A Call to Darkness - Michael Jan Friedman [78]
Suddenly, something fell past Worf. Only after it was lying limp on the ground did he recognize it-as the pierced and lifeless form of one of his comrades. The one who’d been topmost on the ladder.
His lips pulled back in an involuntary snarl. At the smell of death, the din of arms clashing, the blood-passion was surging in him-as it should. Even as he climbed, as he tightened his grasp on his weapon, he nurtured it. He fed the fire in his heart, hoping that this time it would not fail him.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a marshal hovering. Watching, Strangely, though, the sky rider was looking up-at the sky, where it was growing as dark as night. As if he was worried about something. The winds seemed to toss him about, the sheeting rains to discomfit him.
But the Klingon couldn’t attend to the marshal for long. Before he knew it, the warrior above him had made his way up onto the battlements-and plunged into a knot of defenders.
Then it was his turn.
Just as Worf dragged himself up over the wall, an adversary came forward to fill the breach. Almost too late, he rolled, his legs flopping over on the wrong side of the parapet. His enemy’s broadsword encountered nothing but stone, raising a swarm of orange sparks.
Wind whistled through the chinks in his helmet. The rain pressed down upon him-a torrent that choked and blinded, making it difficult to get up. He had never known a storm this bad-at least not in his brief span of remembrance.
Just in time, the wind shifted direction. Worf squinted through his dripping visor at his opponent’s sword-slicing the air as it headed straight for him.
Klanngg!
His mace took the blow, turned it aside. But his enemy had put too much of his weight into it. He slipped on the rain-slick stones, dropped on Worf with the force of a falling burden-beast.
Too close now for weaponplay, they grappled. The Klingon tried to obtain some advantage, but the other warrior was just as strong-just as determined. And Worf was still draped half over the parapet, his feet scrabbling for purchase on the vertical surface of the wall.
Finally, the Klingon wrestled one hand free and struck his opponent a damaging blow across the visor. Before the warrior could quite recover, Worf brought a leg up-wedged a booted foot between them and pushed for all he was worth.
His enemy went sprawling backward, lifted nearly to his full height.
And in that same moment, the world split apart.
Even afterward, Worf wasn’t sure what had happened. There had been a flash of light, reflected in the cavernous sky and the figure of his adversary. And immediately afterward, a deafening clap that shook the very stones beneath them.
The Klingon hadn’t seen the source of the light; it had come from somewhere behind him. But apparently, his adversary had. He was holding his head in his gauntleted hands, his weapon dropped and forgotten.
Had the warrior been blinded by the sudden brilliance in the sky?
And what the hell had caused that all-consuming brilliance?
Worf’s second question was answered first. Way off in the distance, among the clouds on the other side of the valley, there was a darting of light down to the hills. A second or two later, it was followed by a cascade of sound-something like boulders clashing.
Then he got the answer to his first question as well-when his enemy removed his helm to reveal the being within. A blockish head, broad features, three rubylike eyes set beneath an overhanging brow. But none of those eyes seemed blind.
On the contrary. The warrior was using all of them to look right at him.
Worf didn’t know what to make of this behavior. And as he scanned the battlements-out of an instinct for self-preservation- he saw that his opponent wasn’t the only one who had appeared to lose his mind.
All up and down the line, warriors had taken off their helmets. They were staring at each other, at the sky-even at their own garb.
Only