Samples from books that we have published under the Eartherean Press imprint.
This is another in a series from the second book in the 4-book series The Doom-Quest of Ara-Karn: The Divine Queen.
© 1982 by A. Adam Corby
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License.
‘War, Even to the Knife!’
KULN-HOLN THOUGHT he heard his name called, and looked back. To his amazement, he saw Berrin standing on the stones by the gates, a huge kitchen-knife thrust in his belt, and the round, iron-rimmed lid of a butter-keg in his hand.
‘Do you think you’re the only one with a little murder in his heart?’ he asked, brandishing the knife. ‘Oh, to make soup-bits of the barbarians!’
‘But your wife,’ Kuln-Holn said.
‘Hst! She doesn’t know I’ve gone as yet. When I saw you enter the armorer’s, I guessed what was afoot and ran to get these. Salizh will understand. I left her a note – we must be gone before she reads it. What fun we’ll have! We’ll spit them and roast them, boil them and baste them, broil them and taste them!’
Kuln-Holn almost laughed for joy. Unable to think of the words, he gripped his friend’s hand fiercely.
‘What is this, little ones?’ Behind them the Rukorian Captain of the Guards, dressed in clean armor, was mounted on a fresh warhorse. ‘Will you see for yourself the ways of the barbarians?’
‘Surely, my Captain,’ Berrin answered. ‘Can a man do less?’
The captain smiled. ‘No more, no less. I think you have no leave of your masters for this, but fear not: I am breaking orders, too. Perhaps we will see each other down yonder.’ He saluted them lightly and rode down into the square. There he turned his horse about and shouted farewell to his strong-bodied lieutenant, who answered him blithely from the summit of the battlements. The captain turned and rode on.
Kuln-Holn and Berrin followed after him. The great square was thick with the poor and the aged of the city, those whose hearts were not stout enough for fighting. The two friends made their way through paths between makeshift tents and heaps of wretched belongings, and went down into High Town. When they were abreast of the Brown Temple, Kuln-Holn looked up, but saw none of the priestesses among the throngs upon the steps. He smelled the incense of their rites, however, and was heartened. He made the Sign of Goddess, and recited a prayer they had taught him.
Folk were everywhere in the streets. They were huddled together in doorways and alleyways and on the steps of public buildings. Ragged bands of thieving, starving children roamed the streets. In the corner of a theater, a pile of wounded men slept among the props of plays, rolls of scenery and the plaster heads of gods. Many seemed already corpses, but those slumbering atop them seemed not to mind. Young women, the remnants of whose robes proclaimed them once to have been the elite hetairai of the city, walked about the streets restlessly, their eyes hunted and haunted. Rumors had reached the Palace already, Berrin explained, of the way the Emperor’s followers treated women who had the misfortune to catch their fancy.
And here, there, everywhere, on hips, in hands, in rags, slung over shoulders and held between teeth, were the weapons. The streets seemed to have come alive with bronze and iron.
And yet, strangely, what struck Kuln-Holn the most, and the most ominously, was the absence of the statues. Once these streets had been shadowed with them; yet now all those many pedestals were empty. Not even Berrin could explain it.
Nearer the barricades, the activity was more hurried. Strong-armed men came and went, bearing loads of stones to build up the barricades yet higher. Kuln-Holn and Berrin followed them, bits of wreckage on a tide drawing swiftlier toward the shore. Rounding a corner of the sloping street, they came in sight at last of what they sought; and Kuln-Holn learned what had become of the statues.
The many limbs and torsos rose in tangled, intricate growths. A score of smashed Elnas, a hill of voluptuous nymphs, Emperors, generals, philosophers, courtesans of noble rank, the mythic warriors, lost heroes, and the defenders of the realm – they were all here. They rose in a great, massed hedge of stone, beneath broken carts and wheels, blocks of masonry, couches and pot-shards.
They had built the barricades out of the statues of their past.
Even now, more carts drew near, loaded with their stone burdens.
‘You, there! You look fit enough – give them a hand! Yes, you, Guardsman!’
Berrin nudged Kuln-Holn’s elbow, and he looked about. Regarding him was a tall, filthy man with a torn red cloak wrapped round his waist. Kuln-Holn knew him for one of the Emperor’s followers.
‘Well?’ the man asked, raising his brow.
‘Come, Kuln-Holn,’ Berrin muttered. They went to help unload one of the carts. Kuln-Holn wished suddenly he were back in the far North, with only his little daughter Turin Tim to care for, hungry and cold, but spared all of this.
‘Don’t mind them, friends,’ said one of the men in the cart. ‘They may be foul beasts without the manners of men, but wait until the next attack comes: you’ll be glad enough of them then.’
‘When will it come?’ Berrin asked.
‘Who knows?’
‘The first attack was terrible, worse than any of us had dreamed,’ said another man. ‘The second was three times as long and a hundredfold hard. I thought my arms would drop off – and I was a porter. This next one will be the worst. And from what they say, the last. If we can only throw them back one last time, they’ll be broken. We’ll have a chance to rest a bit then, before we follow after and finish the job. Then the city will be ours again.’
‘Say rather it’ll be his,’ said the first, a carter. ‘To think of what we used to dream of when he might take up the Ivory Scepter! Now look at him; he’ll never be all he was before.’
‘Will any of us?’ asked the porter.
They were allowed to rest a bit, and eat some of the food Berrin had brought from the Palace kitchens in a leather sack. They talked a bit more, telling stories of the first two attacks. Then they settled themselves as comfortably as they could in the shadows to rest; but Kuln-Holn could not sleep. Bells sounded from the high buildings. The porter and the carter started to their feet, clapping on ill-fitting bits of leather armor.
‘Come along, friends,’ they said, toeing Berrin in his round belly. ‘More work for us to do.’
They sought the barricades. The defenders milled about, faces grim, hands gripping and releasing the hafts of their lances.
The Emperor’s men rode the lines, cursing at the men perched on the rubble. ‘Hold fast there, you mongrels! Down by the fountain there, you six! Hold your lances in readiness, damn you!’
Behind their backs the porter spat. ‘And if his majesty does not banish those men after peace comes, there will be riots for sure.’
The bells ceased.
Berrin’s stomach growled, and he smiled and patted its sleek girth. ‘Hush, child,’ he murmured. ‘We must feed on other things than food this pass.’
Kuln-Holn clambered higher, clutching the twisted limbs of polished marble precariously, and peered through a great broken wheel. The first of the warriors below were yet in shadow. But they were his people there – perhaps even fellow-tribesmen. He clambered yet higher, to see if he could make out any he might know.
‘You there!’ a voice behind him bellowed. ‘What do you think you’re playing at? Get down before they cut you down!’ It was another of the Emperor’s men, a heavyset fellow with bristling red hair. Abashed, Kuln-Holn slid back down.
‘He was right,’ said the carter. ‘Do you want to die? Look, there go the archers!’
From cleverly fashioned holes in the tops of the walls and from windows and balconies in the upper levels of the ruined palaces behind them, men appeared, bending back great rag-wrapped bows. The strings thrummed, once, twice, thrice – some of the distant shapes fell; the rest scattered. Almost at the instant, an answering hail of death-birds raked the mound-walls. The sharpened iron beaks rattled off the stone.
‘Come,’ said the porter, scrambling for the crest: ‘Gather what arrows you can and pass them along to the archers. But careful, lest you gather one in your throat.’ He balanced himself, half-reclining forward: reached through two legs of a chair and, scooping up three arrows, slid back to pass them down to the archers.
For the next several minutes the game continued: volleys exchanged between the archers of both sides, and then the desperate, wild scrambling to retrieve the arrows of the enemy. Yet the archers behind the barricades were few, with all too few arrows of their own; and soon it was that all the arrows that had fallen were beyond safe reach; and, then, save for occasional shots from down the square, the volleys ceased.
‘Such for skirmishing,’ said the porter, drawing his sword and testing its edge against his deformed, horny-scabbed thumb.
Kuln-Holn, following the example, drew out his own blade. The blue steel gleamed like a flame, tingling with life and eagerness for the purple-red wine.
The carter whistled. ‘Friend, a right good blade have you there. Raamba-fashioned or I’m a panderer's son.’
Below, the barbarians resumed their advance with greater boldness. They formed ranks in the wide square, shield to shield, battered helms glinting evilly, swords, axes, dagger, lances ready. From every throat the battle-ululations soared. They stepped forward, a hundred legs, advancing, gripping the torn rubble-strewn square, bringing up a second hundred legs. They knew better now, than to trust affrighted horses up that treacherous way. The wall of metal, leather, blades and gleaming eyes surged steadily forward. With well-practiced pace it gathered speed. Behind it poured the others, a tide of dark shapes spilling up the several streets. They began to work their way upward, with steady, accelerating step. They reached the peak of the mounds almost at a run, powerful legs churning, hoarse throats yelling.
Yet those who manned those barricades had held them twice before. They knew the task and were ready. They fought in the shadow of their own beloved city streets, with but a single alternative: to turn that fierce assault, and conquer – or die. They too wielded gleaming blades; they too held stout shields. Swords met in clangor and curses, blood flew in the air, and death-cries rose such as to empty a man’s soul with despair.
Again the dark figures stormed up the barricades, almost winning hold; then fell back screaming in pain and rage. And again they were repulsed, yet at a frightful cost. There were bodies all along the heights: stripped of gear by the defenders, they were hurled forth to add to the height of the mounds. The barbarians were forced to clamber over the corpses of their own fellows now: yet not for that would any of them hesitate. The stroke of sword on shield was like a thunder over the ocean in the sudden breaking heat of high Summer.
Kuln-Holn fell back, forgotten in the turmoil. Never, not even in the fires of Gerso, had he known such a tumult. What was he doing there? He was no warrior – it was even as the Queen had said. He watched his three friends above him, their dark arms waving and bending against the pale sky. The carter and the porter, even rotund Berrin, were doing well: giving stroke for stroke, laughing, cursing: wet with sweat and blood. Side by side they fought like comrades, who had before been strangers, even rivals in their trades.
Then four warriors came against them, great-limbed fellows with the trappings of the River’s-Bend tribe upon their breasts: a cry sounded, and the porter fell back dead. His body rolled down the slope of the mound, bumping against Kuln-Holn’s foot in passing.
He gripped his blade fast and scampered up the mound, filling the gap between Berrin and the carter. ‘A friend to take his place,’ he cried, thrusting the sword blindly forward.
The Raamba steel seemed to have eyes of its own – a mind to move of its own accord – a will to know its target. Swiftly it struck a Karghil in his unprotected neck, drinking brown-black blood; then slid back to the ready. The man fell, clutching at air, tumbling back down the litter of the mound.
‘Well-aimed, Kuln-Holn!’ Berrin laughed.
Kuln-Holn stood looking at the rolling corpse. It was the first man he had ever killed.
Another Karghil stood before him, sword leaping out. Desperately Kuln-Holn brought the little shield about, feeling it jar under the blow. Out of balance he fell back, tumbling down the face of the mound-wall, his helmet clanging like a bell upon the stones and litter.
He was dazed for a moment. But the shield had taken all the blow, and he had not lost hold of the Raamba blade. Gripping it firmly, he set his helmet on straight, and ascended the barricades anew.
Again the Karghil faced him, breaking with the carter; but now it was Kuln-Holn who struck. ‘Eater-of-dung!’ he shouted, and the Karghil paused, startled to hear his own tongue spoken here so far into the South. The Raamba blade found the seam between his armor and buried itself in his bowels; and the Karghil screamed. Kuln-Holn laughed, and kicked the man in his shoulder.
‘Now who laughs?’ he yelled, watching the body roll.
‘Beware!’ screamed Berrin. Kuln-Holn slipped in turning, thereby falling below the sweeping blade. He rolled forward, striking low; above him, Berrin put his sword full into the man’s breast; but on his other side another, a Durbar by his looks, swung his axe lustily, severing Berrin’s arm at the shoulder. A savage laugh echoed in Kuln-Holn’s ears as he saw his friend fall forward.
‘Guard me!’ he shouted, clutching at Berrin’s leg and dragging him back. He half-dragged, half-rolled the rotund body down the slope, to where a worn carpet had been spread. Berrin’s eyes rolled about, the lids flickering like bird’s-wings. It was as if he knew not where or how he was.
‘How is it with you, Berrin?’ Kuln-Holn asked foolishly. ‘Is your pain great?’
‘Pain? No pain,’ the blanched lips mumbled. ‘Thirsty. Bring water.’
Kuln-Holn ran back to the fountain some paces behind the walls. He dipped his helmet into the dark waters, filling it. Hastily, he returned, slopping water on his legs: the coolness brought back memories of autumn in the far North, in the quiet time when the harvests were in and the warriors departed on the long trek for Urnostardil, for the yearly Assembly of the Tribes.
When he returned, he found the carter sitting on the worn carpet, wiping his brow.
‘Water, is it?’ he asked, running his lips along the back of his arm. ‘Good. Truly, I’m too weary now to fight them off at the fountains, too! Don’t worry about the barbarians: they’ve fallen back for the moment to drink, cart off the dead, and regroup. We’ll do the same. It’ll be a few moments of peace anyway.’ He extended his hand for the dripping helmet, which Kuln-Holn dumbly surrendered.
Bent in a ball at his feet Berrin lay dead.
§
THEY RESTED awhile, side by side, yet somewhat apart to let the air cool their burning limbs. Not ten paces away lay the body of the porter. Some weary worn men, urged to their tasks by two of the Emperor’s men, came by with a cart: they took away the bodies of Berrin and the porter.
§
‘THINK OF OTHER THINGS.’ The carter sighed wearily. ‘Man, whence have you sprung, not to know battle’s cost by now? Shed no tears over my corpse when I am dead: rather, hurl it into the barbarians’ path, so that even in death I may defend my city! He, poor fellow, would doubtless have said the same when he lived. Friend, if I could only hold Ara-Karn’s neck between my hands, I’d give all our lives!’
Kuln-Holn lay back panting, too weary to reply. Beneath the carpet he could feel the shards of broken pottery and marble digging into his flesh. Yet at the moment that dusty, blood-smeared carpet seemed more comfortable even than the couches of the Palace. He wondered what Salizh would do when she heard of Berrin’s death. He felt a sharpness in his belly, and found himself wishing they hadn’t taken away the leather sack along with the corpses.
§
WHEN NEXT they came, the barbarians offered neither shout nor charge. Silently and grimly, they marched across the square and climbed the mounds; stolidly and workmanlike they brought their weapons to bear. And in like manner the defenders gave answer. Arms waved, blades fell, blood burst, dead fell, bodies were trampled, wounded, staggered down.
Kuln-Holn fought at the carter’s side. When he had been a young man, his father had tried to teach him some of the ways of the sword, for even a fisherman must defend himself in the wild far North; and in the cruel far North, when the catches do not come, another man’s goods can mean your life.
And now even after so many years, Kuln-Holn found that his body recalled those lessons – how to stand and how to hold, how to cut and thrust, how to feint and deceive the foe, how to watch not just the other’s blade but also his eyes and shoulders to see where his blade would go. And though his arms grew as heavy as iron weights, Kuln-Holn fought on with a greater vigor than those about him: for buried in his body was still the strength he had harvested as a young man hauling sodden full nets up out of the depths of the darkened sea.
Beside him the carter fought, using the weight and great strength of his burly arms and shoulders to great advantage – so that the two of them formed a knotty point of resistance, to which other defenders flocked, coming to replace the many dead.
The carter swung his sword against a bronze-plated Buzrah warrior, and the wearied blade shivered into a dozen pieces, leaving the carter defenseless; and the Buzrah roared. But Kuln-Holn leaped before him, catching the blow upon the strong breastplate, and slashing back so fiercely that both the Buzrah’s kneecaps burst and broke, and he tumbled backward like a straw toy in the wind. The carter laughed, and snatched up a heavy battle-axe.
‘Now let them come!’ he roared. The next man he faced fell back down the mound, one half to the right and the other to the left; and the carter wiped at the blood that had drenched his face beneath his helmet.
‘A good blow!’ shouted Kuln-Holn in a roaring voice he scarcely recognized as his own. ‘But watch now a better one!’ And in his exultation he leaped forward at two barbarians, kicking one in the belly so that he fell tumbling back, and taking the other in one sweeping blow that fell just below the helm, so that the man’s head flew and turned.
A shout praised him: Kuln-Holn looked back, saw the Rukorian captain. Bloodied helm to toe he was, and his lance rested in his palm as though it were the lengthening of his arm. He smiled at Kuln-Holn, and rode on, and vanished into the thick of men, lance waving, dipping but to kill.
Kuln-Holn fell back by the carter’s side, shivering with strange, fiery delight. ‘And who would have thought that I’d become a warrior at my time of life?’ Fire danced in his veins like beer, like mead, like purple Postio wine. The battle-madness of his ancestors of the Last Stand had claimed him, the desperate violence of the far North. Not Gundoen, not Hertha-Toll, not Turin Tim herself would have recognized him now. He knew now how it had been among those upon Urnostardil. It was no wonder that all of Elna’s men and captains had been unable to defeat them.
He took his sword two-fisted, a conqueror atop those mounds of broken statuary. And those fierce savage warriors before him fell back at the light of madness darting from his eyes.
‘Come up, you dogs,’ he croaked, amazed that they should retreat before him. ‘Will you give me battle or not? By the gods, I forced Ara-Karn upon you, but now I throw you back in spite of him!’
Then one below, an Archero, shouted, ‘A renegade! A tribesman fighting against the King!’
‘His very prophet!’ shouted Kuln-Holn back. ‘I gave you one god, there in the snows upon Urnostardil; now here’s another! Come on and die!’
Then one of them in his sudden great fear took out his bow, and swiftly nocking an arrow bent it back to his chin, aiming full at Kuln-Holn’s breast. Kuln-Holn saw it all, but did not duck or lift his shield: threw out his chest instead, daring the man. Truly, the madness was like a drunkenness in him that moment, for he believed that nothing could harm him, not swords nor fists nor even the death-birds of Ara-Karn himself.
The man below hesitated in awe seeing this; then one of his fellows knocked against him, and he released the arrow.
It occurred with such suddenness that Kuln-Holn did not take it in when it happened: only later did he work it out in his mind as to how it all must have occurred. The assault was faltering, especially here where the defenders had gathered about the two deathless figures. The sounds of battle were dying out. The barbarians had paused, so that many defenders now found themselves without foes to face. Such a one was the carter, who, seeing the death meant for Kuln-Holn beside him, suddenly and without thought threw his own body in the arrow’s path. The shaft struck him in his belly, with such force that it drove clean through the leather. He fell dead at Kuln-Holn’s feet.
And then Kuln-Holn, who had seemed fierce, went truly mad. He bent down, scooped up the corpse in his arms, and lifted it – aye, though the man had been taller than Kuln-Holn and a stoutly muscled man – lifted it armor and arrow and all, and hurled it down at his foes with all the force of frenzied wrath. Four it bore down beneath its weight; and two of the four cracked open their skulls on the stones far below.
The other barbarians paused, looking doubtfully at the bloodied apparition before and above them. They shook their weapons in their dirty, sweating hands, as doubt robbed them of strength and will. Grudgingly, they gave back; the others along the lines did also. The square below emptied, and the noise of the battle fell away. A second lull had come.
The defenders also fell back, grateful of whatever rest and refreshments they could glean. God was rising from the bright horizon. Two sleeps and five meals’ time had passed now since the tolling of the bells. Up and down the lines went women with carts of bread, throwing the loaves out to eager hands. But the women offered no bread to the Emperor or his followers.
Last of all to leave the mound-wall was Kuln-Holn, who stood glaring from side to side with the ferocity of a thorsa of the dark wood, as if the swaying of his body might bring forth some new enemy. But even in the fullness of his fury he could feel the power failing him. Now not a god he felt, nor conqueror, nor warrior: hardly even a child, so great was the sudden weakness that engulfed him. With his last strength, he sheathed the blade and fell down the side of the barricade like one dead.
§
AGAIN THE BARBARIANS came; again the defenders mounted to their places along the girdling mound-walls. Now there were scarce enough men to cover the extent of the barricades: and of those yet moving, not one was but notched and mottled with wounds, many minor, but some near fatal. They had come to resemble their own broken high statues: for, missing ears, fingers, eyes, hands, feet, teeth, they firmed what remained of their bodies and fought on regardless, to the last, to the end, to the death.
They grieved their dead and exulted over fallen foe no longer. It had gone on too long for that. It was merely work and labor now, for a cruel, demanding taskmaster. Not even victory seemed to be a thing desired, but only rest. To many it was as if it had been their grandfathers who had gone down to repulse the first attack. Forgotten were Elna, history, the City Herself: there were only these walls, which they must defend, they knew not why.
Overhead, clouds were gathering, great formless dark things like a veil drawn by Goddess across this most unpalatable thing, this ugly, noisy scar, which once had been Her favored City.
The walls were in shambles, with corpses, broken weapons, spaces everywhere. A concerted effort would have gained victory for the fighters of either side; but it was exactly a concerted effort that was impossible. They could but wearily toil on, their faces lined as with great age, the unenthusiastic din of battle echoing beneath their helmets. They recked not; fought on.
Behind them, from time to time, rode the young Emperor cursing, at times dismounting or even riding up the mounds to beat his own men to a great vigor. The superior vitality of the barbarians was beginning to tell the victory: those arms that had been bred to trade and simple toil could not, in the end, hope to equal those others, bred to the cold, cruel travail of the far North where Elna had long ago penned them.
More than once sections of the walls had been turned save that the Emperor or some of his men had mounted the heights and beat back the assault; more than once the defenders would have fled, save that the fear of Elnavis had given them pause. They came to hate their Emperor who would not let them rest: to hate him more than they did the barbarians who were their foes. But more than hating they feared him – and so obeyed, long after they in their minds had been assured that they could no more. It was that very mixture of hatred and fear that gave them their strength. Wearily and yet again they toiled on, their faces lined as with great age, the unrelenting din of battle echoing beneath their helmets.
§
IN THE END, it was the noise of it that awakened Kuln-Holn.
They had thrown him with the corpses, thinking him dead, so utter was that dreamless sleep that claimed him, so thickly covered with the blood of enemies were his armor and his flesh. Yet at last the noise roused him, and he stirred like a stiff dead tree in a light summer’s breeze.
He stood swaying on his feet. What! he thought. Do they still fight? Why will they come on? Are their numbers endless? Despair, and a desperate hatred, welled in him. Those dark forms were no longer his tribesmen or his people. They were only the enemy.
He staggered up the mound, forcing his way into his accustomed place. And there, disdaining shield or friend to guard his back, he began to give battle – not indeed to Durbars, Buzrahs, Karghils, or Foruns, but only to the enemy.
He fought uncomprehendingly. It was as if his mind returned to the realm of sleep, and only his body still waked to do battle. His eyes were glazed like those of the dead; but his arms were quick as a tracker’s in his prime. Again and again, men fell before him; yet Kuln-Holn heeded not. For it was in the midst of that final battle, that the visions returned to Kuln-Holn: yet now visions only of the past. Happy now those times seemed, happier than when he’d lived them.
He saw again his father; beheld the great bowl of the glaring sea that first time he had gone alone to fish; recalled his first sweetheart and the scent of the pine needles as he took her; remembered the words of his wife when she’d given birth to Turin Tim, apologizing that it had been but a girl; saw again that red, wet babe healthy with fat, and felt again his stab of joy, that it should be his and alive.
He remembered the words Hertha-Toll, Gundoen’s wife, had said to him once: ‘Do not trust in your visions overmuch, Kuln-Holn,’ she had said. ‘And remember, that no prophet has ever seen his own death. That is a thing She mercifully shields from those whom it most affects. But the deaths of our dear ones we can see – and that is curse enough.’
Then, those times had seemed hard enough; yet now they were tinctured with a sort of calm: the calm of a simple man who knew what his life was for, and had no doubts of it.
‘Hey, fellow, are you mad?’ It was the red-bearded man who had shouted. Kuln-Holn blinked. Behind him a gentle hand lay upon his shoulder, and he heard happy words of praise. Before him were no blades or men. The relentless din beneath his helmet had ceased. The enemy was gone. The broad square, the several twisting streets, were empty.
‘Where?’ he asked stupidly.
‘It’s over, friend,’ said the man behind him. ‘We’ve beaten them back!’
Kuln-Holn sighed, rubbing the heel of his hand into his eyes. ‘How long?’
‘Man, do you not see? Look across the square! Listen to the city! It’s victory!’
§
OTHERS had claimed the worn carpet, so Kuln-Holn lay upon the bare, jagged stones, scarcely feeling the pain. The women came again with their carts, dispensing loaves of hard black bread and cups of water. It felt good to eat again. Kuln-Holn could not even find in his mind how long it had been since the four of them had shared the contents of Berrin’s pilfered sack. Now he alone of them still lived.
Gratefully, he closed his eyes. It was good to lie peacefully in the shade of the clouds, feeling the cool breezes rising up from the harbor. Kuln-Holn thought he could even smell the sweet salt tang of the sea. He would sleep soon; for now, resting was too sweet a thing to lose.
‘Victory!’ fluttered the vague, joyous shouts.
‘What does the Emperor say?’
‘Hold back, rest for now. He mistrusts them.’
‘Haven’t we won?’
‘Victory!’
‘Didn’t I say it: if we threw them back the third time it would be the end?’
‘Even if they do come back, we can hold them! We’ve held these walls so long, we can defend them forever!’
Again Kuln-Holn inhaled, rejoicing in that sweet salt tang. But now he was aware of a subtle difference. He knew that smell. But from where? A suspicion, horrible as it was certain, darted into his mind. He remembered what they’d told him of the last raid upon the village of the Korlas; he remembered Gerso.
He heaved himself up the side of the mound. He looked down and saw what he had feared.
‘They have left us a parting gift,’ he croaked over his shoulder, silencing the chatter below. ‘They’ve set fire to the lower quarters.’
He remembered something Ara-Karn had once said long ago, before the warriors of the tribe had departed to avenge the Korlas’s raid: ‘What cannot be ruled can still be destroyed.’
All along the circling length of the barricades the defenders stood in silence, watching their triumph turn to bitter ashes in the wind. With a lazy, mocking slowness, the north winds gathered the columns of black smoke and wafted them forward up the hills. Behind the smoke were the bright yellow fires, leaping hungrily from wall to wall. So wearied in themselves that their very bones had cried for mercy, leaning upon cudgels and swords, or sunk exhausted to their knees, those valiant men must watch, as their City, that had conquered, was destroyed.
The fires spread throughout the quarters: the Thieves’ Quarter was in flames in a hundred-count; the dockyards were already more of smoke and ash than flame. The leading edge of the flames, driven with great speed by the quickening winds, swept upward toward the heights of the defended city. Flames were caught in the winds, hurled upward to alight on buildings streets away. The storehouse of a lamp-oil seller suddenly exploded with a thunderclap, flinging flaming bits of oil for hundreds of paces about.
The men upon the mound-walls, already coughing for the dense, sweeping smoke, took off their helmets and threw them bitterly down, great grimy tears welling in their eyes. Oh, it was true that they were tired: but this was a thing too monstrous for them to bear. No barbarian had broken their fierce spirit; but now it was as shattered as those poor bits of statuary underfoot.
The fires strode forward toward the barricade. Smoke grew thicker, driving men choking back into the lee of the walls.
Last to descend were the Emperor’s men. ‘Wait until the flames come this side of the wall, then we’ll let you douse them,’ he shouted over the roar. ‘But let not a man of you cross those barricades!’
The fires slowed and the winds died a bit, as if to gather strength – then with a single bound leaped over the barricades and fell roaring among the buildings of High Town.
Staggering, the men rose to their feet. Without a word they gathered helmets and sought the fountains, the cistern-pumps, and the wells. They were city-dwellers: knew how to form the lines. The slopping water went in the helmets, hand to hand to hand. Kuln-Holn found himself in a line, awkwardly mimicking the movements of the others. The dense smoke gathered blindingly, filling his eyes with greater tears. To Kuln-Holn, the buildings were now only monstrous shapes of brown and dark gray relieved by flashes of lemon brilliance. It was some evil dream, endlessly passing those helmets. It did no good. He heard a man say behind him, ‘If only that storm would break—’ He remembered the clouds: yes, they had been stormclouds. But no rain would fall this pass. Goddess had turned Her back upon Tarendahardil.
The heat thickened about him. The leather jerkins and metal plates had become unbearable. With weary curses the men discarded their armor and their weapons. In breeks or simple loincloths, many of them naked, they toiled on. Cinders and wind-borne flames were everywhere. Faces were charred. Tongues stuck in mouths filled with ashes. To the already frightful stench was added the hateful odor of burning human flesh.
Then in a moment a thunderclap broke the roar of the flames, and the rain was falling, not in droplets but in sheets, as if from upturned buckets. The men foundered about as if they were underwater. The water fell steaming on the burning buildings, and the steam, the rain, the smoke and the clouds blotted Goddess out, and the city streets were dark as the lands of the Madpriests.
Men howled for the joy of it. Even Kuln-Holn took up the helmet full of water and flung it into the air, laughing, drinking in rain as if it had been air; feeling it wash blood and sweat and dirt from him. Yet not for long could the storm maintain so fierce a downpour: soon the sheets became lances, and the lances droplets, pattering in the many muddy pools. Among those muddy streams and pools the defenders laughed and danced, all their faith restored, only to be dashed again.
Behind them sounded a terrible, foreign laugh.
Appearing on the crest of the mound-walls, dark against the pale-gray sky, were horsemen, huge and fierce and many. The tails of their war-stallions lashed, and down the hither slope of the barricades, rode the first of the returning barbarians.
A few of the defenders ran to gather what weapons they could find, but the greater number of them, cursing or weeping, fled the scene. Half-clad, weaponless and dispirited, they were easy prey for the mounted invaders. The barricades were passed, and fallen Tarendahardil was no more.
The barbarians rode laughing up the slopes of the barricades, exultant in hate. While these Southrons had watched their city destroyed, the barbarians had taken their ease in their tents, bathed and fed and comforted by their women. Then the rain had come: Nam-Rog had let the heralds give the signal: and the warriors rode refreshed and eager up the familiar, steaming Way of Kings. Steam and smoke and rain had concealed their way unto the very peak of the barricades. Now they rode these streets unopposed, their swords rising and falling like the scythes of summer. The last of the defenders fled before them, running to the final refuge of the Black Citadel.
There, upon the wide roof’s edge, the Empress Allissál knelt still. Her black linen robes were sodden from the downpour, and her fair face darkly masked with streaks of muddy ash. She heard the cries upborne on the winds, and lowered her face. She had expected no better: still, it was hard to bid farewell to this city and all it was to her. She did not think of the loss of her own powers, but rather of the loss of Elna’s greatest achievement. At length, with great effort, she rose to her feet. Now, she thought, hardening her heart: now the choral dances were over, and it was the moment of the actors.
She went to the doors of the White Tower, and passed within.
§
UPON THE STEPS of the Brown Temple a last knot of defenders were trying to hold, urged on by the priestesses, who loudly prayed Goddess to come to their aid. At the sight, the barbarians laughed, burst through the defenders and rode on up the high steps. The priestesses took fright and fled, all but the ancient High Priestess. She, whether because too decrepit or defiant, stood her ground. The lead rider, a magnificent black-appareled fellow on a milk-white steed, spurred on his horse. The stallion would have shied away, as if even this dumb brute could sense her holiness; but the rider held him firmly. That massive, straining body rammed into the frail figure, and like a doll the priestess was flung aside. Her body slammed against one of the pillars, backbone and skull shattering at once. The rider, laughing still, careered about and thundered down the steps.
Kuln-Holn was there, and saw. He had fled in the confusion, but not out of fear. Fear was a thing stamped out of him now. He wrenched a bloody lance from a corpse and ran after the rider, and in fury drove the lance deep into the rider’s back so that it plunged through armor and body and started forth from the other side. The rider fell to the street, and his armor clashed about him, and his helmet was struck from his head.
‘Laugh now, why don’t you?’ vaunted Kuln-Holn. Yet in his fury he had not noted the man’s trappings, else he would have known them for those of his own tribe. Only now he saw them, as he looked upon the contorted, accusing, familiar face of the man he had slain: Garin.
Spasms wracked the body of Kuln-Holn’s son-in-law. Ironclad hands gripped Kuln-Holn’s, so hard it was like to break his bones; and he felt the death-throes of Turin Tim’s husband.
He remained thus, his hands still fiercely gripped, for some time. The battle passed by, and he was left in peace.
With difficulty, Kuln-Holn extricated his sore hands, and dragged the body up the steps of the Temple Garin had so defiled. There he laid the corpse out as only the practiced hands of the Pious One could.
‘There is no river here, and the sea leads only to darkness,’ he muttered through his tears. ‘But maybe they will find you here and do you honor, Garin. O Turin Tim, forgive your father his many, many foolishnesses!’ And he said a prayer to Goddess for the safety of the ka of Garin, who had been the finest tracker in Gundoen’s tribe – perhaps even in all the far North.
§
NOW ONLY THE EMPEROR and his followers still gave the enemy battle. They fought like trapped wolves. From his own history, Elnavis knew defeat might seem complete, but yet a man might arise reborn to cut down foes anew. But their opponents now were numberless, horsed and rested, and Elnavis knew that not together could he and his men gain the safety of his Citadel.
‘Watch for an opening,’ he counseled them. ‘When I tell you, attack fiercely – then part and run. Severally we may still gain the Citadel. Nor will we be trapped there, come what may. There is a secret way in and out; did not my own dear mother once show me the way, and have I not used it to bring in charai out of the eyes of the watchful guard? Obey me, and we shall yet teach these beasts to fear us!’
They obeyed, more in awe of him than hope; and giving the foe a sudden rush, gained ground and scattered. Elnavis plunged into a doorway, running through charred, smoky passages to the far side. Yet that street too swarmed with barbarians. He went from street to street, staying in the side-ways, making his way back to the Way of Kings. Yet ever the enemy rode between him and the Citadel. By now those barbarians had guessed whither all flights must lead, and were closing off the ways.
Exhausted, his twisted leg throbbing, Elnavis paused in an alleyway. Scarcely might he recognize most of the buildings around him, burnt and broken. Yet there to the right the high, sheltering walls of the Brown Temple rose toward heaven. The fire had not touched it. He wondered, would it be a safe refuge? From its doors he might, in a pass or two, make his way across the great square on the other side of the Temple to the Hall of Kings. It was in the Hall of Kings that the secret passageway from the Citadel emerged into the city.
Like a shadow he crossed the narrow back street and reached the Temple’s porter’s-doors. He descended warily the damp steps and slipped within. The doors, he found, had been left unfastened. Grateful for the rest, the last Emperor of Tarendahardil closed the doors and sank to his knees in the gloomy passageway. Yet he knew he must not let sleep overwhelm him – not now, after he had held it off for so many wakings.
A soft sound, as of furtive breathing, startled him. He put his hand on the hilt of his old friend.
‘Who is there?’ he whispered. There was no reply. His nostrils caught a faint scent in the air, a woman’s scent. A priestess? ‘Do not fear,’ he coaxed. ‘I am your Emperor – Elnavis nal Bordakasha. I can shield you. If we can but hide here safely for a while, then I will be able to conduct you to the Citadel.’
There was no answer; but a hand, cool and soft, touched him. Again he smelled her, and despite himself was aroused.
‘Come,’ she murmured. ‘We will hide you.’
They went up the passageway and down another, reaching at length the altar room. The holy fire burned still, but the floor was strewn with refuse and the walls had been ransacked of offerings. Upon the low marble dais before the idol the broken, bloodied body of the reverend High Priestess had been laid and administered with care. She had seen three generations of his House come and go, Elnavis thought; it seemed scarcely credible that she would sing the rites no more.
His guide was a pretty young girl, whose robes were those of an attendant of the second ring. She lifted up a door in the floor behind the idol, and pointed within. ‘It is there the others are concealed,’ she said. ‘Now I must resume my place.’ He nodded, and entered.
As he descended, the darkness of the steps gave way to a glowing brilliance nothing like the glow of torches or lamps. There was a round, drumlike chamber vaulted overhead with ponderous, ancient stones. From the sides of the ceiling a ring of opening admitted the light, which must have come from the Temple’s rooftop mirrors: for that was Goddess-light.
In the center of the chamber, where the light was brightest, the priestesses stood about a waist-high altar awaiting him. Filthy and bloody and terrible he must have seemed, he thought; yet these maidens regarded him with nor fright nor surprise. They parted before him and gestured to the altar. The light seemed soothing and yet wearisome. He stepped among them, leaning on the altar. Still, they spoke no word. The scene was so strange to him after the tumult he had undergone these last long months, that the mantle of the war-hardened, embittered, ruthless man fell for a moment from his shoulders. Something of the boy-prince returned, wan and trembling.
A cup of dark drink was pressed into his hand. The liquid was sweet like wine, syrupy, with a vague taste of root and dream-herb about it. His battered, stained armor was gently removed from his body by hesitant, unsure hands. They laid him on the altar.
Now the light converged on his face, bright as a cloudless summer yet heatless, so that his senses were confused. The dark drink coursed through his veins, he fluttered closed his eyelids, then opened them once more.
The priestesses were around him in a circle. Now they wore the black robes of the high ceremonies. Their faces were concealed by golden masks upon which had been worked, by the most antique of techniques, the stylized visage of Goddess. There was no bit of their bodies visible save for their hands.
‘Go on, Alsa; it is the task for which you were prepared, though it is true, we never thought you should perform it. Not in long centuries has the rite been enacted: not since Elna.’
The words sounded strangely in Elnavis’ ears – then he realized they had been spoken not in Bordo but in some other, more ancient tongue, which he understood only because it was so like the tongue of the barbarians. He opened his mouth, but no sound came forth – nor might he lift his arms, or command any portion of his body save his head and eyes.
One of them leaned over him, chanting rhymes he could not fathom. Then she spoke loudly, so that the drumlike chamber beat with the rhythms of her voice in strange acoustics; and she said:
‘In the name of Her whom we all serve, I begin the ceremony. I call upon Her to see with Her eyes, all that we do here: to see it and know it for good, and grant that all may follow as was promised. The kingdom is fallen, and Her Wrath stands over us like a flame. The ancient rites of the Voyage have been desecrated. One whom we had ferried forth has returned, to defile the kingdom with his touch. An offering of atonement has been demanded: the Offering of the King.
‘So with his blood he enriches his fields – so with his heart he gives back courage to his people – so with his death he renews the life of his kingdom. Goddess, take you now my hand. This is none of my doing but only yours, to whom all loyalties are due.’
She put forth her hand, which clasped a black knife of chipped, honed stone, sharp as a silk-cutter’s knife. Elnavis beheld it with a sudden slight gurgling of horror.
She cut the throat first, that the vessels might be filled: then in several sure strokes opened the chest and cut free all the stubborn root-veins of the heart.
Of what occurred afterward, it is not lawful to tell.
§
AIMLESSLY, Kuln-Holn wandered the streets of High Town. All about him the tide of death surged up full, but he was unmolested. The gods were unkind to Kuln-Holn upon this pass: they allowed him to live on.
All his life he had been a little man, with no great strength, no great skill to hunt or fish or fight, no great knowledge, no great wit. He had sought little for himself, save, at first, to feed his wife and infant daughter, and later to see his dreams fulfilled. He had only dreamed of ease from toil, and peace from the unending blood-feuds, and full bellies for the hungry people of his tribe. Then Ara-Karn had come; and now this was what Kuln-Holn received as the fruit of all his prayers and his preachings.
Kuln-Holn wandered on, taking now this turning, now that. To him, it seemed he was alone in the City – alone of all her lost defenders. Down streets he saw metal riders flashing past, bows and swords and axes bloodily upraised.
It was left to him, an alien, to see this ancient City at her end. She had been beautiful, Tarendahardil. There had been all of culture in her, from the best to the worst. Her streets had been lined with statues of brass and iron, jade, silver, topaz, and unveined marble; her harbors had traded with the world; her temples had attracted the faithful from all the Hundred cities. City Over the World, Most Holy, the seat of the Empire of the Bordakasha, cultural and mercantile hub of the world, Tarendahardil had seemed a deathless Queen among cities, as much beyond her sisters as Goddess is beyond mortal women. Kuln-Holn wept, to see now the full proof of the vanity and falseness of that former assurance; and he wandered on.
It was not he, so it must have been some other, who guided his way safely between the hundreds of horsed barbarians and led him up again unto the Black Citadel of Elna.
§
THE HEAVY-ARMORED BARBARIANS rode the streets of High Town, and spared none they chanced upon. This city, the city of thrice-damned Elna, had resisted their efforts too long, and at too great a price. For that, it must be made to pay the penalty of Ara-Karn. Tarendahardil they disdained even to loot: to destroy and murder was now the only wish of their ensavaged hearts. Not even the sorely wounded were spared the bite of the merciless, steel-shod horses. They rode in patrolling arcs round the entrances to the square below the Black Citadel; and in the abeyance of the rain the fires smoldered to new life; and the city streets became like some abominable Hell of torment and death.
Few more gained the safety of the Citadel. Of the Emperor’s brutal followers, those who escaped the lances and arrows of the barbarians were denied entrance at the double gates. Stones were hurled down on their heads, or they were hoisted aloft only to have their lives cut loose from the body by the guardsmen, and their corpses hurled below, into the rocky coomb between the rising rock of the Citadel and the square out of whose center Elna’s Pillar of Victory still leapt into the smoky sky.
