The Immortal Game

The first trumpet sounded far and clear and brazen cold, and Rogard the Bishop stirred to wakefulness with it. Lifting his eyes, he looked through the suddenly rustling, murmuring line of soldiers, out across the broad plain of Cinnabar and the frontier, and over to the realm of leukas.

Away there, across the somehow unreal red-and-black distances of the steppe, he saw sunlight flash on armor and caught the remote wild flutter of lifted banners. So it is war, he thought. So we must fight again.

Again? He pulled his mind from the frightening dimness of that word. Had they ever fought before?

On his left, Sir Ocher laughed aloud and clanged down the vizard on his gay young face. It gave him a strange, inhuman look, he was suddenly a featureless thing of shining metal and nodding plumes, and the steel echoed in his voice: “Ha, a fight! Praise God, Bishop, for I had begun to fear I would rust here forever.”

Slowly, Rogard’s mind brought forth wonder. “Were you sitting and thinking—before now?” he asked.

“Why—” Sudden puzzlement in the reckless tones: “I think I was… Was I?” Fear turning into defiance: “Who cares? I’ve got some Leukans to kill!” Ocher reared in his horse till the great metallic wings thundered.

On Rogard’s right, Flambard the King stood, tall in crown and robes. He lifted an arm to shade his eyes against the blazing sunlight. “They are sending diomes, the royal guardsman, first,” he murmured. “A good man.” The coolness of his tone was not matched by the other hand, its nervous plucking at his beard.

Rogard turned back, facing over the lines of Cinnabar to the frontier. diomes, the leukan King’s own soldier, was running. The long spear flashed in his hand, his shield and helmet threw back the relentless light in a furious dazzle, and Rogard thought he could hear the clashing of iron. Then that noise was drowned in the trumpets and drums and yells from the ranks of Cinnabar, and he had only his eyes.

diomes leaped two squares before coming to a halt on the frontier. He stopped then, stamping and thrusting against the Barrier which suddenly held him, and cried challenge. A muttering rose among the cuirassed soldiers of Cinnabar, and spears lifted before the flowing banners.

King Flambard’s voice was shrill as he leaned forward and touched his own guardsman with his scepter. “Go, Carlon! Go to stop him!”

“Aye, sire.” Carlon’s stocky form bowed, and then he wheeled about and ran, holding his spear aloft, until he reached the frontier. Now he and diomes stood face to face snarling at each other across the Barrier, and for a sick moment Rogard wondered what those two had done, once in an evil and forgotten year, that there should be such hate between them.

“Let me go, sire!” Ocher’s voice rang eerily from the slit-eyed mask of his helmet. The winged horse stamped on the hard red ground, and the long lance swept a flashing arc. “Let me go next.”