The Armies of Daylight - By Barbara Hambly Page 0,90

loyal friend, I called upon God, squatting in the moss in the darkness? How I pleaded and prayed for a deliverer?"

"And you were, in fact, delivered," the wizard returned quietly.

"By whom and to what? By the man who had been tumbling my wife within two weeks of my reported death? I suppose you could call it just payment, if you had a sense of humor."

"Maybe. But no one could call it sufficient reason to lead loyal men and women deliberately to their death, when you know the nature of the danger that will destroy them."

"No?" There was a sudden crack to that voice, a faint sliding up the scale onto the edge of shrillness, that brought sweat to Rudy's face. "But life is very unjust, is it not, Ingold Inglorion?"

Cold and the wail of the wind streamed briefly into the tent in the wake of the King's going. A moment later Rudy heard those quick, striding steps retreating in the direction of the royal shelter. He lay awake waiting for Ingold to come in to sleep, frightened of tomorrow and frightened of that cracked, mad note in Eldor's voice; but when he drifted into sleep a few hours before dawn, he had still heard no sign of movement in the room beyond.
Chapter Twelve
The armies of humankind entered Gae at first light.

Though the icy mists thinned away before them, revealing broken walls and flooded pavements, the ruined town still lay in the grip of that brooding desolation; there was not a man or woman of the ranks who would dare to speak above a whisper. The echoes of voices rang too hollowly in those dripping streets. Those who had known Gae in its prime or those who had spoken loudest of reoccupying the town, once the Dark had been driven forth, spoke not at all.

Among them Rudy trudged, sick with apprehension and terror, close enough to

Eldor's nervous white mare to see the thin, unpleasant smile that curved the King's harsh lips as he looked around him at what had been the most beautiful city in the West of the World.

Rudy found himself thinking how easy it would be simply to throw a cloaking-spell over himself, find a comfortable seat on one of the ruined benches in the stinking swamp of the Palace courtyard, and sit this one out. But he saw Ingold break ranks and go to speak to a thin, gawky Guard; and though the dissolving mists still hung about the great courtyard of the Palace, he saw her shrug and shake her head.

Coward and quitter , she had called him once.

It didn't do any good to tell himself that he knew for a fact their cause was lost. He suspected that Gil knew it, too.

Ingold certainly did.

How the hell come I always end up associating with maniacs ? he demanded despairingly, watching as the forces separated in the vast, half-frozen morass of the court. The sappers moved up to lead position with their cleated ladders; directly behind them, Eldor took his place on foot among a squad of Guards. The other prong of the strike force drew aside, a glittering serpent of Alketch forces, with Vair like a deadly, jeweled idol at their head. Rudy recognized Maia and his Penambrans among those ranks, along with Kara, Kta, a dozen or more of the other wizards, and half the firesquad.

Ingold joined the ranks at the head of the line near Eldor. For a moment his eyes met the King's; then Eldor's lips twisted in a sneer, and he turned away and gave the signal to descend.

The creeping horror of that descent was like the prelude to an evil dream. Through the vine-choked upper vaults, through the forest of pillars whose straight, inky shadows reeled and turned to the movement of the white magelight, Rudy could feel the watchfulness of the Dark Ones growing upon him. Like the warning prickle of hot breath on the nape of his neck, like a soft footfall in a room that should be empty, he could sense the touch of counterspells on the magic of the light he had summoned. In the narrow confines of the ancient stairway itself, it was a thousand times worse. He was aware of the Dark as he had never been aware of them before-the probing of that monstrous intelligence at the edges of his magic, the greedy nibbling at its weak points.

The stairway seemed to descend forever. The witchlight around him etched the faces of the Guards in harsh