Doom-Quest of Ara-Karn 4 Darkbridge Read online

  Now all along the end of the square, lines were forming, many rows deep between the dark base of the tower and the rock-filled coomb. There were some from almost every tribe there – the strongest, the most wild-hearted, the most famous. Ven-Vin-Van led the greatest Borsos, Sur-Pal and Bel-Kor Jin were there, with many Fire-Walkers, the strongest Durbars, knife-wielding Loit-Garni, Vorisals under the leadership of Roguil Arn; Pes-Thos, Jalijhas, Archeros, Kamskals, men of Gundoen’s tribe, led by Kul-Dro; Fulsars, Bolk-Girns, Sirgols, Erin-Gar-Birn and his finest Roighalnis, Gise-Nathos, men of the Goat-Tribe, Kagions, Gerinthars and Necistrols. Never before, never more, would such men fight together.

  In deep rows they stood before the ladders, shifting helms, tightening straps and clasps, sharpening blades, loosening the thongs of arrow-sacks. The ash and stone dust had by now crept into their beards, nails, skin and wounds in spite of all their efforts to clean themselves. They stood discolored like the stones heaped about them. By degrees they ended their preparations. Their voices fell away. They looked up along the narrowing lines of the ladders to the dark cliff of the parapet. They were violently still.

  Gigantic, primordial, they leaned against the sky and cast their eyes inward to the center, to the grimmest of them, Estar-Brin the Pes-Thos.

  High above them, Erion Sedeg rested his hands on the bull’s-hides and looked upon the defenders somewhat below him. Erion Sedeg could see into their eyes, which dimmed with doubt and fear.

  Erion Sedeg reached into a barrel that was by him. He drew an arrow. He strung his bow with care, as if the act were a pious observance. He drew the arrow to his ear. He cast his eyes over the men there, men with no armor who held their shields improperly. The death-bird flashed through the air and buried itself in a man’s belly – he screamed as he fell and died. Instantly the shields clashed together.

  Erion Sedeg smiled. That scream had been more pleasing to his ears than the chanting that had gone before.

  ‘O my master,’ he whispered, ‘hear that, and know that I consecrate every death to you.’

  He plucked another arrow out of the barrel. The barb plunged into a bare shoulder. His third shot tore off one guardsman’s ears. His fourth burst through a stout man’s throat. The defenders were surging about now, despite all the calls and curses of their commanders. Behind Erion Sedeg his men strung bows and set to work. Some used arrows wrapped with oil-soaked rags. Passing the arrows through the flames of the torches set along the sides of the platform, the bowmen sent them burning into the thick of the defenders.

  The guardsmen and Tarendahardilites fell underneath that rain of fiery iron. The bitter smoke clouded their eyes. Fear like sickness caught them at the belly. They did not dare raise their heads above the rims of their shields. On their knees, they listened to the clatter of the iron rain. They shrank back a pace or two behind the parapet; the line of the shields was ragged; the lances lay useless on the stones.

  Suddenly the barbarians were over the parapet and on the battlements. The rain of arrows went on, passing over the heads of the barbarians to afflict the rearmost guardsmen. Fifty shafts grew out of the poles of the Beak, setting it on fire. The barbarians swept the shield-wall back. The guardsmen drove desperately against the onrushing black forms, but their efforts were confused and did little. Shattering weapons and breaking shields thundered about them. The manfall was the heaviest yet in the battle, and on both sides. There were no voices raised save for grunts, screams, or groans. There was no order. Only madness, like a sea.

  In the dark confusion Ampeánor was pushed back and lost in the midst of the defenders. Then he rose up and drove through the crowds. For a while he was as voiceless and unconscious as the rest. Then he found his voice.

  ‘For Rukor!’ he cried. ‘Rukornai! Rukornai!’

  Desperately Ampeánor tried to peer through the press of men, the waving arms, smoke and flames, to make out what was going on. At the center the grim man with the long sword raged and fought like a maddened beast; to the south the tall barbarian matched him stroke for stroke, backed by Vorisals like him and seven Fire-Walkers, men terrible and unwoundable. Only beneath the southern lance-tower did the defenders stand firm, where Berowne and Ullerath fought like brothers against Sur-Pal and Bel-Kor Jin.

  The press of men forced Ampeánor back; the tides of blood and steel set his place. Below the southern lance-tower, the guardsmen had all but despaired. At any moment they might be routed or slaughtered. Already they had given back to the door of the lance-tower, midway on the third step – less than three paces more, and they would be fighting on the steps down to the yard. If the barbarians gained the lance-tower door, they might descend into the Citadel grounds, storming the inner gates from within.

  Ampeánor made his way back out of the press. He forgot the grim man with the long sword. He drove men out of his way, and reached the door of the southern lance-tower.

  There the sword-blows rang like broken bells the high carven walls. Corpses littered the steps, making the footing treacherous. A knot of men followed at the lord of Rukor’s heels. Ampeánor and his men drove the barbarians back, adding to the heaps of the dead. Like stalks of grain in the mowing-time, when the farmer takes his bright sharp scythe in his weathered hands and sets to flailing in the easy rhythm the long years have taught him, and the stiff stalks go down in windrows – so the men fell there, heavily on both sides. In the end the corpses mounted waist-high, defining paths as obscure and tortuous as those of a Vapio pleasure-thicket. And Ampeánor alone of the defenders there was left alive, bent over, leaning gasping on his shield, sweat streaming over his face, his back against the door.

  Before him, the barbarians hung back behind the sheltering bodies of the dead.

  Only one moved forward: the huge man with the heavy battle-axe. Delight shone in his eyes. He stopped before the Rukorian, on the other side of a pile of bodies, and smiled.

  ‘So this is how He will have it,’ the giant said in the tongue of the far North. ‘Like this it is better.’ He spoke not boastfully, but loudly enough so that his onlookers could hear. ‘Only when the smaller trees have been lopped down do the tall ones on the hills stand out in their true glory.’

  ‘Barbarian,’ growled Ampeánor in that same coarse tongue, ‘have you lost all sense? These were good men who lie here, and their passing is a sadness and a waste.’

  ‘That is nothing,’ the giant said. ‘Their deaths add to our honor. Do not speak false, pious words, Southron – you feel it as I do. I see in your face how your hearts wants to laugh for the delight of victory and the deaths of your enemies by your hands: so laugh, and then we fight! By your death I will win my greatest victory. I will have my men bear your armor and sword around the camp three times to proclaim my strength. Who knows? I may even gain the Warlordship in my age! Listen if you do not already know it, and learn that I am Roguil Arn the Axe-Bearer, chief and champion of the Vorisals, a tribe that gives place to none other!’

  ‘Enough talk.’ Ampeánor was weary. He was tired of both the smell of death and the big man’s boasting. He raised his sword. The blue Raamba steel did not even have a bite broken from its long edge, after all the lives it had taken. ‘Come fight then, if you dare.’

  Roguil Arn threw back his head laughing. ‘Southron, you speak like a tribesman! Why is it we have never heard of you before now? I deem it a shame to kill you, but such is the way of God.’

  The Vorisal brought up his axe, as the Rukorian brought up shield and sword.

  Then they fell upon each other.

  Like rains in the hill country, like stallions waging war over a lovely, heated mare, like combat-gerlins, the two came together. The shock of it reached into the thick of the battle – even to the center of the barbarians’ lines – even to the ears of Estar-Brin.

  The Rukorian fought with the Raamba sword and round shield; the Vorisal with his war-axe and a small targe of bull’s-hide and iron. The massive head of the axe crashed on Ampeánor’s shield, and any other shie
ld would have burst into shivers from that blow. But Ampeánor’s shield held.

  The blow of Rukor fell a heartbeat after the barbarian’s – the sword-blade struck off the haft of the axe and was driven down, so that it slashed open the leather at Roguil Arn’s left hip, drawing blood.

  Again the barbarian swung his weapon, back-handed. Ampeánor ducked below the sweep of it, rose and slashed upward. But the blow caught on the Vorisal’s small shield. Sparks flew from the iron, lighting in the barbarian’s sparse beard. Both men laughed, stepped back, and tore into each other anew.

  So it went on, blow for blow.

  The barbarians thereabouts fell back in awe of the combat they were witnessing. Any one of those blows would have been the death of lesser men. How long it lasted, no one there could say, but it seemed that surely hours passed while the two champions stood and hewed at each other. Now the Vorisal raised his axe over his head and struck down furiously, grunting, leaning into the blow – now the Rukorian twisted, and his swirling sword-blow flashed like smoke before Roguil Arn’s face. And at last, in the end, the blue blade met the down-rushing handle of the axe, and the wood was shattered. The huge axe-head broke off the handle and flew on twisting, to slam flatways with hideous force against the Rukorian’s naked shoulder.

  Roguil Arn grunted, and looked bemusedly at the stump of his beloved weapon. The metal-studded wood had been sheared clean through. He blushed. It was as if he had been found naked among a strange tribe’s women.

  Ampeánor was in a worse state.

  There was no longer any feeling in his shield-arm. It hung limply at his side, and he could not raise it. The shoulder, where it was bared above the shield-rim and below the yoke of the armor, was black as a beetle. Purple blood oozed from it. The pain was greater beneath the armor, where the bones met. They were shattered, perhaps, or else the bone had been torn out of its socket. Black rings spun before his vision; what little he saw wheeled in pairs before him, and shapes and colors ran like rainwater on a wall.

  His head was bowed, he could not lift it. He looked down. He saw twin swords there, faintly. He believed that he might fall. A distant, jarring, roaring rang in his ears. He did not even know that it was the sound of Roguil Arn’s laughter.

  ‘O God, I give you thanks!’ the young chief cried to the sky. ‘Truly, here is an enemy to behold! He has bereft me of my axe, and yet will not press on! Southron, to you also I give thanks. This was the best fight I was ever in. I look forward to our next! We will meet again, we two!’

  So saying, Roguil Arn drew back, and with him went all the Vorisals who were there. They descended the rope ladders, went in a mass through all the crowds in the square, and drank water mixed with wine in the cool shelter. Their burning bodies were sponged clean of muck and blood; Roguil Arn waved the broken haft over his head, and his followers regaled the onlookers with the tales of that combat.

  On the third step before the lance-tower door, Ampeánor swayed a little on his feet. The sweat ran stinging in his eyes. He was gasping. His fury had gone. Now he knew pain. Far away from him the battle raged on, and the guardsmen were driven backward into one another. Dire cries were raised between the lance-towers, beneath the red lines of the arrows.

  Ampeánor shook his head. He felt sick, and his knees were trembling. He might have had some rest behind the lines, maybe. But that too was denied him. He was the sole guardian of the tower door. Slowly he raised his head, blinking away the tears.

  A man stood before him, a barbarian.

  Ampeánor recognized the grim warrior of the long sword.

  Estar-Brin nodded. ‘So you are back,’ he said. His voice was thick; he might have been drinking. ‘Good.’ He lifted the great iron sword two-handed, and swept it up behind his head.

  Only at the last moment was Ampeánor aware of the danger. Then he turned, bringing up the shield – so little, but enough. The staff-like blade struck off the metal, showering sparks. The force drove Ampeánor to one knee. His mouth was open and loose with pain, and dark tears sprang from his eyes like blood. Perhaps he cried out, a groaning prayer to the Mother Goddess; it went unheard in the clangor of the blow.

  Again Estar-Brin drew back the blade. He swung it in a wide, easy loop into the sky, over his head and down. The sword smashed into the metal and slashed the Rukorian’s leg above the knee. Estar-Brin grunted, and gathered back the blade. He struck again. And again. Hatefully he did it, not to slay but to smash, not to eliminate but to destroy. At any time the Pes-Thos chief might have aimed his blows differently and killed. Instead he went on pounding on the crumpling shield.

  The Charan of Rukor huddled helpless beneath those blows. Long since then had he lost the Raamba sword. He could not even move out of the way. The blows burst over him, echoing off the walls. Beyond the flawed circle of the shield he could see the barbarian draw back his arms and drive them forward again, bending his body into the blows. So might a man have done with a ponderous hammer, driving tent stakes into unyielding soil. Behind him the flaming arrows flew in long flat curves over the battle, orange and red against the blue-black of the southern lance-tower.

  Then the shield split open on Ampeánor’s arm, even to the leather bands, and the pieces flew to either side. The force drove Ampeánor down so that he half lay on the bloodied stone. Around him the piles of corpses hid the battle. Awkwardly he leaned upon his left arm. That arm was all blue and gray. A long gash opened there. Only the locking of the bones of the elbow supported the weight of the upper body.

  Estar-Brin paused. Drawing off his helmet, he wiped the sweat from his brow. He leaned against his sword then, and exulted in his triumph over his fallen foe, the killer of his brother:

  ‘So now at last I have you and you cannot run from me, Southron. No, there is no escaping for you now! I wish I could drag you even as you are before the deathbed of Aln-Brin-Daln and slay you at his feet. Then we would be sure to see his face smile in death. Then Kan-Brin would know there are no such things as portents. So I delight in your death, for it grants me not only vengeance for one brother’s life but the way to return courage to the heart of the other as well! He will see your severed head at least, stuck over the feet of Aln-Brin-Daln: and he will know that all he foresaw and feared was nothing but a lie.’

  So Estar-Brin of the Pes-Thos vaunted his victory and lifted his sword for the death-blow; but his words were empty and even then death hung over him like a tent-roof, inescapable. Even as the sword was at its highest, an arrow shot by one of Erion Sedeg’s bowmen strayed and bit burning into Estar-Brin’s arm. The Pes-Tho swore, distracted; but Ampeánor with his last strength rose up and drove his war-knife to the hilt into the barbarian’s belly. Estar-Brin twisted away, and the blade tore free from his middle.

  The High Charan staggered to his feet, ready to duck and lunge as he had learned as a boy, when a master seaman of the Rukorian Isles taught him the arts of knife-fighting. But the barbarian ignored his foe. Silently, holding his hands in vain over the opening in him, Estar-Brin left the fighting. At the parapet he encountered Sin-Galk and Tarestir Aln, two tribesmen of his. These he stopped and said,

  ‘I die. Dark God has forgotten me and all the blood-offerings I gave Him. Three were we, one hand, one heart, and one face; and when we fought together none could beat us. Now we are only one, and he I think will not survive me, if he prove a man. But I have done all that a man might ask of me, and sought vengeance for my brother. See that my body is brought to our shelter, for Estar-Brin will take passage in the barge of Aln-Brin-Daln, and together we will seek the World Beyond. As for my brother Kan-Brin, tell this to him from me: that a barge that holds three is not a thing unheard-of.’

  So he died calmly, who had lived so fiercely, bastard-born and despised by the others of the tribes. He died unavenged and unavenging, but he knew neither hatred nor regret for the battle around him or for the man who had slain two brothers and unmanned the third. Estar-Brin thought only of his brothers, and died gladdened at heart that
he should not leave the world parted from them, alone, but go in the company of one at least.

  Sin-Galk and Tarestir Aln did all he had bid them, but not for all their strength could they unbend the dead fingers clutching the handle of the famous sword. And even when he heard his brother’s dying words and knew that all the camp would know them also, Kan-Brin shook his head and clasped his hands and would not go into battle.

  And still the barbarians of the last army swarmed over the parapet and flung themselves against the dwindling defenders. Ampeánor had regained his sword and gotten another shield off one of the corpses.

  He fell back into the lance-tower and bolted the door behind him.

  ‘Now,’ he said, only dimly aware that there was no one there to hear him, ‘you will pass this way only after I am dead.’

  * * *

  Once more Gundoen awoke. Slowly he wrung the sleep from his head. In the shelter of the dark cloak, he might have been some big, misshapen bear, rousing itself from its long winter bed. Resting on the rags the huge bandaged paws swelled and shrank. He did not know where he was; he had forgotten this place from his last waking and thought he was back in the little stone cell beneath the ground.

  ‘If I die, my son, do not forsake Hertha-Toll. Even as I am your father now, so too is she your mother. She was a good wife to me, little complaining. Never did she mistreat my concubines except when they deserved it. You will see to her needs, lord?’

  ‘Why should I have to, when you will be sitting beside her into your great age? But yes, Gundoen: I will see to her. You have the word of Ara-Karn on that.’

  It seemed he had seen his son when he had first awakened here. Or had that been a dream? Just now, Gundoen had been dreaming of Hertha-Toll. That was what reminded him of the words. But what had the dream been like? He could not remember.