Samples from books that we have published under the Eartherean Press imprint.
This is another in a series from the first book in the 4-book series The Doom-Quest of Ara-Karn: The Former King.
© 1981 by A. Adam Corby
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License. The license is included as an appendix to this work.
Warlord of the Far North
GEN-KARN STEPPED farther away from the roaring pyre, shielding his face from its terrific heat. ‘Who is this foreigner?’ he demanded angrily. ‘And what has he to do with us? He has defied the laws of our people. Let him be hurled from the cliffs, along with any who might aid him.’
‘He is Ara-Karn, as Kuln-Holn has said,’ called Gundoen. ‘He has challenged you to combat, Gen-Karn. Are you afraid?’
Gen-Karn did not even look at the chief. He argued to the tribes at large, ‘The time for challenges has not yet come. This foreigner has no right to challenge me at all. He is not of the tribes. Bar-East, tell them if I lie.’
The wanderer stepped forward. He looked upon the stranger with wonder, as if gazing upon some new land he had never explored before. ‘Gen-Karn speaks truth,’ he said, nodding.
Gen-Karn laughed. The terrific heat of the fire combined with his own rage to make him sweat within the iron plates. Carelessly he stripped the armor from his body, dropping it to the ground for another to pick up. He flexed his great limbs; the flames gleamed off the sweat standing on his shoulders, from the steam issuing from his lips. He scratched the curls of his glossy black beard and laughed again. Gundoen must be desperately afraid to attempt such a trick as this.
‘After we throw the stranger down from the edge of Urnostardil, you will be next, Gundoen. For you have brought an outsider up the cliffs of Table.’
‘This is no stranger, but a man of the tribes by right,’ shouted Gundoen. ‘He has lived among us since the end of last winter. Many of you know him. He is no foreigner.’
Gen-Karn laughed scornfully. For the first time since he had seen Gundoen unexpectedly arriving upon the peak, he felt himself in control of the situation. His great dream of vengeance was at hand. The other chiefs were shaking their heads doubtfully at Gundoen’s words. They looked from Gen-Karn to Gundoen to Ara-Karn in silence and back again. But those around him looked only on the stranger, with wonder and awe in their glances. They exchanged questioning glances among themselves. Was this truly the man who had come naked from the sea, the one about whom there were already such extravagant legends? The way he held his head, proud as the highest of chiefs, the way his light hands casually gripped the strange weapon fascinated the tribesmen. Surely he alone could not have brought death to a monstrous Darkbeast! Yet there were the head before them and the flies still buzzing on the wet blood.
‘Know you all that before we left our village,’ Gundoen exclaimed, ‘we conducted the ceremony to bring this man into our tribe. I have adopted him as my own son.’
‘It makes no difference,’ said Gen-Karn. Now the heads turned back to him. ‘Still he has no right to challenge me. And still he has broken our law.’
Ara-Karn and Kuln-Holn had now come to where the men of Gundoen’s tribe were massed. Gundoen greeted him with joy on his broad face. ‘I thank the gods that you have come back to us. Yet still we will be lucky to emerge with whole skins from this.’ Ara-Karn nodded.
Among the warriors there were many murmurings. Many took Gundoen’s position, and as many sided with Gen-Karn. But by far the most of them only shook their heads. ‘It is not for us to decide,’ they said. ‘Let the Speaker of the Law determine it.’
Bar-East shook his head. ‘There are difficulties. Such a case has never come before me. It is a matter that should rightly only be decided by the entire Assembly.’
‘I ask you, where are the difficulties?’ asked Gundoen. ‘The man is of the tribes and he has done a great deed. What man of you could hunt a Darkbeast? He has challenged Gen-Karn. And if the chief of the Orn tribe fears this man, then he should be our Warlord no longer.’
Gen-Karn only sneered. ‘No, Gundoen, I am not so foolish as to fall for such a trick. Yet, to set any of your minds to rest, I will agree to fight this man, if Gundoen will agree to one condition.’
‘What condition?’
‘That if this man falls before me, as he will, you will swear allegiance to me and be utterly obedient to my will.’
‘Do not agree,’ urged Nam-Rog. ‘Look at Gen-Karn! His arms are longer and more powerful than your friend’s. This is a foolish thing, Gundoen.’
But Gundoen looked at the strange green fires in the eyes of Ara-Karn. He remembered when he had last seen them thus – in the square of his village when they had met to wrestle. Despite himself, he felt himself falling under the godlike power, the spell of inhuman calm of Ara-Karn.
‘It is agreed,’ he said, not looking at Gen-Karn.
‘You will swear your tribe’s fealty?’
‘Yes.’
‘You will obey me, no matter what I demand of you?’
Gundoen looked back at Gen-Karn. He saw the evil in those eyes that were as dark as dull black pebbles. He would never while he lived forget the insult Gundoen had given him. If Ara-Karn lost this battle, Gundoen would suffer things far worse than falling in combat.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I agree to it all. If you win.’
Gen-Karn laughed. ‘Do not worry, little chieftain, I will win!’
‘Then let the duel be fought,’ cried Bar-East.
The Speaker of the Law brought down his oaken staff with all the finality of death.
§
‘BEWARE his shield-arm, my son,’ warned Gundoen in low tones, as they prepared Ara-Karn for the combat. ‘I have seen Gen-Karn fight in past Assemblies. He plays tricks with his shield-arm to distract his opponents, and once I saw him throw his shield at a man’s legs in order to trip him up.’
Above him, Ara-Karn stood as if he did not hear. He was looking across the area that had been cleared of snow and ice to where Gen-Karn stood with his attendants, arming himself. The strange eyes of Ara-Karn were like the black pits in the wild firelights of the blazing pyre. His naked chest rose and fell with a rhythmic, hypnotic regularity. To Gundoen he seemed almost like a living statue, still yet alive with potential motion and menace.
Truly, I know not, thought the chief. He has bravery and shows no fear, but it is still madness – he has not half Gen-Karn’s size or weight. Does he have some device in mind, some special trickery to rely on? Or does he know in the depths of his unreadable heart that he is about to die?
‘Gundoen,’ Ara-Karn breathed, and the chief was startled at the metallic power in that flat whisper. ‘Gundoen, in the heat of battle, all eyes will be upon us who fight. Choose thirty of the best bowmen and position them while all else concentrate on the battle. You will know what to do then, and when to do it.’
He knows then, decided the chief. He knows he is about to die. Aloud he said, ‘Ara-Karn, my son … you know that this is unnecessary. You are not truly of the tribes. It will be no dishonor to you to withdraw even now.’
The living statue did not turn its head. Slowly, with a liquidly metallic motion, it stepped forward, advancing into the center of the broad clearing as if it had not heard the chief’s words. Gundoen followed behind, his broad shoulders low, resignation on his face.
Gen-Karn and Ara-Karn met together in the center of the clearing. They wore not sandals, tunics, mail or helms – just rags knotted about their loins and cord fillets to bind back their hair. This was an ancient ritual, not to be altered with the passing of years: as the tribal contenders had battled centuries before, so too would these two contest each other’s strengths. The firelight played over their naked bodies, the long heavy swords, the small round iron shields. Between them stood old Bar-East, the Speaker of the Law, his long smooth staff in hand. Behind Ara-Karn stood Gundoen and Nam-Rog as his seconds. Sol-Dat, Gen-Karn’s chief man of the Orn tribe, and Estar Aln, the last chief of the Korlas, were behind Gen-Karn.
Gundoen looked across to them and saw how Sol-Dat was puffed with boast-ready pride and how Estar Aln’s yellowed teeth gleamed in an ugly grin. If he should win, thought Gundoen – if Ara-Karn could only win – O how these swell-bellies would be deflated! O, what a sight that would be! He muttered a prayer in his heart to God that it should be so, though he knew in his head that his adoptive son stood no chance.
Bar-East raised his long bony hands, in one of which was held the oaken staff, and the murmuring crowd fell into a hushed, expectant silence. And Bar-East began to speak in a piercing, high-pitched voice, the ancient words of ritual:
‘Let all know that there will be a battle shortly to test the fitness of our chief and decide if perhaps another be more worthy to lead us. There will be no replacements of weapons, no rests, and no quarter. Who loses this combat will die; the other will be Warlord of all the tribes of the North!’
The crowd gave a raucous roar of approval. Gundoen looked about at the assembled warriors, men stark in black-and-red relief in the firelight. Beers were in abundance and bets were being bickered heatedly. They enjoy the excitement, thought Gundoen – even the tribes who have the most to lose when Ara-Karn is slain. He suddenly realized the lucklessness of his words and spat over his shoulder to appease it.
He returned with Nam-Rog to their places at the frosty edge of the arena. Heavily he squatted down on the thick mats and took a bowl of beer in his massive horned hand. He signaled to Esra, the best man with a bow outside of himself and Ara-Karn. He spoke to him in low tones, gesturing to various positions about the crowd. ‘Take thirty of the best,’ he told him. ‘More would attract suspicion… When I give you the signal, you will know what to do?’
The young man’s eyes glittered his answer. Curtly he nodded and moved off among the tribesmen.
From the arena came the high-pitched tones of the Speaker of the Law. ‘Lords, you know the rules,’ he called to the two armed men. He began to walk to the edge of the cleared area. ‘Now begin!’ he shouted suddenly.
The crowds quieted immediately. All heads were turned now to the two men in the center, who slowly began to circle each other, shields and longswords held in readiness. The great fire roared, and the melting snow around it hissed softly.
They feinted probingly at each other, testing guards and deceits, each learning how the other moved. Their swords touched each other, slipped, and licked at the small round shields flashing in the firelight. These were tentative blows of little consequence. The roar of the flames of the great pyre drowned them out completely. The two men fought as if under water, slowly, delicately, and silently. In the warmth of the great fire, and with the dark beer filling his belly, Gundoen felt suddenly drowsy and bemused. The battle seemed unreal. The others felt it also; all bets had ceased, all voices stilled. There was only the dance of the fire and the stalking of two silent men. The great bulk of Gen-Karn made Ara-Karn look like a child, an untried youth whose beard was still downy soft.
Gundoen shook his broad head angrily. This was no dream, he growled to himself. He looked around the Table, checking to see that all the bowmen were in position. He slipped his bow in closer to his thigh, ready to be strung in moments. With his other hand he felt for his arrows. If Ara-Karn should fall, Gen-Karn will be the first to die, he thought. And by my own hand.
Suddenly the Warlord rushed in, yelling horribly, waking all the crowd, swinging his great sword like a scythe. Ara-Karn stepped swiftly to one side and raised his shield. The metal shot sparks in a loud clang.
‘Gen-Karn! Gen-Karn!’ shouted the supporters of the orange standard of Orn.
Again the Warlord moved. Ara-Karn stooped, easily catching the blow on his shield again, darting a counter-stroke with unbelievable speed. The long blade shot forward, opening a long nasty gash over Gen-Karn’s ribs.
‘Ara-Karn!’ shouted Gundoen. ‘Ara-Karn!’ Beyond his own voice he could hear the cries of others also cheering the stroke.
‘A good blow, that, craftily delivered,’ commented Nam-Rog. ‘Yet it will take more than skill to best Gen-Karn.’
‘Do I not know this?’ growled the chief. ‘But whatever it takes, he will give it. Have you not heard that he is of the gods?’ He gulped down the dark beer, almost believing the words in his elation of the moment.
Across the circle Sol-Dat heard the words. ‘Yes,’ he cried out to the battlers, ‘show us your godhead, O Ara-Karn! Vanquish him with a thunderbolt from your terrible eyes!’
Gen-Karn rumbled with laughter at the jest. He spat upon the wet earth. ‘Enough of this playing,’ he growled. ‘Prepare to die, little one.’
There came a flurry of swordplay. The Warlord swung terrific blows, but Ara-Karn ducked them, parried them, caught them on his shield. He fell back easily, moving little, tiring not at all; but the big-bodied Gen-Karn was sweating and panting at the exertion of his blows. He growled, angered that he should not be able to land a good blow where he wished and end the battle with one stroke. His efforts began to grow wild.
He feinted, then drove straight in, a murderous blow impossible to dodge. Ara-Karn parried with his own sword and held. Their swords locked together, hilt to hilt, and shield and shield banged together. For a long moment they strove against each other, main strength against main strength. Their feet clawed for grip against the sand and slick stone of the ground, their thighs strained, their backs and shoulders bulged with effort, hard muscles cracking. For a long moment, Gundoen saw them straining, and it seemed to him that in this contest of sheer strength and bulk Gen-Karn must needs be the victor. He saw the Warlord prevailing; he was leaning over Ara-Karn, the weight and strength of his great body applied with grunting, ferocious power. Gundoen picked up the long black bow and gripped it with readiness in his hands.
The two combatants looked up.
Gen-Karn gazed into the eyes of Ara-Karn.
A rasping clash of steel and they were apart again, not circling now, but standing warily a few paces apart, panting with exhaustion, considering each other. The cheering from the crowds died down, the calls for Gen-Karn falling first. And it occurred to Gundoen that the shouts for Ara-Karn were hopeful and boisterous; but many of the shouts for Gen-Karn seemed forced and artificial, save for those coming from the group of Orn warriors. And Gundoen realized that, after all, Gen-Karn was not really a popular man, but gained his sway through fear and power alone. And even those who had followed him from the first had done so not out of any love or worship for the man, but only because they saw they had something to gain thereby – an enemy to be destroyed or gold to be raised – or because Gen-Karn had threatened them, and they had not wished to become like poor Elrikal of the Forun tribe. And Gundoen knew that, if by some miracle Ara-Karn should slay Gen-Karn, the tribes would acclaim him unanimously.
In the arena, the two naked men came at each other once again. And looking at Gen-Karn Gundoen could see something new in the Warlord’s expression. It was a look of hatred, of doubt, almost of fear. Gen-Karn moved slowly, as if unsure of himself and of what he should do next
‘Now is the moment,’ breathed Nam-Rog in Gundoen’s ear. ‘By the darkness of God, do you see the look on our Warlord’s face? He has seen something not to his liking, that is sure. If Ara-Karn strikes now, he will have the clear edge.’
‘Yes,’ said Gundoen, raising his voice. ‘Strike now, my son! Strike to kill!’
The two combatants turned and faced him for a moment. Gen-Karn could sense the truth in Gundoen’s words and made a visible effort to pull himself together before all should be lost. Ara-Karn looked into the eyes of Gundoen, and the chief saw again the statue and heard again those weird and alien words on the beach after the eclipse. The look in those shadowed eyes struck deeply into his soul, and though he loved him, he cringed suddenly. For the second time he was struck by the strangeness of the man who had washed upon his shores. And the first time had been when he had looked out of his stupor into that face the first and only time he had ever been beaten wrestling. Are the stories and dreams of Kuln-Holn really true then? he wondered.
Ara-Karn turned that merciless gaze back upon Gen-Karn, and everyone in the assembled multitude could see the Warlord start under it. Slowly, and with the greatest of contempt, Ara-Karn unbuckled the leather strap of his small iron shield and dropped it to the ground. He pushed it with his heel several paces from him. He took his sword in both his hands and swung it, easily, gracefully, powerfully.
‘The fool!’ hissed Nam-Rog in despair. ‘Does he not know that this is a combat to the death, without pause? Now he is defenseless!’
‘Be silent, can you not?’ Gundoen spat, a chill entering his lungs.
Gen-Karn saw the shield drop and seemed to take some comfort from it. He limbered his great shoulders and forced a barking laugh from out his throat. Perhaps it had been the contempt with which Ara-Karn had moved that now served to light the Warlord’s rage.
‘Why, you miserable piece of filth!’ he began. ‘You’ll not—’
Ara-Karn attacked. The chief of the Orns never had a chance to complete his words.
The longsword leaped everywhere, swinging right and left, back and forth, in and out, up and down in those capable hands. It performed strange feats – tricks and feints and movements unknown in all the North. Gen-Karn was sorely pressed to defend himself; even with all his efforts, a dozen wounds appeared suddenly on his limbs, his chest, his shoulders. There was never any question of a counterstroke – the man had difficulty even holding on to his blade.
Back Ara-Karn forced him, and back again. The combat weaved first to one side of the arena and then to the other. Suddenly they burst from one edge, flying into the opposite side of the crowd from Gundoen into the snow and spectators. They battled beneath the orange standard of Orn and over the rolling bodies of the crowds. Shouts and curses rose around them; Ara-Karn gave no heed, but held to that ferocious assault. Men scrambled cursing out of their way, snow and ice flying in the scuffle, tents upset and pans sent clattering.
Gundoen and the others around him rose to their feet, straining their eyes to see the fighters.
‘Truly,’ murmured Nam-Rog in awe, ‘he fights like one possessed. His wrath is of something much less or more than mortal.’
Gundoen had known that fury, that mindlessly destructive rage, in Ara-Karn before, so he was silent. He had felt its power; some wakings his bones still ached from it.
The two battlers passed from sight in the shadows of the crowds around the tents. Gundoen could only hear the clangor of the blades ringing over the dull roar of the fire.
‘Come along,’ he ordered, setting out across the arena, forgetting in his eagerness the black bow. Others followed, murmuring to one another, leaping up at times to see over the heads of those before them. They forced themselves a way through the crowd, past the fallen tents to the very edge of the precipice; and there they paused.
Still the two were battling, the very edge of stone and ice crumbling beneath their heels. Once Ara-Karn in his wild eagerness stepped too far to one side; nothing met his foot and he almost fell. But he recovered somehow and went on as if nothing had happened, attacking Gen-Karn still.
‘What does he do?’ muttered Nam-Rog in the roar of the crowd. ‘He fights as if he is immortal! Does he truly wish to die?’
Gen-Karn’s shield was but a battered rag of metal now, his sword notched and blunted where it had met the bite of Ara-Karn’s edge. He was sweating profusely, his mouth open with fear, exhaling acrid steam, wavering with exertion. His body bled from a score of brutal wounds, and his right leg was deeply cut above the knee. He fought desperately, ferociously, as Gundoen had never seen him fight before. Yet his best was not enough; for all he could do, he was being driven into defeat. He was stronger than the stranger, his weapons just as good, and his reach longer. But there was this difference between them: Gen-Karn fought to hold on to his life, and Ara-Karn fought as if he did not care whether he lived or died. And that difference was a fatal one.
The crowds of warriors saw the Warlord’s condition and guessed what Gen-Karn now knew – that Ara-Karn was to be the victor. Fewer and weaker came the cries for Gen-Karn; louder, longer, and more tumultuous arose the shout,
‘Ara-Karn! Ara-Karn! Ara-Karn!’
Blindingly, Ara-Karn moved in response to that cry.
He struck with such power and suddenness that the Warlord was almost hurled over the icy edge of Urnostardil. Wildly scrambling, Gen-Karn threw away his sword and clutched for the rocks. But it was clearly too late; already his body was toppling over the darkness of the abyss.
The victory-cry was halfway up Gundoen’s throat when Ara-Karn struck again.
Double handed, he swung his blade with glittering speed. The edge smashed into the side of Gen-Karn’s head with superhuman force. But because the Warlord was falling and his head twisting to see where to reach out, the blade struck only a glancing blow. No one ever knew for certain whether the blow had fallen where it had been aimed or whether it was but an accident, a freak of the God’s will. The stranger, Ara-Karn, never would say. But what they all saw was the spattering of blood and flesh from the force of the blow, and the bone ripped clean, and the flesh torn, half from Gen-Karn’s right ear, most from his cheek, and the great clump of hair torn from his head.
With such force did that blow strike that it actually lifted up the great bulk of the Warlord in midair, twisting him about and hurling him with a massive crash to the ground, a full pace away from the edge of the golden crown of Urnostardil.
And instead of victory-shouts there was only silence.
Men stood with still tongues looking down on that writhing, bloodied form. In those cuts and gashes, in the sweat and steaming dirt, it was hard to recognize what had once been the Warlord of the far North. And there was nothing left at all of the dark handsomeness in that ripped-open mess of a face.
From the moaning body on the bloodstained ice, the crowd turned its eyes to the conqueror, standing not exultantly but calmly on the edge of the abyss, the sword leaning casually against one bloodstained hand, the blood smoking, the chest rising and falling rhythmically, but the eyes still ablaze with the madness of combat. The feet were blued by the frozen cold and bleeding between the toes. From a dozen cuts the blood also gelidly flowed. The cord fillet had broken asunder, leaving the clotted hair to hang free about those wild eyes. And those savage men of the hard, far North saw in the victor not a man, not an out-lander barge-robber, nor yet a god or messenger of gods, but a wild beast, whose desperate, destructive fury outdid anything that they in their supposed savagery could match. And there was not a man among them – not even those who loved him best, not Gundoen or Kuln-Holn himself – who did not at that moment feel the fearful awe of him who stood alone amongst them.
Ara-Karn straightened, and those of the Orn tribe nearest him stepped back a pace, as the gentle animals will do near a predator even when his hunger for blood has been sated. And Gundoen knew that there would be no need for bowmen now. With Gen-Karn dead, none would dare oppose the victor’s will. Cautiously he approached and placed a fur mantle about the naked shoulders of his adopted son.
The man with the sword seemed not to notice. He glanced down and pointed with his sword at the writhing body and spoke.
‘Take it away,’ he said. His shoulders sagged a little with a great onrushing weariness.
‘Lord, not yet!’
Bar-East spoke these words. The Speaker of the Law forced a way between the crowds and confronted the stranger.
‘Lord, I have seen the battle; we all have seen it. You have conquered and are the Warlord of the North. Yet one final duty remains before the title is fully yours. Your enemy still lives.’
‘What of that?’
Bar-East blinked his old eyes, as if he had not understood. ‘His death lies upon your hands,’ he answered simply. He pointed to the sword, blood still oozing down to its point. ‘Slay him.’
But Ara-Karn asked, ‘Why should I?’
‘Because it is our custom.’
Ara-Karn shook his head. ‘No. That is not my way.’
‘Because he is an evil man who has pressed our necks beneath his toes for too long!’ cried another of the crowd, a Durbar.
‘No.’
‘Slay him,’ said Bar-East slowly, ‘because if you do not, he will only hate you all the more, and strive and scheme and never give off scheming to murder you for this defeat.’
But Ara-Karn only smiled, wan as the icy crystals round his ankles. ‘No. That, too, is not my way.’
‘Lord, what softness is this? Your mercy is to no avail with this man. He is a chief, and he was the Warlord of the tribes.’ Below them, the great sprawling figure of Gen-Karn writhed and groaned in pain.
And Ara-Karn looked at the Speaker of the Law with eyes like pebbles washed upon a lonely shore, and he said in tones of pitiless hardness, ‘Old man, you know more of mercy now than I am ever likely to.’
At this there was only silence from that mass of blood-aroused men – looks of confusion and disbelief and one or two of anger. They had turned upon their former king and now would see his death – or, if not his, another’s. Their lusts demanded to be sated to the full.
Gundoen, at his side, spoke in low swift tones: ‘My son, he is right. It is customary. If you let Gen-Karn live and he survives, then he will never forget this defeat. I know his nature, lord: ever will he seek a way to destroy you henceforth. Kill him now and have done. It is your right – and your duty.’
‘And who are you to speak of my duty?’ Ara-Karn asked, contempt heavy in his voice. He turned and let his gaze fall on all the warriors assembled closely around him. He raised his voice. ‘And why should I wish to rule over you anyway? What are you but unwashed savages?’
And he started to walk away, his feet leaving little red flowers in the snow. He headed over to where the path came up to the summit of the Table, where the pack-ponies still waited by the huge severed head.
But the tribes followed after him, dismay in their simple hearts. Already they had fallen under his spell. Not a one of them would have believed he could by any luck defeat Gen-Karn; now they had seen him do so with great ease, scarcely being wounded in the feat. Many remembered the tales that had spread of this man, of his magical powers and his influence with the gods. And now they would have him for their king. They followed after him, leaving the writhing body of Gen-Karn behind. A few of the Orn men picked up their chief and carried him to the great tent by the fallen orange standard; but after that they too followed after the stranger.
‘Be our Warlord, Ara-Karn!’ they cried after him. ‘Lead us in battle and protect us with your powers!’
But he turned and spat upon the ground before their feet. ‘I will not lead you,’ he cried aloud. ‘Why should I wish to rule such mangy dogs as you?’ He turned and walked away again.
At this insult, there were grumblings among the warriors. There were many men of great pride among them. They had followed this man like beggars, and he had spat at them. Now their dismay turned to anger in their breasts. ‘Who dares to call us dogs?’ they grumbled.
‘Many enough of the pampered soft men of the South, I am sure,’ said Ara-Karn over his shoulder. ‘Dogs and worse than dogs they call you.’
‘Let them come here and call us that!’ they shouted.
‘They have done so!’ shouted Ara-Karn in turn. Again he turned and faced them down. ‘Listen to a tale: A rebellious hound once growled at his master’s table, and the master’s ladies were afraid. So the master took the dog out to the sheds and whipped it a skin’s distance from death and banished the dog from his lands. Yet this dog was a servile dog, a lackey of a dog – for though he was stronger than the master and could have slain him and had his pick of all the rich foods of the table, he went away. And even then he came arunning at the master’s every whistle, hunting many things for the master who had whipped him. And what are you, the tribes of the far North, if not this very dog?’
‘We are not dogs!’ they shouted. And now their anger was very great, so that Gundoen was afraid they might fall upon Ara-Karn and throw him from the cliffs. ‘We are not dogs! We have no masters! Who will tell us that we have masters?’
‘Do you deny it?’
‘Aye!’ they shouted. They bustled even closer now, teeth gleaming in rage in the firelight. ‘We deny it!’
Ara-Karn only laughed at them. ‘Then answer me this, if you can: How much do the merchants get for a single bandar skin at the bazaars in Tarendahardil, the City Over the World?’
This stopped them, and they considered. But none of them could say. And their confusion grew, though their anger did not cool.
‘You see, you cannot tell me! Yet you give them these pelts whenever they demand them of you. Your hunters strive and risk all, and many of them die – all so that the Emperor’s lackeys may get their pretty cloaks!’
‘We are paid for them!’
Ara-Karn shrugged. ‘A lackey’s wages – or rather, the table leavings for the master’s dog. And your master – what is he but a pompous swine surfeited with wine and gluttony, sprawling on his bandar rug? And still you serve him!’
The warriors surged in confusion. No longer were they angry at Ara-Karn; instead their anger was turned toward the soft men of the lush Southlands, who had cheated them on the price of skins.
‘Generations and generations ago, or so I am told,’ continued Ara-Karn, ‘the civilized lands beat you into this North. Many were the dead, but you found this Table and held your ground, though there were few tribes and of them many were women, children, and men wounded near to death. And even so they held off all the fierce attacks of a thousand thousand Southron warriors fresh and well fed and clad in expensive armor. They wanted to destroy the tribes utterly, but you laughed and spat in their faces, and in the end they were forced to leave – aye, even so many of them, and so much better men in those times than they are in these!
‘And so, it would appear, were the tribesmen of those times better! Those men – ah, they were giants and ravishers in those times! They went where they pleased, striding red-handed over the soft belly of the Southlands; they would not have hid quavering behind the Spines. They grew so great that the Southlands trembled and combined together in numbers beyond imagining, and even then they were victorious only by a slight chance of luck!
‘You are not even worthy of their names. That dog I fought’ – he gestured over at the great tent beside the fallen standard – ‘he was the best among you, yet he would be a fearful weakling beside the likes of Tont-Ornoth. You have offered me your lordship. Well, I spit upon it and scorn it utterly! Pick out a blind man or some golden-haired woman to lead you. Perhaps you would make better weavers and bakers than you do warriors!’
Now there were no grumblings when he had done, no angry gnashing or gestures. They remembered the old tales of their ancestors, and they recalled how the old dream had ever been to be revenged upon the Southlands. And they knew they had forgotten that dream and fallen into content, trading with the perfumed merchants rather than slaying them outright. They could not be angry with Ara-Karn, for the insults he spoke were truth.
‘What would you have us do?’ asked one among them.
‘Are you children – to be told? I know not, nor care. Do as you will – the choice is yours.’
‘Nay, we know what we want!’ shouted Gundoen suddenly. ‘We know! To war upon the Southlands and redeem the heritage of our ancestors! And to have none other for our king than Ara-Karn!’
And the others cried in echo, ‘Ara-Karn! Ara-Karn! Ara-Karn!’ The chant rose to the heavens in its volume, quickening like some excited heart’s beat, going on and on and on. ‘Ara-Karn! Ara-Karn!’
‘Perhaps I misjudged you!’ he shouted, and they laughed to hear him. ‘Perhaps you are not dogs after all, but free warriors! Well, then, if you demand it, then I shall lead you.’
He paced the snowy ground in the center of their ring while the warriors cheered and hooted.
Before a slight depression in the ground he halted. He raised his fist. The cheering fell away.
‘Wait,’ he told them. ‘You shall have witnesses to your oaths.’
He raised his other fist. In the faroff light of the drowning Sun his one shadow danced apart from the other shadows the bonfires cast of him. And then a tribesman pointed to the ground by the stranger’s feet – there where the shadows moved, but he did not.
The shadows moved. They darkened. They joined together, against the light.
One shadow he cast, black across the snow, black as the sky that opposed Goddess.
The shadow grew.
It climbed up his body and loomed into the air above his two raised fists. The tribesmen cowered. Their cheers were dead now in their throats. They witnessed what they had never beheld before, a thing strange and unnatural, and the proof of the wildest claims about this man.
The shadow rose taller than the tallest hut. It rose up above the mountain like a great tree.
The arms of Ara-Karn stiffened until the veins stood out and the tendons were rigid leading into the wrists. His arms gleamed with sweat like oil; strange markings mottled the skin, half drawing, half charactery, the like of which no tribesman had ever seen, unless it were perhaps in the dreams his ancestral blood stirred in him, when he lay captive to a bitter sleep.
He began to mutter words in a tongue so old, the stone of the mountain might still have been forming deep in the bowels of the earth when they were first heard.
His shadow bent and arched over, and reached its huge arms deep underground.
‘You who died here and were buried unvoyaged,’ he breathed, ‘O you brave defenders! Now is the hour of your vengeance! Your kinsmen are here assembled in your name. They await you! Rise up, I command you, seek the light, stretch hands and arms out of the ground. Bear witness to what your sons will swear this waking!’
And before the eyes of the tribesmen of the far North, something sprouted from the snowy ground.
Was it a trick of the light, the bending fire-casts, the dim and anxious Goddesslight that reached them from so far away? Or did they truly see the fingers rise up like new shoots, and the hands and arms? Were those truly figures who rose up in their midst, clustered about him but glaring with deep eyes at the tribesmen their last sons?
They were like men, those shapes, the spectral shapes of the slain. And they were tall – much taller than the warriors there assembled who were still alive –for those were the giants of ancient men, the original defenders of the Urnostardil who died there and were buried there unvoyaged.
Once they were tall and strong, but now they were thin, gaunt, and hungry from their long flight before the armies of Elna, and the long siege on the mountaintop.
The tribesmen were struck still at the sight. Some muttered prayers to ward off evil; many made the Sign of Goddess; all felt the hackles of their flesh crawl about their skin.
The specters did not speak. But Ara-Karn spoke for them.
‘The brothers and sons and fathers of these men,’ he said, ‘and the husbands and brothers of these women, and the fathers and mothers of these babes, made one pact among them, and swore one oath. To this oath they joined in the oldest rite of dark God – you all know it, and know it is not to be spoken of in the light of Goddess. They had no beasts to use for sacrifice; all their beasts they had eaten in the long starving siege here. They were their own sacrifice then, and drank their own blood to seal it – these shades looked upon their arms and saw the wounds their last survivors made.
‘But they will ask no such pain from you. Rather their own beings will bind you to the oath you now will take.’
Ara-Karn walked slowly around the circle before the cowed and trembling warriors. No enemy of flesh and blood could have cowed them, gathered there. But the sight of this magical rebirth tore at the very pith of their childhood superstitious hearts.
‘Now swear,’ he cried, so that his voice rang off the stone and echoed into the blackness of the Night beyond, ‘swear by these, your own dead ancestors, to reaffirm your vengeance and your ancient vows, and to ride with me, and not to turn back until the vengeance is accomplished. In return, I swear, I, your Warlord, that these specters will ride with you and fight with you, though unseen. With these ghosts at your side you cannot fail, but woe unto you if you do not carry out your mission to the end – for these very ghosts who have supported you will turn on you and rend you into bits should you fail!’
He ended.
Silence struck them when he had done.
Then one voice cried out. Gundoen from the forefront of his warriors bellowed like the roar of a bandar, ‘I swear it, in the name of Tont-Ornoth!’
And Ring-Sol cried, ‘I also swear it for all of the Archeros!’
‘And I swear!’ laughed Ven-Vin-Van of the Borsos.
‘And I,’ roared Ren-Tionan, and at his back all those who yet bore Elrikal’s once-mighty banner swore with him; and at those voices a thousand joined in, until all the tribesmen had sworn and sworn and sworn again, drew out their blades and flashed them in their eyes.
The chanting rose again. The firelight gleamed off their sweating skins, their avid eyes, their sharp yellowed teeth. They banged their swords on their shields; they stamped the ground with their feet. The rattle and roil of their mail and armor was like the withdrawing of God’s fatal jade sword, which is drawn only for blood and may not be denied.
The spectral shades wavered at the uproar, rippling like banners in the wind. Ara-Karn stood among them, seeming no more mortal than they. He crossed his arms over his chest and looked upon what he had wrought.
And finally, after the raucous din had died down somewhat, Ringla of the Eldar tribe cried out, ‘O Ara-Karn! O Warlord, I have a question for you!’
‘Yes?’
‘How much do the merchants gets for a single bandar skin at the bazaar in Tarendahardil?’
Ara-Karn shrugged. ‘I do not know,’ he said simply. He swung his great blooded sword suddenly, sweepingly, so that it flashed against the black blue skies. The mantle about his shoulders fell to the snow, so that he stood before them almost naked, the frost steaming from his nostrils, his flesh blue here, dark red there with cold and blood. The light of the blazing pyre shone off his skin; behind him, the wan disc of Goddess was obscured in the far, far distance. He pointed with the dripping sword to the South. ‘Let us go find out!’
A thunderous roar acclaimed him.
