Legacy of the Darksword - Margaret Weis [99]
“The enemy. I see. What did our enemy General Boris have to say about this heavenly missive?”
“That the Devil is indeed coming, though not perhaps in the form we might expect. Boris went on to add details about an invasion force that had destroyed Earth’s outposts and was now rapidly closing in on Earth. He said that Earth Forces would do what they could to protect Thimhallan, although he added in a closing note that he feared they fought a losing battle and warned us to ready our defenses.”
Mosiah and I again exchanged looks. I turned away with a sigh. The Hch’nyv. It had to be. I had hoped that we had left them behind in that other time, but that apparently was not the case. They were coming and they were right on schedule. We had less than forty-eight hours to stop them.
The Darksword in the hands of Joram’s heir.The Darksword in Joram’s hands. How could a sword in anybody’s hands halt the advance of an alien horde, when neutron bombs, photon missiles, laser cannons—the most sophisticated, powerful killing machines humans had ever devised—had not put even a dent in their armor?
I felt suddenly very tired, my footsteps dragged. This was all so futile! Hopeless! Our feeble struggles were doing nothing more than alerting the spider to the fact that we were tangled in its web. I was thinking it would be far better to sit down beneath these lovely oaks with a couple of bottles of good wine and drink a final toast to humanity, when a hand smote me between the shoulder blades.
“Cheer up, Lord Father!” Scylla said, and after nearly knocking me flat, she very kindly assisted me to keep my balance. “Joram’s heir will soon have the Darksword and then all will be well.”
She strode past me, going to the front of the line in response to a gesture from Eliza, a gesture that I had not even seen, so dark were the thoughts surrounding me.
All during this conversation, our path had been veering downward at a gentle slope. The oaks gave way to poplar and aspen, these gave way to willows. I had long heard the sounds of rushing water, and rounding a bend, we came in sight of a narrow, swift-flowing river. The Hira River , or so I recalled from my research; it cuts right through the heart of Zith-el. Like the inhabitants of Zith-el, the Hira was tame and placid when it was inside the city, but became rough and dangerous and wild when it entered the Zoo.
The sun shone bright on the water, its light warm on my face. Looking into the heavens, I saw the white wisps of clouds drawn like flimsy veils over the blue sky. Cotton from the cottonwoods drifted down around us, a summer snowstorm.
The water was green where it ran smooth, foaming white where it leapt over rocks, black where it ran beneath the overhanging limbs of the trees lining the bank. Some distance from us was one enormous willow, which leaned far out over the river, its arms gracefully outstretched, its leaves trailing through the water. Its exposed roots were gnarled and huge, like knuckles on a boxer, from the effort of keeping fast hold on the soil.
“There.” Father Saryon pointed. “That is our destination.”
We walked along the bank, approaching the willow, and none of us said a word. I do not know what the others were thinking, but in my mind I saw the river red with blood, the willow withering in flame, the blue sky gray with smoke. But whereas before I had been despairing, now I was angry.
We would fight to save this: the sun, the sky, the clouds, the willow. Hopeless though it might be, though no one would be left alive to tell of it, we would fight to the very end.
Father Saryon pointed at something else downstream from our position and said something; I couldn’t hear what, due to the bubbling of the water. I moved closer, coming level with Scylla and Eliza. Mosiah did not immediately join us. When I looked back for him, I saw him kneeling down on the path, in apparent conversation with an enormous raven with bristling black feathers, which gave it a hunchbacked appearance.
The Duuk-tsarith often used ravens as an extension of the Enforcer’s ears