Love And War (36 page)

“None too soon,” he responded gruffly. Yet, he, too, felt a hollowness inside him because
he knew what the end of this battle would mean for them personally: a few years of
happiness at the very most and then a permanent separation, but that was the price they
must pay for the destruction of the Dark Queen.

“You don't regret our decision, do you?” she asked him quietly.

“Daily. Hourly. Every time I think of what we could have had, I regret it. But it is
beyond us. There's nothing we can do about it.” He turned to face her, drinking in her
beauty, a fine, light beauty, created by illusion, but a perfect illusion that could be
preserved for all time if they would pay the price. But they could not.

She nodded, afraid to speak. Afraid of the pain that would creep into her words. She
turned away and looked at the army of tired men who sensed that the end was near. Tired,
dirty men who had never lost their belief that Huma would lead them to victory. Men who
knew Huma would not betray them, and who believed that - one way or another - this day
would see the end of the terrible war.

“I wish . . .” she started and found that she was unable to finish the thought. What could
she say? She knew from the beginning what the rules were. She knew what it meant for her
to take human form, and she knew what the ultimate cost would be for her. And yet, she
hadn't realized that it would be as high as it was. And now it was too late.

Huma took her hand, holding it in his own; he squeezed it tightly so that she could not
get away from him. There were a hundred things that he wanted to say to her. A thousand,
but he didn't have the words. In his heart, he knew that they had made the right decision,
but that didn't make it any easier. Rather than telling her that their time together,
however short, was worth the sacrifice, he said nothing to her. He knew that she knew, and
that was all that was important. The words didn't have to be spoken aloud to be heard.

A silence descended over the valley and the hills around it. The clouds of dust drifting
on the light breeze did little to break the heat of the afternoon. The eerie quiet spread outward, as if everybody held their breath, waiting for someone else to take command. Huma
pulled the woman closer to him but could not feel her body press his because of the heavy
armor he wore. A sweat born of the heat and the anxiety of the moment dripped down his
face and ran down his sides; he didn't like the way the Dark Queen had fled to the
obelisk. He didn't like the way her army had halted at its base, as if finding protection
in its shadow. It smacked of a trap, and that frightened him because he hadn't expected it.

For a moment everything remained static, the two forces separated by one-hundred yards of
open, dry, flat ground. No one moved; the only sounds were the flapping of the knight's
pennants in the hot breeze and a quiet rattling of the metallic and leather equipment.

And then the woman vanished. A shimmering of light that looked like the heat rising from
the plains near him and she was gone. Huma mounted the silver dragon that appeared next to
him, holding the dragonlance in his left hand, the butt resting on his thigh. He saw the
commanders of his army, the captains of the pikemen, the bowmen, and the knights, watching
him, waiting for his orders. He saw the Dark Queen and her army and knew that the wait was
over.

Huma leaned forward, his mouth near an ear of the silver dragon, and said, “It's time.”

The massive head of the dragon nodded once, and a tear dropped from its left eye.

Huma raised his lance high over his head, then lowered it with a snap of his wrist. At his
command, there was shouting in his lines and the bowmen drew the strings of their weapons
back. As one, they let their arrows fly, a black cloud of death that arced at the Queen's
waiting men, slamming into their ranks. As the second volley was fired, the pikemen began
a slow advance on the enemy, their shields held in front of them, the tips of their pikes
pointed at the Queen's soldiers.

A shout seemed to rise from one-hundred-thousand throats, a roar that came from both
armies. The Dark Queen, a beautiful woman dressed in black armor and mounted on a black
horse, waved her men forward. They came on, running across the no-man's land of dried,
dead grass, raising a cloud of dust that obscured them and the obsidian obelisk behind
them.

Like the sound of the sea smashing onto a beach, the two armies collided. There was the
ringing of metal against metal and a grunting of effort as the men of both sides fought with one another. Huma's
men momentarily retreated under the heavy onslaught of the Dark Queen's men, but their
line finally stabilized.

From his position on the hillside, Huma, astride the silver dragon, could watch the fight.
His men waded into the conflict, their swords swinging, chopping at the enemy. Men fell,
wounded, screaming in pain and fright. Others dropped, dead before they hit the ground. A
few broke and ran, but no one paid attention to them. Even as far from the battle as he
was, Huma could see the blood beginning to flow. Puddles of it under the bodies. Streams
of it began to form rivers. The dust, churning under the feet of the men, was suddenly wet
with blood.

Huma's men forced those of the Queen to retreat. As their line collapsed and her men died,
fresh soldiers forced their way into the front ranks. Some, armed with maces, tried to
crush the skulls of the attackers. Others, using spears and pikes, thrust into Huma's
forces, killing and wounding.

The sight of the battle was almost too much for Huma to bear. It had turned into the
bloodiest, goriest affair he'd ever been witness to, as the men killed and were killed.
Huma tore his eyes away, unable to stand the sight, but he could still hear the sound of
it. He could hear the grunts and cries of the fighting men. Hear the ringing of the metal
of their weapons as they slammed into each other. Hear the screams of agony of the wounded
and the shrieks of pain from the dying. He realized that there was no glory in war. There
was only the bloody and cruel deaths of brave fighting men.

Huma had not been cut out to be a leader. He hated sitting safely on the hillside,
watching the battle while his men fought and died on the plain below him. But, from his
position, he could see all of it, could see how the Queen was deploying her army and could
counter it with his. He could spot his weaknesses and strengthen them, and he could spot
hers to exploit them. Flanking him were the knights, the flower of his army, waiting for
their orders to attack.

It should have been a quick, easy victory. The Queen had little left in the way of an
army. Huma had pursued her all summer, gaining strength as she lost it. He had pushed her,
he thought, across the dried plains until her back was against the ominous obsidian
obelisk. She lost men in every skirmish. More men than Huma.

And with each loss, her supporters deserted her. Sometimes, using her magic, or that of
the black-robed magic-users, she created illusions to frighten Huma's men. Once, believing they were being
attacked by a race of tall, raven-haired female warriors who didn't know fear, Huma's men
had turned and fled, leaving him alone astride his silver dragon.

Huma had ridden forward, head bowed like a man in a high wind, the dragonlance held point
down. He had ridden into the hordes of women, ridden unharmed through the illusion of
their arrows and the illusion of their swords. He had ignored all that, attacking into the
ranks of the black- robed men behind them, scattering some and killing others. He'd
chopped them down so that they could never use their powers for evil again. As the
magic-users ran, or died, the illusions they had created vanished.

His army had stopped running then, turning to look at the empty plain. A few men, killed
by their own fear or trampled under the feet of their friends, lay dead. Huma and a
beautiful woman with silver hair stood alone, the Queen and her army having escaped the
onslaught because of the illusions.

- Now Huma sat behind his army, watching them pressing the Queen's men, killing them in
large numbers. Hacking them to pieces. Pushing the enemy back toward the obsidian obelisk
and the Queen.

There came a crack of thunder. Clouds began boiling overhead, coalescing from the clear
blue. Crimson clouds that turned brown and black before shooting into yellows and oranges.
Lightning flashed as the thunder boomed. Splinters of it struck the top of the obelisk so
that it began to glow an iridescent yellow. Sparks flew from the top of it as the wind
picked up, swirling down around the shaft of the obelisk, whipping at the clothing, the
robes, and the pennants of the Queen's army. The booming grew until it sounded like the
dirge of a giant base drum. A crashing sound that rocked the ground, sending vibrations
through it.

Suddenly, a formation of soldiers appeared at the base of the obelisk. Each was dressed in
glowing black armor matching that worn by the Dark Queen, and each soldier carried a
silver broadsword as he fanned outward. Ignoring the coming storm, they hacked their way
into Huma's army, killing his troops quickly, forcing them back to retreat.

Around them, the Queen's soldiers who had been killed earlier seemed to come to life
again. Dead men trailing blood, missing limbs, stood, raised their weapons high, and
attacked again. Gory horrors on their feet, shrieking with inhuman voices, waving their
weapons over their heads.

Attacking. Chopping. Killing. With a cry of rage, of despair, Huma lowered his dragonlance and the silver beast under him leaped forward. With a roar of anger, the
knights joined him, urging their horses onward. The line of men, nearly a hundred yards
long, swept past their own soldiers to strike the reinforcements issuing from the obelisk
and the ground around it.

Now in the thick of the battle, surrounded by his own men, Huma leaped to the ground. He
jammed the base of the dragonlance into the dirt, determined that he would not retreat
beyond that point. He drew his sword, the blade held upright in front of him, flashing in
the bright sunlight as it peeked through the seething clouds over the battlefield; he
waited as the black soldiers of the Queen advanced on him.

Beside him, the silver dragon vanished in a shimmering of light. The woman stood on his
right, in the place of honor in the battleline. She shook her head, the waves of her
silver hair flipping across her shoulders as she drew her own weapon. She lifted it
skyward, stepped forward with her right foot, and then she, too, waited for the enemy.
There was a smile on her lips as if she knew something that eluded the others.

Huma felt a sudden surge of love for the woman. She had stood beside him in everything -
through the bad times when it seemed that the enemy would win momentarily, and through the
good, when it seemed he would win easily. She had been there on the dark nights, holding
him when he blamed himself for bringing sorrow to hundreds of families. To thousands of
families. And she had been there to share in the celebration when the battles went well
and the Dark Queen was driven from the field of battle after suffering heavy losses.

He wanted to say all that to her because he felt that time for them was short. The Dark
Queen had too much left, had too many soldiers and too much power, and he had too little.
In one horrible moment he knew that he would never be able to tell this silver-haired
woman anything again.

For a moment, no one moved. The battle had slowed and stopped during the aerial display.
Both sides regrouped. Now, without a command from their Queen, the black soldiers
advanced, slowly at first, their weapons thrust out before them, forming a deadly steel
wall. Huma, forcing the thoughts of his love from his mind, grinned at them in defiance,
and his army spread out all around him, waiting.

One man leaped forward, landing directly in front of Huma. The man swung his sword in a wide arc, trying to lop Huma's head from his shoulders.
Huma countered by shifting his weight and his sword, blocking the blow. As he did, he
twisted his weapon down, forcing the point of the enemy's blade to the ground. When it hit
the dirt, Huma stomped on it, shattering the blade like glass. He then swung upward, his
weapon knifing through his enemy's breastplate easily, slicing into the soft flesh beneath
it with the sound of ripping silk.

The man dropped his sword and grabbed at his stomach, shrieking with pain as he tried to
keep his entrails from spilling to the bloody ground. He fell to his knees, his eyes on
Huma as he pawed at his intestines, futilely trying to stuff them back into the gaping
wound. Then his eyes rolled up into his head and he collapsed on the steaming mass with a
whimper.

Almost as if the man's gory death signaled the beginning of a new battle, the black
soldiers surged forward, engaging Huma's troops. The ringing of the metal rose again,
along with the shouts and grunts and curses of fighting men. The noise increased until it
was a din, overpowering all other sound.

Huma pushed his way forward, swinging with his own weapon, cutting into the Queen's
forces. Slashing at them, hacking at them, he pressed on, the woman with the silver hair
at his side. A huge soldier, his black breastplate slick with the blood of others, thrust
a sword at Huma. Using his own weapon, Huma blocked the blow, leaped back, and waited. The
soldier advanced, swinging his blade, grunting with the effort. Huma ducked under the blow
and, holding his sword in both hands, ripped upward.

The enemy danced to the right, away from the thrust, and came back with one of his own.
Huma parried, forcing the blade away from him, and stepped in. With his elbow, he smashed
the soldier's jaw with a splintering of bone and teeth. Blood splashed down the front of
his armor, but the man ignored it, fighting to keep his balance. He threw an arm out as
Huma struck again, severing the limb at the shoulder. A gout of blood washed to the
ground. The man roared in pain and fear and anger, but he held onto his weapon with his
remaining hand.