Samples from books that we have published at Eartherean Books.
This is another in a series from the fourth book in the 4-book series The Doom-Quest of Ara-Karn: Darkbridge.
© 2009 by A. Adam Corby
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License.
Disgrace
EMSHA did not know what to do. The Queen’s old nurse walked in the rooms of the White Tower peacelessly, and a hundred times she blamed her frailty, that she could not bring herself to attend her mistress in the slaughtering-yard of the Palace. And a dozen times she had been on the verge of setting forth, when something held her back. She went to the private shrine and prayed to Goddess to spare her mistress what pain She could. Then Emsha rose and roamed the empty chambers, until through the thick stone of the walls the scream of Gundoen assailed her ears. She stopped, her old eyes big and dark.
‘Dear Lady,’ the old nurse breathed; ‘And did I pray to You on behalf of that?’
Shortly thereafter the maidens returned, their hair half undone, tears and terror in their eyes. Emsha stood by the doors as they passed her, and she chastised them sharply for having forsaken their mistress, heaping abuse on them in her own fear.
Then there was a stillness in the floors below. Emsha saw a lone, small figure standing like a shadow inside the Palace doors. It was the Empress.
Hastily the old nurse went down. But the Empress moved out of her nurse’s embrace.
‘Do not touch me, Emsha,’ she said. ‘I am unclean.’
‘Majesty, majesty…’
‘I must be purified,’ the Empress said, moving to the steps to the bath-chambers. ‘Until that hour when it is done, no hand is to touch me, no eye behold me. Emsha, see to the cleansing of the maidens. They have borne more this waking than I could properly ask.’
But Emsha followed her mistress and sat on a couch in the chamber outside the bath. She felt in the air about her, like the breath of some enormous beast of prey, the anger of Goddess.
Then footsteps sounded on the stair. A man appeared, Ampeánor, the Charan of Rukor. Emsha rose – their eyes met and parted – his went to the doors behind her.
‘You will not see her,’ Emsha said, moving into his path. Hatred surged within her for this man. He had done all this.
He scarcely looked at her. ‘I will see her,’ he muttered. Only then did Emsha see the madness in his eyes.
‘Her majesty is bathing in the ritual.’
‘I will see her.’
‘She is alone and unattended.’
‘That will not bother me.’
‘My lord, she is unrobed!’
He looked down at her. Annoyance flashed across his eyes. He caught her up and threw her aside. Truly, Ampeánor had recovered all his manly strength: the old nurse struck the wall and fell on the floor, the breath knocked out of her lungs. The man flung open the doors and entered the bath.
Emsha lay on the floor, trying to breathe. She heard the man’s steps; she heard the voice of her mistress:
‘Greetings, my lord. Do you come to take me prisoner now? What secrets would you wrest from me?’
Then his voice: ‘It was needful.’
‘Again that word?’
‘It was needful for another reason. One I did not tell you. I knew you would not believe it without proof. Do you not recall how once I spoke of a traitor among us? You did not believe it then. But in Tezmon I saw a map the Gerso had marked for me. You know his hand? Not another in ten thousand writes in that manner. I found another map. It was a map detailing all the defenses of this Citadel. It was written in the same hand. I found it, my Queen, in the tent of Ara-Karn.’
‘Why do you not leave? Do you think I take pleasure in your company?’ Emsha had heard those tones before, but only when her mistress addressed Dornan Ural.
‘You do not seem surprised,’ the man’s voice said.
‘Tell me then Ampeánor, when you were a young man full of dreams, did you ever dream that one pass you would order and watch what you have ordered and watched this pass? Or did somewhat nobler things fill your thoughts?’
There was silence. Then Emsha heard the plash of waters in the bath. ‘I came,’ she heard him say in a voice like struck iron, ‘to show you this.’
‘It is properly bloodied. Did you descend into the crypts to finish the work, then?’
‘You will be also. Did you think this soap would take the guilt from your head and heap it all on mine?’
‘What was it you did in the Eglands?’
‘What was it you did here, while I was a prisoner in Tezmon? Since then nothing has been right between us. Did you think I would never know? About you? And the Gerso? And the traitor?’
At those words, spoken so wildly, Emsha strove to go to her mistress’ aid, but she could not rise. The thought came to her to cry out to the guards above – she did not. Was it not enough that one man had seen the Empress in her nakedness?
‘So,’ said the man’s voice, deadly calm and weary, ‘now you wear the stain of his blood as I do, here beside this other mark, which far too many eyes have seen.’
The doorway darkened and the man returned. From within came the voice of the Queen: ‘From this moment on, Ampeánor, you are no longer the High Charan of Rukor, nor a citizen of Tarendahardil. If you ever attempt to see me again, your life will be forfeit. You are denied all water, food, shelter and fire within the frontiers of the Empire. Go prosper among the barbarians you so admire, if you can.’
The man stopped and turned. Emsha saw the palm of his hand was smeared with blood. For a moment, she feared for her mistress’ very life.
‘Do you think I’d even want to serve you again? You whore, I will go with pleasure once I have cut the life out of the Gerso’s body and proclaimed him for the traitor that he is.’
‘You are the traitor here.’ For the first time Emsha heard passion and fear in her mistress’ voice. ‘Never in your life were you so true as he.’
At that the rage showed in the Rukorian’s face like the bursting of a wound. He caught the door and slung it shut so that two of the hinges burst on their bronze pins.
Ampeánor stalked out. He stormed through the Palace. He went to the rooms of the Gerso, but they were empty. So he went through the Black Tower into the Southern Wing, to Rukor’s floor. Once within his own chambers he tore the garments from his body, threw lances from the wall, upset couches and shattered coffers, roaring and screaming. Pharnor Bittan stood by the door and watched his lord in fear and awe.
At last it ended, and like a chill rain shaken and chased by scattering winds, the mad childish rage left the body of the lord of Rukor. He lay on the floor, and awareness left him with his madness.
§
WHEN HE WOKE, Ampeánor looked at horror at himself. He lay on the floor. In his hands were the bunched, torn carpets. His left hand was black with Gundoen’s blood. Its stain was all over him.
Ampeánor beheld his retainer. He started up, at which Pharnor Bittan stepped back. Ampeánor fell back on the floor. Tears formed in his eyes.
‘Oh, do not run from me, Pharnor Bittan, I beg you! What have I done, what have I ordered, what have I dreamed, since I reached here from the fields beyond the city? Tell me, do you know? It has all passed from me, whatever it may have been. It was the fault of that half of me that comes from Vapio, maybe, or else the venom of the Darkbeast. Is Melkarth to be proven right then, in spite of all I can do? Pharnor Bittan, take pity on me. What state is this for a lord of the realm? Help me please, my old friend. Take these rags from me and gird me in my armor. Have the barbarians attacked? I would relish battle now. It is my only freedom.’
‘Aye, my lord,’ said Pharnor Bittan. There was no pity in the voice of the old master of the hunt, only dignity and respect. The sound of it helped bear up Ampeánor’s spirit.
‘There, that is better, surely,’ he said, borne up by the armor that now cased him. His eyes ran over the disordered rooms. He glanced at the painting of the Queen done by Qhelvin of Sorne. On a small sword-stand in a corner lay a longsword of blue Raamba steel. The handle was bossed with gold and worked with rubies, the blade shone sharp and cold as a warrior’s song. It was the most beautiful sword he had ever seen.
‘What is this?’ he asked, marveling at its quickness and balance.
‘He left it for you a year ago, my lord. It is the gift of the Lord Ankhan and Lady Lisalya of Ul Raambar. Father Ennius said it was meant for a wedding-gift for your lordship and her majesty.’
‘I will have to thank him for it personally,’ Ampeánor said.
At that a distant sound came to penetrate the stone walls.
‘What is that?’
‘The guardsmen’s bell, my lord. The enemy is at the Iron Gate again.’
‘Well,’ said Ampeánor, pleased. ‘For this I owe thanks to dark God. I will go to this battle – and let them beware, all those who come against me now!’
Calmly as he passed, he brought up the virgin Raamba sword and in a score of strokes split the wooden panel of Qhelvin’s masterwork and left her scattered upon the floor in a hundred jagged bits.
§
SO THE ARMIES of Ara-Karn came.
They filled the square below the Iron Gate and spilled out along the edge of the plateau to either side. They filled courtyards and stood on the low remnants of palace walls, a hundred rows deep. No single glance of the eye could have held them all. Behind them the slaves drove up sheep and cattle and the wagons weighted with armor, grain, tent-cloth, ladders and swords. Dense clouds of death-birds showered over the battlements. Yurling stood beside Forun in no clear order. All the tribes were mixed; the renegades with the siege-ladders could not make their way through the masses of men. The warriors did not care. Drunk with fear and eagerness, they stamped their feet, brandished their weapons and roared open-mouthed at the gaping, unmanned line of the parapet.
But Nam-Rog stood upon a block of stone at the rear and called Durbars to him, a score of young trackers whose worth he knew. These Nam-Rog sent forth to find the other chieftains and have them raise their standards and totems so that all the warriors of each tribe might come together and be ruled by their chief. The trackers raised their spears and plunged into the seething mass of metal-clad men.
Atop the Iron Gate, at the rearward parapet of the battlements, Berowne stood in the thick of the showering arrows and bellowed down his orders into the yard between the gates. There the guardsmen bent their strong bodies to the task and pried up the massive stones they had stockpiled. Tossing basket-lines around the stones, they hoisted them up to the long arm of the Beak. The Beak spun about its greased support-poles; the stones swung out over the heads of the men on the battlements. Even as the Beak swept past the parapet, the men loosed the lines. They were expert at it now. The huge stones hurtled outward and down, crashed into the square, and men were mowed down, thrown skyward and crushed. Circling still, the dark-laughing Beak swung back round. The men in the yard caught the trailing basket-leads; the others bent again, driving their long pries beneath the next stones they had chosen. Again and again the Beak fulfilled its deadly circle; the barbarians pushed back, crowding away from the paths of the huge bounding blocks.
But now the standards and totems of the tribes gathered their followers, and the tribes of the first army moved to the forefront. Through open lanes the mercenaries ran, upbearing long ladders. A thousand hands grasped them and the ladders shot upward, bending hugely – upward, until they fell forward and their metal-shod tops clanged off the black stone of the parapet.
The first men leaped up on the lower rungs of the ladders. They were younger men, those most fired with the eagerness for blood and fighting and to be done with fear.
They steadied themselves on the rungs.
Then they began their race into the sky.
Lightly they ran up the ladders high above the heads of their comrades. Closer and closer approached the black sweep of the Beak. The dark line of the parapet loomed to meet them; above it suddenly appeared a line of gleaming shields, half-seen helms and out-thrust lances.
The young barbarians scampered up the last few steps, bending beneath and warding off the darting lances with their small shields. The bloodstained wall was in their faces; behind them the ruins of the huge city spread away into the bright distance. They tore free their eager weapons, axes, swords and spears. Metal broke on metal, and the cries of the wounded joined the tolling of the bell and the roar rising from below.
So the battle was joined, and Goddess blazed like fire off the burnished blades and battle-gear.
Gorn-Tal, the last Orn, ascended behind the younger men. He climbed to the uppermost steps of the middle ladder, the most honored and most dangerous place of battle. In his hands he held a strange weapon, one he himself had devised and forged on the stones of the smiths’-pits among the tents of the renegades. He had made it in the likeness of a lance, but with the addition of a cruelly-barbed hook a hand’s span below the iron leaf of the spear-point.
Gorn-Tal held himself low against the steps of the ladder. Then with the swiftness of a snake the long lance leaped upward and darted through the gap between two bright shields. The spear-point struck and wounded; the curved hook caught a guardsman’s arm.
Gorn-Tal hauled down on the lance-haft with all the strength in his gray-veined arms. The guardsman was dragged forward, over the parapet; suddenly before his eyes the dark supporting stone gave way to air and the distant crowds below. Again Gorn-Tal pulled, and the guardsman pitched forward. There was now a slight opening in the line of shields, and the guardsman to the right stood half-revealed. Gorn-Tal slipped the hook underneath the man’s corselet just in the opening under the armpit. And now this one too looked down, and beheld Gorn-Tal’s eyes in the moment before he fell. Then his body smashed like thunder on the stones filling the coomb; the armor bent in and the ribs burst, and death freed his spirit as it had freed his fellow’s, like the snapping of a thread.
These were the first defenders to die in this assault. They had lived through almost a full year of battle there and had faced a thousand foes apiece; but Gorn-Tal was their doom. Their names are forgotten, but it is said that they were both Fulmineans. So, far from the hills of their homeland, they fell from a great height to their deaths.
Now the break in the shields was large enough for a big man to stand into. Gorn-Tal leaped up and elbowed his way into that opening. With both hands he swung his weapon before him, uttering the death-cry of Orn. From below a great shout rose up at the sight of him. It had been rare in the course of that year for any of the warriors to gain the parapet, and those who had had mostly been slain straight away.
Now Gorn-Tal stood there, last chieftain of Orn. So terrible was he that the guardsmen fell back before him; he swept back the heads of their lances scornfully. Nakedly he stood before them on the edge of the parapet, scarcely holding his balance; but even so none of the guardsmen dared challenge him. Gorn-Tal laughed, and raising his strange weapon on high to God, brought it crashing down on the shoulder of one of his foes.
On the ladders on either side of him stood Sur-Pal of the Maurpongils and Bel-Kor Jin of the Naur-Kolds. With long, fire-hardened lances the two chiefs struck back guardsmen, supporting Gorn-Tal. Together they cleared enough space for the Orn to step down onto the first level of the battlements.
But now Berowne shouted to his men, encouraging them; they took heart and pressed forward. Against them Gorn-Tal drew back his weapon and hurled it. Full through the shield of one guardsman the weapon crashed; the lance-point stuck into the man’s throat, severing the veins and breaking into the windpipe. The guardsman fell, and death like sleep shut fast his eyes. Then Gorn-Tal drew his sword against the press of lances; and the battle broke over him like a storm-wave.
The first wave of men upon the ladders ceded to the second. The young warriors, those few who still lived, took hold of the rope ladders. These trailed from the metal peaks of the wooden ladders down the face of the Iron Gate. The wounded men went down slowly. They clambered down the piled stones in the coomb, through the corpses, and were received with cheers. Their wounds were bathed and dressed by slaves; the filth was sponged from their brows and arms, and they ate heartily, regaling one another with their tales of the encounter, laughing and glad to be still living. But the others, those men too weakened by blood-loss to descend the rope ladders, were swiftly slain by the guardsmen. Or else their own comrades, those behind them, smashed loose the clutching hands and shoved the bodies over, to die on the stones below.
It was the order of battle there. The man who did not choose to live deserved to die. The warriors of the second wave climbed up to take their places.
These were the chiefs and champions of their tribes. Ven-Vin-Van of the Borsos rose on the southernmost ladder and Ren-Tionan of the Foruns on the northernmost: these with heavy blows of their axes beat back the guardsmen at the ends of the lines. And Bur-Knap of the River’s-Bend tribe was eager in battle: he had stood by Gundoen’s side in the years before Ara-Karn’s coming, when only a handful of the tribes dared oppose Gen-Karn’s rule. Even Ren-Gora of the Raznami stood upon his ladder and gave the defenders blow for blow. And at Sur-Pal’s right Nam-Rog wielded his sword – old as he was he beat back the guardsmen above him.
Before that onslaught, the wearied guardsmen fell. The space around Gorn-Tal grew. Sur-Pal and Bel-Kor Jin and other chieftains surged onto the parapets. Arms rose and fell, and a spray of blood marked the sweep of the blades. Already the stone between their feet was littered with shattered bits of bronze and iron as well as the fallen. The line of guardsmen wavered and shrank back. Gaps began to appear between men.
But then Berowne ran up the steps by the southern lance-tower. Behind him, and below the northern lance-tower as well, came the men of the second watch. Berowne swept his massive arm forward, and the new men advanced alongside the wall of the lance-towers. Beneath stone symbols and the carven heads of Emperors the armored men entered the battle and forced themselves along the first level of the battlements, granting needed rest to the weary men of the front ranks.
Berowne himself stood like a middle lance-tower at the center: the very breadth and mass of him seemed to lend support to the line. The men locked shields and gripped their lance-hafts firmly: and the line held. Then Berowne began to lean forward into the battle, and the defenders seemed even to gain a little. Now they were only two steps away from regaining the parapet. In vain did Gorn-Tal, Sur-Pal and Bel-Kor Jin beat axes and swords against the shield-wall about Berowne. Gorn-Tal had cast the only one of his strange weapons he had borne up the ladder; and not all the strength or fury of the blows could budge Berowne once he planted his feet.
The guardsmen took heart and the barbarians began to take the worst of it. But then seven Fire-Walkers appeared on the parapet, and in their midst stood Roguil Arn the Axe-Bearer. He, the chieftain of the Vorisals, looked over the scene below him; and in the icy blue of his pale eyes, eyes that reflected the snows and frozen lakes of his homeland, burned now the flame and delight of battle.
The Fire-Walkers, men of long faces, square beards, and pinkish eyes, moved forward deliberately into the battle. They went like some good shepherds to the task of shearing, who cast their eyes sagely over the flocks, choosing in their minds which sheep should first be shorn, and how to go about the thing so that the flock stays calm. So the Fire-Walkers chose the weakest points in the battle, and went to support their fellows.
But Roguil Arn cast his eyes up and over the scene. He saw the yard beyond, and the inner gates closed fast against the invasion, leaving only one small brass door open at the side. And beyond that Roguil Arn saw the Palace of the Bordakasha rising against the clouds. He saw the White Tower and the Disk of Goddess burning like a welcome-torch to his appearance.
Then the eyes of the Vorisal fell again to the lines of the guardsmen standing thickly clustered upon the second and third steps of the battlements.
‘By dark God’s eye,’ laughed Roguil Arn, ‘Is this truly all the men who have held us in defeat for a year? Shame, shame upon all the tribes!’ He lifted back his head to the Walk of God in the sky, and opened his mouth wide to it, and shouted joyously the war-song of the Vorisals – a sound more like the barking of the northern dogs than any human voice. At that inhuman sound, the blood was chilled in the guardsmen’s veins.
Then Roguil Arn shook his wild locks, for he wore no helm; and he threw himself like a spear into the battle.
The huge, silver-chased axe of Roguil Arn smashed into Berowne’s shield first of all. It was heavy, that axe. Few others of the tribe could lift it one-handed, let alone wield it in battle. Swung by the hands of Roguil Arn, no metal or man might stand against it. Berowne’s huge round shield was shattered into a thousand slivers of bronze, wood and leather. It sounded like a thunderclap, deafening and staggering the captain. Quickly the guardsmen threw themselves between their captain and this new demon of an enemy. Roguil Arn hewed again with the great axe, carving huge hunks out of the shields.
Against that axe, nothing the guardsmen did availed. The barbarians now stood in a solid line the full length of the battlements, with men behind them; and Roguil Arn fought laughing with one foot raised upon the second step.
There was not a tribe of all the first army that did not have some warriors there to gain honor for their descendants. But there was fear in the eyes of the guardsmen, the fear of death. Southron bodies were strewn everywhere between the two sides, and the stones had gone slick with blood.
Behind the guardsmen on the third step, Berowne leaned like a mountain against the rearward parapet. Wordlessly he accepted water from some of the men. There was confusion in the Tarendahardilite’s amber eyes, and the fat left hand trembled where it hung by the huge thigh, as if it felt still the sting of Roguil Arn’s blow.
Then a new man ran up the steps to the battlements. Ullerath strapped on his helmet and approached the captain while a man told him how things went. The Eglander went down on one knee beside his rival and put his hands to the big man’s shoulders.
‘Will you dare fight once more, grandfather,’ he shouted above the din, ‘or should I now become the captain, and tell Kiva you will not defend her?’
‘Do you call me old, you puppy?’ Berowne snorted. Perhaps four summers separated them. ‘By Goddess’ sweet breath, I can smell her upon your arm!’ He rose, and took up his great hollow helmet.
‘She has been complaining about this bedlam you have risen here. Are you not considerate enough, in beating back these barbarians, even to be quiet about it?’
The captain laughed, and embraced his rival, the metal of their corselets clashing. ‘There is a Madpriest of a barbarian at their center,’ Berowne said lightly. ‘Shall we set him down together?’ So they made their way through the triple ranks and went against Roguil Arn.
Around the Vorisal now a whirlpool of guardsmen swirled, some attacking, others sprawling on the stones near death. Desperately, like bees swarming stinging about the snout of some great-pawed bear who has laid bare their nest, the bravest and most foolhardy of the guardsmen threw themselves at Roguil Arn. And had it not been for these few, hurling themselves to bitter death, then surely the chief of the Vorisals alone would have broken through the ranks and split the defenders in two – and then the barbarians would have won the battle.
Now Berowne and Ullerath stood against him. First Ullerath thrust at him with his lance, drawing blood – Roguil Arn swung the ponderous axe, but the Eglander was too swift, and danced back. Then Berowne held his shield close before him and hurled the full weight of his body against the barbarian. Roguil Arn, unbalanced by the blow he had aimed at Ullerath, fell back four paces beneath the weight of the captain, and leaned against the parapet gasping. Then he rose, shook again his wild locks and kissed the bloody axe. He felt no pain, only the gladness of a good fight and the pleasure of his strength. Not even that enormous blow from the captain’s huge body had been enough to tear the beloved weapon from the hands of its master.
But in those few moments Ullerath and Berowne had rallied the defenders. All together, they beat back the renewed onslaught of Roguil Arn. The shield-wall was in place again, and all the guardsmen’s feet were planted firmly on the stones of the second step. So they held their ground despite all the fury and strength of the barbarians’ attack.
Soon the chieftains and the champions gave place to their fellows, the last of the warriors of the first array. Almost six thousand men had gone now against only a few hundred, and still the few hundred held their ground. They had done more than any man would have thought possible. But now they were weary, and blood and sweat stung their eyes in the shadow of their helmets. They cried out for water, for sleep and for respite: it was not granted. Against them the more than five thousand warriors of the second army were even then readying themselves.
There among the bustling crowds of men, no warrior stood taller than Born-Oro-Tirb of the Jalijhas. He towered over all other men, so that a man might be judged tall if the crown of his head reached to the hollow between Born-Oro-Tirb’s collarbones. He was the greatest champion of his tribe, but it was his father Gan-Birn who was chief of the Jalijh. To Gan-Birn Gorn-Tal now went. ‘O Chief,’ the Orn said, ‘grant me this gift: adopt me into your tribe so that I may fight at the side of your son.’
Gan-Birn was a tall man, but not nearly of a height with his son. He had a bald pate, long white locks at the back and sides of the head, and a great gray bush of a beard. There were lines about the old chief’s eyes, and his gaze gleamed craftily. He looked at Gorn-Tal, and took a fistful of his beard in his hand.
‘Chieftain of Orn, you have already fought, and won great honor according to the words of those who have come down off the heights. You cannot want for riches, for all of your tribe’s share is yours alone, to do with as you please. Why are you so eager to return to the fight?’
‘I have had dreams and seen the Gray Priestess. This battle will be my last. So I would gain what glory I can and kill as many of our enemies as I can, so that their spirits will serve as my slaves in the lands beyond.’
The old Jalijha chieftain nodded. ‘That was well spoken, the word of a fine man. You would do me honor, Gorn-Tal of Orn, if you would take the blood of our tribe. My own son will be your sponsor.’
So it was arranged; and even as the first waves of men from the second army were swarming up the ladders, the ceremony was completed. Gorn-Tal learned and spoke the hidden words of Jalijh. He swore friendship to the tribe, and he and Born-Oro-Tirb intermingled their blood and drank from the same bowl of beer. Thus Gorn-Tal of Orn was brought into the tribe of Jalijh. Then, shaking their weapons, Gorn-Tal and Born-Oro-Tirb led the Jalijhas up the high ladders and into the windy battle beneath the southern lance-tower.
Beneath the southern lance-tower fought the Pes-Thos led by their three brother-chieftains, Kan-Brin, Estar-Brin, and Aln-Brin-Daln. Climbing the midmost ladder was the champion of the Eldars, Poran-Dilg, whose boast it was that he alone of all the tribesmen had never used the bow. Huge of girth was Poran-Dilg, and his hands were the biggest of any man’s in the armies. Between Poran-Dilg and Roguil Am there was the fiercest rivalry, for they were the two greatest champions of all the men who had followed the black standard of Ara-Karn, and each boasted that his weapon was heaviest and best-biting.
Poran-Dilg had heard the great praise accorded Roguil Arn in the first of the fighting, and his ears burned with blood to better the deeds of the Vorisal When he had come down off the rocks of the coomb, Roguil Arn had looked to the totems of the Eldars first of all, a boastful look. But Poran-Dilg, his gaze fixed firmly to the heights of the battlements, had ignored the Vorisal chief.
Now he stepped down heavily from the parapet and waded through men to the very place Roguil Arn had held. He was grim as an old boar, Poran-Dilg: silver-bristled, bent-toothed and evil-eyed. He gave no war-cry, but raised the great axe and hewed mightily at the blazing shield-wall. He aimed to win where his rival had failed, and split the defenders at the middle of their lines. At his first stroke the Eldar carved and ruined two of the guardsmen’s shields so that a break opened in the wall and the barbarian line surged forward. But swiftly the guardsmen closed the gap and so the line held. Again Poran-Dilg battered the bronze wall, and again – slowly, grudgingly, the lines of armored men shrank back before him. They left their limbs and broken bits of blades and shields as a welcome-carpet for the bronze-shod feet of the chieftain of the Eldars; and the dolorous cries of the slain rose like a chorus against the toll of the alarm-bell of the guardsmen.
§
MEANWHILE Berowne and Ullerath ranged behind the triple lines, shouting words of encouragement and stepping in to do battle for any man weak with weariness or wounds. Youths from the refugees ran up and down the steps to the courtyard, bearing up vessels of food and drink to the embattled men. There was desperation there along the lines, for all the two officers could do. The men had had too little rest, and looked with dreadful eyes upon every man of them taken down on litters through the courtyard to the tent of the wounded. Ill could they afford the loss of a single man against those odds. They could not gain ground on the enemy, but lost it. Deep in their hearts they knew of only one hope, their last: that they might somehow force the barbarians back off the battlements. Then the advantage would lie heavily on the side of the guardsmen, and they might enjoy some brief breaths of rest. But the line of the parapet seemed a thousand steps away.
‘Ah!’ fretted Ullerath, ‘if only Father Ennius were here! Where is he, why does he not come?’ Restlessly the Eglander roamed behind the lines, gripping his lance firmly in his fist. He knew the confidence of the barbarians would be shaken only if one of their champions were slain. He cast his eyes over the barbarians to see which of them might be greatest, and his eyes fell easily on that one fighting beneath the southern lance-tower. There was none other of the stature of the Jalijha Born-Oro-Tirb.
Recklessly the Eglandic lieutenant ran the length of the triple lines, holding his shield before him and drawing back his lance. At the end of the lines he loosed the lance, leaning into the cast. True to Ullerath’s aim the heavy lance drove into the leather and metal shield and Born-Oro-Tirb’s sword shoulder, making the Jalijha howl.
Ullerath swept out his sword, broke out in front of the shield-wall and hurled himself at the towering man. Roaring, the champion of Jalijh tore the lance out of his shoulder and shield and threw it aside. Blood streamed from his shoulder; even so he raised sword and strove against the Southron. Great blows the swordsmen exchanged, battering each other’s shields.
But Ullerath had misjudged one thing. Death stood at the Jalijha’s side in human form, and it called itself Gorn-Tal. The Eglander did not face one barbarian champion, but two. Now these two, blood-brothers of the lesser sort, rained such blows on him that Ullerath could not strike back. He was driven against the lance-tower, sick with dread. The iron blades rained against his shield like smith’s hammers. Ullerath cast his eyes to the shield-wall. Weakly he cried for succor. Born-Oro-Tirb was laughing wildly, and in his heart the Orn prayed thanks to dark God, that He had granted Gorn-Tal such pleasure before he must die.
But Berowne, standing out of the triple lines once more, saw his lieutenant. With a sudden, savage thrust Berowne drove his lance deep into the shield-arm of the Orn so that the iron leaf burst out of the flesh on the far side. Berowne drew back on the lance, and the head in parting tore apart the bloody muscle, so that Gorn-Tal was stricken and had to fall back to the parapet. Then Berowne threw himself against the Jalijha’s chieftain’s son: the Tarendahardilite and the Eglander now joined forces against the barbarian, cutting him on the legs and arms until Berowne drove his lance against the Jalijha’s lower belly, deep into the vitals. The tall man paled and cried out. Then Berowne tore out the lance, and the black blood and juices gushed upon the stones.
Born-Oro-Tirb went down on his knees. Tears were streaming from his eyes and his young lips were moaning helplessly. But in his last moments he remembered his manhood, and glared on his foes who had slain him.
‘So,’ he mumbled, ‘you have slain me, you two – only two, and Southrons at that! This was my time, and no glory to you, for I saw the Gray Priestess and it was the Couple who have decreed that this should be. You will not live long, but the rest of us will rape and slay your famous Empress for all that you can do! – But leave my body here for my tribesmen to carry down to the encampment, and do not mutilate or boast over my corpse, or else Gan-Birn my father will seek you out, and roll both your bloody heads down the slopes of the roads of this city!’
So the Jalijha mocked Berowne and Ullerath – uselessly, for neither knew the tongue of the far North. Ullerath kicked the body aside, and the two friends stepped back behind the shields.
