Doom-Quest of Ara-Karn 4 Darkbridge Read online

  He undid the bar and, warily, kicked the door inward. The four men stooped below the low opening. The jailer thrust in the torch: the yellow flames cast their gleams off the crudely hewn little room beyond, and the unmoving bulk upon the floor.

  ‘Sweet Goddess!’ swore the jailer.

  The Gerso crawled down into the cell. He drew up the cloak to cover the huge body, then looked back over his shoulder.

  In the torchlight his face was awful to behold.

  ‘Help me bear him out.’ The voice equaled the face.

  The guardsmen had tears in their eyes. ‘Not in all this year have I seen the like,’ said one. ‘Is it as bad as it seems, my lord?’

  ‘No,’ answered Ara-Karn. ‘He feels nothing. He is dead.’

  * * *

  They brought him, at Father Ennius’ guidance, to the tents below the Iron Gate where the dead and dying lay. The jailers laid the great body down on a cot at the rear of a tent and hastened back to their post.

  Ara-Karn stood for some time, gazing down on the ruin that had been a chieftain of the far North.

  It was some time later when he emerged. He slipped out through the corner where the canvas sides overlapped.

  From the high black cowl of stone behind him the sounds of battle rang. Iron struck iron and screams and shouts of hatred bled into the air.

  Those sounds found their match upon the face of the man with black-green eyes.

  His skin, always darkened from sun and wind and the heat of his inner fires, had turned the black-blue of a thunderhead. Such a fury blazed in the dark eyes that perhaps no man had ever beheld in him, who ever held himself so well in hand when others lost their heads. His hands, long and sinewy, so fine and yet so powerful, worked, gripped, unclenched.

  He walked apart from the gates.

  Some of the Tarendahardilites saw him, and rushed to him, eager for some hopeful word of the defense. But when they beheld the aspect of his strides and face they fell back away from him, abashed and dismayed.

  Himself he strode through them like a raging god, oblivious to them. He saw them no more than the insects crushed beneath his boots.

  So he came to the dark grove, the last and most ancient stand of the Imperial gardens. He shoved through the thick pines and evergreens into the darkness, moving it seemed at hazard, unless it were his one aim to get himself apart from all manner of things human.

  He burst out into the small clearing, where a stone basin stood above the pit. The sight of it brought him up short.

  He stared at the crudely hewn stone. He knew its purpose: such things were scattered in dark places in all the lands where men dwell. He had himself partaken of the gruesome rituals such bowls were made for, when he and Gundoen had shared blood mixed with beer, and sworn undying fellowship and the common cause of vengeance.

  Ara-Karn approached the stone basin. Just beyond it sank the pit where, of old, the beasts would have been sacrificed. Deep in that pit, though he did not know it, delved the steps Berowne and Kuln-Holn had descended, to find the secret way out of the citadel into the city below.

  He had eyes only for the stone. It was centuries old. No doubt it had been chipped out long before Elna had first taken life. The blood of a thousand sacrifices had stained it so deeply, not any number of rains could ever hope to cleanse it.

  He had no beast with him to make a sacrifice.

  His sacrifice, maybe, he had left on the cot in the tent of the dying.

  He plucked free the blood-red opal brooch-pin cut in the likeness of a serpent’s egg, which held his cloak about his shoulders. The dark green hooded hunting-cloak fell unnoticed to the ground. He held out his arm over the bowl and clenched and let go his fist several times, until the veins stood out and the tendons were rigid leading into the wrist. His forearm gleamed with sweat like oil; strange markings mottled the skin, half drawing, half charactery; the markings seemed to match the eroded markings along the side of the stone basin.

  He dug the point of the pin into his arm and let the blood flow freely. His blood was not bright red like the blood of common men. It was dark, almost black, and thick as syrup, with a pungent odor that filled the clearing in the ancient grove.

  Then he stooped. He did not lift the bowl to Heaven on high, as was commonly done. But like an animal he lowered himself down to it, and lapped up his own blood like the beasts at fetid pools after the rains soak the earth.

  His hands gripped the sides of the basin with such fury that it seemed the stone might crack beneath them.

  He lifted up his head. His face dripped his own blood and his lips were black with the syrup he had drunk. And his eyes—!

  He began to mutter words in a tongue so old, the stone of the basin might still have been forming deep in the bowels of the earth when they were first heard. Rage and madness shone from his face like the clouds above the bright horizon that reflect the light from the Blessed Shores.

  His shadow at his feet darkened and grew. It crept up behind him, and reached high above him in the air. Then it bent and arched over, and reached its huge arms deep underground.

  ‘You who died here and were buried unvoyaged,’ he breathed, ‘O you slaves and conquered ones! Now is the hour of your vengeance! You knew him – knew his firstborn father, the one you called Tont-Ornoth. You were his kinsmen. Rise up, I command you, seek the light, stretch hands and arms out of the ground. Seek out those who did this to him, and let them feel your wrath!’

  * * *

  In the absence of their leaders the exhausted guardsmen wavered and gave back. Beneath the southern lance-tower there was no rest or comfort.

  The three Pes-Thos brothers were fighting with a ferocity the guardsmen had never known. As one man, monstrous, three-headed and six-limbed, the chieftains fought. Kan-Brin used a double-barbed lance, Estar-Brin a sword as long as he was tall, and Aln-Brin-Daln, the most murderous, laid waste about him with a long stave, the end of which was iron-shod and forged to a studded iron ball. One brother struck home his blow while the second drew his weapon back and the third raised his on high. The shield-wall shrank from that terrible onslaught; the three brothers laughed in their black beards. There was no question of countering those blows – it was all the guardsmen could do to save their lives.

  At the center of the lines Poran-Dilg beat back the men who faced him, strewing the stone with broken shields and broken men. All the ground that Roguil Arn had won, Poran-Dilg had now regained, and more. Through the press of men and metal the Eldar could see the inner gates. The guardsmen gave way, missing the supporting strength of their officers. But Berowne and his lieutenant lay strengthless atop the steps from the yard, stanching the blood of their wounds. Dearly had Ullerath’s recklessness cost the defenders.

  So Poran-Dilg advanced onto the second step of the battlement.

  Soon after him came the three brothers.

  And then all at once that half of the barbarian line swept onto the second step, crowding the defenders back. Men fresh to battle swarmed over the black parapet: Kerrin-Kalk with his Harvols, Grent-Hol with his Kamskals, Vurnar and some Vinkars. The Karghils’ chieftain Oro-Kang was there, hot for battle. Welo-Pharb and five of his Undains stood on the parapet and bent back bows to shoot over the heads of their allies on the lines. Ring-Sol urged on his Archeros. Estar Aln strove to prove his Korlas loyal warriors of Ara-Karn.

  And the men of Gundoen’s tribe were there as well, the tribe of Tont-Ornoth: big-shouldered Kul-Dro led them. As he drove home his blows the old spear-man sang out the war-chant of his tribe, loudly, in the hope that somehow in the stones of this dark place, Gundoen might hear them and take heart.

  Before this onslaught, terrible and bloody, the guardsmen stumbled and collapsed.

  The manfall among them was worse than their small numbers might bear. The wounded were borne to a tent pitched in the shadow of the cowl of rock. There the guardsmen lay on rags and straw, crawling with flies, in row upon long row. The dying men lay groaning with hideous dreams
of ceaseless war and suffering.

  Nor did their comrades on the battlements fare better. The front line still stood on the second step, but the other two were on the third. Groans and curses echoed among the metal-clad men; there was no longer room behind the men of the third line, they stood with their legs pressed against the rearward parapet. They were shaken most of all at the center beneath the blows of the monstrous axe of Poran-Dilg. The men there would have fled had there been the space for it. Only the close-shoving press pinned them there, like men chained to their doom.

  They knew they would be driven backward over the rear parapet. Then the barbarians would break open the Iron Gate and overrun the Citadel. There would be no escape, no future battles, no life. It was the end. So, slaughtered ignominiously, their bodies would serve the glory of the new conqueror and his savage men.

  ‘We must fall back!’ Ullerath shouted to Berowne. ‘The men cannot hold here. Let us take our places on the summit of the inner gates! For what other reason was this fastness built with twin sets of gates? So we may trap the barbarians in the yard between the gates and batter them with stones and lances!’

  The two men stood on the top steps by the southern lance-tower, close against the wall. Berowne looked back to the Palace and the squat Black Tower. ‘Truly, why do I fight here?’ he asked his heart. ‘My place is not here, I am no great captain in time of war; even Haspeth would outshine me here. I belong at Kiva’s side. That is how it were best for me to die, not here in a heap of men, but there at the door of her chambers, in her defense. Then at least I might hear her voice and drink in her scent as I died. Kiva, Kiva!’

  So the captain thought to himself, ignoring the pleas of his lieutenant, while all along the battlements the guardsmen slipped and fell to their knees in the blood and muck, and groaned, and wept, and cried out to Goddess as they fought – to Goddess, who heeded them not. And then they cursed Her, and Elna and the barbarians and the Empress and Ara-Karn all alike, for bringing them to such a miserable end.

  * * *

  All this Ampeánor saw as he stood quietly in the little doorway beside the inner gates. He regarded the lines of men fighting, their weapons raised like black pen-marks upon the clouds’ pale parchment. At either side rose the lance-towers; above them a half-score gerlins circled and swooped.

  A slight thrill of pleasure raced up the back of the lord of Rukor. The torments and anguish of his long wandering were forgotten. The Gerso and Allissál were forgotten. Battle waited on him, glorious battle of the sort he had dreamed of as a child, when he had shunned his father’s palace and his mother’s pleasure-fêtes. It was as if he had stepped from the cells of a madhouse into the open light of the world beyond.

  With swift hungry strides he crossed the yard. The light of Goddess gleamed off the great shield he held as easily as if it had been of linen. He ran up the steps below the southern lance-tower, lightly, like a youth in search of his beloved, and plunged into the sweating, bleeding, swearing mass of men.

  So the High Charan of Rukor entered the battle.

  There was no order there, no one voice to be heard above the din. No man knew him. Ampeánor was driven against the wall of the lance-tower. Then he put his hands to the carvings and climbed up somewhat above the level of men. His eyes scanned the lines of the enemy. He drew back the long lance. His eyes found a man. The lance shot forward, driven by all the strength in the charan’s arm and torso.

  Phal-Galn of Gundoen’s tribe, a broad-shouldered, unbearded youth fighting with abandon at the side of the three chieftains of Pes-Thos, used a square shield of polished wood and bull’s-hide: this he preferred to the metal shields because it was lighter to wield and because it was the sort his fathers had used. But the shield betrayed Phal-Galn, for the Rukorian lance flew through the nine folds of leather and bit into the spear-man’s chest. Phal-Galn was thrown backward onto the stones as though smitten by a thunderbolt, and death like sleep shut fast his eyes. He had no death-words, but his spirit broke from the corpse instantly.

  The guardsmen nearby turned open-mouthed to behold the killer. Before the others could name him, Ampeánor jumped down, passed through the ranks and stood forth alone against the barbarians. One hand held the treasured shield, the other drew the long sword. Beautiful it was and blue, the perfection of the centuries of effort by the armorers of Ul Raambar. It sang as it sprang from its scabbard, and Goddess broke from it with a thousand-colored smile.

  The uproar waned below the southern lance-tower.

  The guardsmen drew in the air whole lungfuls at a time. The sweat from their brows and chins dripped upon the darker dew staining the black stone.

  The barbarians wavered before this new foe. Perhaps they recognized him as that shining unknown warrior, the image of Elna, who had received the blessing of the Gray Priestess. A moment it lasted. Then they came at him.

  First were the chieftains of Pes-Thos, brothers, not one by one but three at once. With lance and sword and stave they buried Ampeánor in blows; but the shield held true. The lord of Rukor struck back, and the bright blade drank the blood of Estar-Brin, who howled with rage. Again Ampeánor struck between the brothers’ blows, and the Raamba steel rang off the long lance of Kan-Brin. The sword shattered the flame-hardened wood, and Kan-Brin was cast back from battle. Aln-Brin-Daln swept back his manslaughtering stave, and he drove it against the Southron lord with all the power in his arms. It was a blow like none other the chieftain had in all his life sent forth; doubtless even those stones, ancient as they were, never witnessed its like. Against that blow the great shield was useless, but Ampeánor skipped back, and the stave swung short and shot like a hammer against the stone of the step, shattering it.

  On the step was a loose stone, dropped from the Beak as it swung overhead: Ampeánor stooped over that stone. It was no paltry thing: two strong men, maybe, might have lifted it. Ampeánor gathered it in his arms and swung it up over his head. Then he cast it.

  The stone smashed the body of the Pes-Thos. Aln-Brin-Daln flew back three paces. There he lay, the stone atop him. He groaned, and wildly tossed his head, but strangely, made no move to remove to the stone. Kan-Brin and Estar-Brin ran to his side. They lifted the stone from off the body of their brother. Then it could be seen, what damage the blow had done. The ribs were all bent in along that side, and half the flesh was torn away from the big shoulder, and the neck was bent strangely from the shoulders.

  ‘Brothers, aid me,’ groaned the great chieftain, piteously: ‘the sky flashes dark before my eyes, and I have no feeling in my limbs.’

  The black-haired men bore up their brother and carried him to the rope ladders. His great form, bloody and gleaming, made a bridge between two ladders. He had killed his first man when he had had but eight winters, and his count before he came below the Iron Gate of Elna’s Citadel had been eight score and seventeen. He had been famous as one of the greatest of warriors and hunters, a man to leap a river in a bound in springtime; but beneath the terrible strength of Ampeánor of Rukor, Aln-Brin-Daln had found his doom, and he would do no fighting that pass.

  Aln-Brin-Daln and Phal-Galn were not alone that waking. Many tribesmen fell beneath the Rukorian’s strokes. On the walls of Tezmon his allies had fled from around him, and he had fought hopelessly and alone, backed against the pillar of some unknown merchant’s palace. Below the walls of Bollakarvil he had fought shamefully, on the side of the enemy. Here, at the last stand of the Bordakasha Empire, atop this mountain in the sea-winds with lonely desolation stretching to all sides, Ampeánor, High Charan of Rukor and pledged Consort to the last Empress, had found the fulfillment and full flowering of the grand dreams of his youth. Tireless he was and terrible, and the barbarians fell below his bloody strokes. All the champions and chieftains of the second army who still remained upon the battlements went against him, and fell; the others, lesser men with fear dashing their hopes, fled from him.

  Kerrin-Kalk of the Harvols and Grent-Hol of the Kamskals he killed; Oro-Kang of t
he Karghils fled from him, bloody, and had to be helped down the ladders. Estar-Aln of the Korlas was pushed before him, but ran without striking a blow. A warrior of the Undains, Jahln-Deg, stood upon his toes and aimed his bow at the Rukorian: the death-bird danced off the glorious armor and fell harmless to the stone, to be trampled underfoot in the surges of the battle. Ruas-Sthel, a spearman of Gundoen’s tribe, was unstrung by him and felt the Raamba sword sheathed in his vitals. Kuld-Fit-Valn of the Archeros, his mother’s sister’s son Lanh-Drom, Lang-Garn of the Kamskals, Ghol-Sli of the Jalijh, Woon-Bir-Karn of the Vinkars, Loit-Sert of the Pes-Thos – all fell before the Rukorian lord and were made ready for the barges of their tribes.

  Poran-Dilg roused himself now. The warriors beside him had turned to confront this new threat from behind them – turned and died. Now Poran-Dilg slowly bent his head and shook his heavy, bloody axe. He drew it out of the crushed shield of a guardsman and, so close to the rear parapet, turned about.

  The champion of the Eldars stood face to face with Ampeánor.

  Both men were tall, but the Eldar was taller of the two, and by far the broader. His brawny arms might have served the Rukorian for legs. Both men were covered in the blood of their foes and as yet unwounded. They stood with weapons poised in the thick pungent air, and the roar of battle fell to stillness as all eyes went to them, the two greatest on the battlements.

  Poran-Dilg raised his axe. ‘You have made me turn aside,’ he said. ‘Your skull I shall keep.’

  The Eldar stepped forward, driving the huge axe in a mighty blow. The Rukorian stooped behind the wall of his shield. The axe smashed the metal, gouging out chunks of gold and bronze, but the iron held and the lord was unharmed. Now he stood, and struck a blow; Poran-Dilg parried it with the butt of the axe.

  So they traded strokes, each man striving to pierce the defenses of his foe. The men around them counted the strokes. It seemed beyond belief that two mortals could sustain their strength so long, giving and getting such blows.

  Then the Raamba blade of Ampeánor fell from the parry of Poran-Dilg and cut into the flesh of the leg of the Eldar just above the knee. It was not a grave wound, but blood sprang from it, and this drew a cheer from the guardsmen. Poran-Dilg feinted, and drove a blow above the rim of the bright shield. At the last instant Ampeánor saw it, the huge brutal axe bearing down, and he bent. The axe-blade smashed against the strengthening ridge atop the Rukorian helmet and tore the thing from Ampeánor’s head. Blood started from the lord of Rukor’s ears. He staggered back, and there was no understanding in his eyes or strength in his mouth; and the barbarians cheered hoarsely.