping for breath. Daj found his way to my other side, and his chest worked so hard to draw in air that it seemed his lungs might tear open. They looked up at Lord Tanu in defiance – and in fear, too.

      ‘What is this?’ Lord Tanu cried out to me. ‘Some trick of yours?’

      In answer, I could only shake my head at him.

      ‘It is said,’ Lord Tanu cried out, ‘that these children accompanied you on your quest.’

      In the way he gazed at Estrella, and then Daj, I wondered if he felt more keenly the loss of his two grandchildren, slaughtered when Morjin’s Red Knights had ravaged my father’s castle.

      ‘Well, this is no place for children,’ he continued. ‘Get them off the road!’

      I moved to take hold of them, for I would not see either of them trampled to death, even for the sake of my dream. But then Daj took hold of my leg even as Estrella tightened her grip around my waist. Then, with a great and heavy sigh, Maram dismounted, too, and came forward to stand by me. So did Liljana, Master Juwain and Atara. At their show of courage, the knights behind me could do no less, and so Lord Avijan took his place on the road, along with Lord Harsha, Joshu Kadar, and everyone else.

      ‘I will remain with the Elahad!’ Joshu Kadar shouted, staring at Lord Tanu. He had no liking for this old man who had taken his young lady love away from him. ‘You won’t drive us away!’

      ‘I will remain, too!’ Sar Shivalad called out.

      Estrella, locked on to me, gazed at Lord Tanu with no less defiance.

      ‘What is this?’ Lord Tanu cried out. ‘Must we ride over all of you?’

      In the warmth of Estrella’s face pressed against my chest I felt her will to stand and die wherever I stood. So it was with my other companions and the knights who followed me, even Maram, who pressed up behind me and clasped his hand around my arm. Their hearts seemed to beat in unison like a single, great drum. In the immense silence that sounded out along the road above the lake, I gazed at Lord Tanu. And my heart filled with a wild and anguished love of life.

      ‘Ride, if you must,’ I said to him.

      For a long time, he sat on top of his great warhorse staring down at me. He appeared at once sad, fearful and weighed down with a bittersweet longing. My companions drew in closer to me. I felt their élan passing into me and gathering in my eyes with a painful brightness. Lord Tanu stared and stared at me, and at last, a door inside him opened. Then his eyes grew all moist and glassy, like the waters of the lake.

      ‘I might have been wrong about you,’ he forced out in a harsh, thick voice. ‘I had thought you were vainglorious, like Lord Tomavar.’

      He looked from Maram to Atara, and then at Lord Harsha, Lord Avijan and Joshu Kadar, still holding up my banner with the swan and stars. Then he said to me, ‘Too many adventurers are careless of their own lives, and those of others. But it might be that you are more like your father and grandfather. They would gladly have given their lives for the men who followed them – and did.’

      I bowed my head at this, then so did Lord Tanu and everyone else. After a few moments, Lord Tanu turned to Lord Eldru and said, ‘Let us not ride any farther up this road today.’

      He nodded at Lord Ramjay and Sar Shagarth, who nodded back at him. Then Lord Tanu said to Lord Avijan, standing a few paces from me: ‘We will take your word that your castle is well defended. But you should prepare your warriors to march forth from it within the week.’

      ‘And why is that?’ Lord Avijan asked him.

      ‘Because,’ Lord Tanu said, looking at me, ‘we shall call for a gathering of all the warriors in Mesh – even Lord Tomavar’s. Let it be as Valashu Elahad has said: all who have made pledges should be released from them. Let the warriors decide who shall be king!’

      At this, Sar Vikan let loose a great cheer, which Jessu the Lion-Heart and Sar Shivalad and the other knights near me picked up and amplified, calling out: ‘Let the warriors decide!’

      The knights who had pressed up close behind Lord Tanu must have sympathized with this sentiment, for they too repeated this cry. And then, like a command passed across a battlefield, the warriors drawn up in columns along the road shouted out that they should be allowed to stand for a new king. Their thousands of voices boomed out across the lake like a stroke of thunder.

      ‘Very well, then,’ Lord Tanu said, bowing his head to me. ‘Until the gathering, Lord Elahad.’

      ‘Until then, Lord Tanu,’ I said, bowing back to him.

      It was no great work for Lord Tanu to call for his captains to turn his army about and begin marching back down the road, with the vanguard following those who marched on foot. We watched them go as they had come, a great mass of men and horses pounding at the road’s stone. When they had disappeared from our sight around the curve of the mountain, I looked down at Estrella, still clinging to me, and I said to her, ‘It was you who led the way out of the castle, wasn’t it?’

      At this, she happily nodded her head as if she thought her action should have pleased me. Then Daj spoke for her, saying, ‘We couldn’t let you face Lord Tanu alone. He might have killed you!’

      I tried to smile at him as I swallowed against the lump in my throat. Then Maram gazed down into the pass and muttered to me, ‘Do you see how it goes, then? We survive another urgent situation, only to be to be forced into yet another. A gathering of the warriors, indeed! Three armies will be at this gathering – and Lord Tomavar, I think, will be quicker to have his warriors draw swords than to release them from their pledges.’

      At this, Sar Vikan stepped up to Maram, and clapped him on the shoulder. ‘If that is the way of things, then I shall have the pleasure of fighting by your side again. Which of Lord Tomavar’s knights can stand against Sar Maram Marshayk?’

      As Maram rolled his eyes at this and let out a soft groan, Lord Avijan came over to me. ‘Which of Mesh’s knights will fail to stand for Valashu Elahad as king?’

      For a while we remained there above the deep, blue lake feeling very glad for our lives – and not a little amazed that our small force had been able to turn back Lord Tanu’s army without a single sword flying from its scabbard. I thought about Lord Avijan’s words to me. Of all the questions in my life, at that moment, it was the one I most wanted to be answered.

       6

      It took more than a week for Lord Tanu’s emissaries to ride across Mesh and arrange with Lord Tomavar a time and place for the gathering of the warriors: On the 21st of Soldru we were to converge on a great open meadow to the west of Hardu along the Arashar River. This field, where the Lake Country gave way to the Gorgeland at the very heart of the realm, was almost exactly equidistant from Mount Eluru, Godhra and Lord Tomavar’s stronghold in Pushku. Other claimants to the throne – Lord Ramanu, Lord Bahram and Lord