Doom-Quest of Ara-Karn 4 Darkbridge Page 7
Ampeánor stumbled – his feet caught at a corpse – he fell.
Poran-Dilg jumped forward. Then Ullerath hurled a lance, and the heavy lance-head struck one of the Eldar’s ankles, smashing the bone. Poran-Dilg staggered, but held his footing. Ampeánor swung the brilliant blade two-handed. The sword cut in an arc that nothing might withstand. Like a black rainbow the blade flashed through the arm of Poran-Dilg, shearing off the huge hand wielding the axe. Axe and hand fell heavily on the stone; Poran-Dilg howled and fell to one knee.
Over him stood the lord of Rukor, bloody blade outstretched. The point of it ran under the Eldar’s chin through the thick beard, and touched the naked, corded throat.
‘So,’ gasped Poran-Dilg, ‘you scented, weakling Southron, you have killed me. Go on, finish what God alone has granted you: I have no life without that hand and my axe. Dark God gave them to me, and I repaid Him well with blood and slaughter; now, as is His right, He takes them back, and me with them. I go to Him gladly, for Poran-Dilg, best man of Eldar and strongest warrior in all the armies of Ara-Karn, will never be content to take pity from others or be less than the strongest. Death holds no terror for me: but by my blood upon these stones I curse this place and all who live here, and most of all you.’
Ampeánor brought the sword down upon the barbarian’s neck. Poran-Dilg did not even twitch beneath that blow, but stayed as he was and even brought up his neck to meet the blade.
And it is said that, when the body fell back in a tumble on the second step of the battlements, the eyes were still open, and the brows twisted in a glare of hateful triumph.
* * *
With the death of Poran-Dilg the sweet taste turned bitter in the mouths of the barbarians. They looked from the body on the stone to the Southron standing over it, bare-headed, furious.
It had been foretold long ago that if the barbarians should ever rise, then Elna would return. Elna, the unconquerable; Elna, the god.
Behind him the lines of guardsmen surged forward. They drove their wall of lance-points into the barbarians. Once more the clatter and clash of arms mounted from the peak. But now it was the barbarians who gave way, the guardsmen who drove forward. The barbarians were driven and penned in close together, so they no longer had space to wield their weapons. Man fell against man amidst murderous cursing. Those who fell beneath the press were trampled by their fellows. Back over the parapet – a few managed to catch at the ladders, but the rest leaped to their deaths on the stones below. Hundreds died in that butchering, and their groans rose ghastly against the Iron Gate.
The warriors in the square feared to touch the luckless ones whom dark God spurned.
So after so many hours of ceaseless fighting, the guardsmen regained the parapet.
* * *
In the square among the milling thousands, Gorn-Tal accosted Yan-Oro, chief of the Yurlings.
‘O Chief,’ said Gorn-Tal, ‘let me join your tribe, that I may fight alongside the Yurlings in the fifth army.’
Yan-Oro looked up at the Orn, who towered over the portly Yurling by a head and a half. ‘But how will you fight so, with your shield-arm torn and bandaged?’
The Orn grinned. ‘The fifth army will not do battle for a while. Maybe by then this will be healed.’
Yan-Oro’s eyes grew big at this, and swiftly enough he gave his assent, and let his kinsman Dairn-Yil sponsor the Orn. He revealed to Gorn-Tal the hidden word of the Yurlings, and mixed their blood together, and so Gorn-Tal of Orn entered the Yurling tribe.
Gorn-Tal went to Erin-Gar-Birn of the Roighalnis, and Gorn-Tal said ‘O chief, let me join your tribe, that I may fight at the side of the Roighalnis in the fourth army.’
Erin-Gar-Birn was a lean man, hard and shrewd. ‘But how will you fight, Orn, with your shield-arm torn and bandaged?’
‘The fourth army will not do battle for a while. Maybe by then this will be healed.’
Erin-Gar-Birn nodded. ‘I will let my uncle’s son sponsor you into our tribe,’ he said; and so it was done. Gorn-Tal learned the hidden word of Roighalni and mixed his blood with that of Erin-Gar-Birn’s uncle’s son.
Gorn-Tal went to Kurn-Vorna Aln, chief over the Fulsars, and Gorn-Tal said ‘O Chief, let me join your tribe, that I may fight at the side of the Fulsars in the third army.’
Kurn-Vorna Aln was even then binding on the last of his armor in the cool shade of his shelter. He was a small man, hairy, cunning, and suspicious, even as the little beast from whom his tribe had gained their name.
‘You have gone up the ladders already,’ he said. ‘You have done your part and more. Why would you wish to go again?’
Gorn-Tal answered simply, ‘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. Even so was I brothered to Born-Oro-Tirb and became a Jalijha to fight alongside their champion and bring glory to Gan-Birn and his son.’
‘Little luck you brought to either,’ Kurn-Vorna Aln said sourly. ‘Born-Oro-Tirb is slain, and Gan-Birn weeps like a woman in his tents. And how many of the Southrons will you kill so, with your shield-arm torn and bandaged? You will not even be able to climb the ladders, for we go even now into battle, and you are far from healed.’
Gorn-Tal signaled his slaves. With cords and linen they bound the wounded arm to the body of the chieftain, around the chest and from the neck; then they bound on the shield so that it could not fall or be struck off.
Kurn-Vorna Aln laughed. ‘Surely,’ he said, ‘no man who seeks death so eagerly as you do, Orn, should be hindered. I myself will sponsor you, and be proud that such a man would wish to call himself a Fulsar.’ So it was done, and the tall grim spear-man became a member of his fifth tribe, and went up the ladders alongside Kurn-Vorna Aln.
* * *
Now order was restored upon the gate. Ampeánor sent messengers to go among the camp of the refugees and find there all the men the Gerso had trained. These men were sitting in a mass before the tents, waiting. They wore leathern armor and held staves and scythes and hammers and knives of all sorts. They had known by the noise that they would be summoned to this battle. There was no despair nor eagerness upon their faces. The memories of the battles on the barricades in High Town were still fresh in their minds, though Goddess Sun had danced to North and South for a whole year.
The trained men stood. They said nothing, but looked up to the black cowl with faces unfathomable.
The messengers went on into the Palace. There they spread through all the stories and chambers of the huge buildings to summon all men to the Iron Gate. To slave, merchant and highborn alike the guardsmen gave the summons, and were rewarded with men of good will but lacking weapons or skill. And with the consent of her majesty the Empress, passed down by the high maidens of the White Tower, all the guards of the Imperial Household and the slaves were freed of their duties to go to save the Citadel.
One last summons remained undelivered, and the last guardsman went to give it. But when he knocked upon the door to the chambers of Ennius Kandi, the guardsman got no answer.
Emboldened, he opened the door and entered, but the chambers were empty. Nor could any man tell him where the charan had gone. He was not in the Southern Wing, in the levels underground, among the refugees or in the tent of the wounded. It seemed the man had vanished from the Citadel.
The guardsman went to the doors of the White Tower, and sent up word asking if the Charan Father Ennius were in council with the Queen. The maidens returned to take from him his last hope. Bewildered, he climbed down to the meeting-place of his fellows. They said that doubtless Father Ennius even then showered his shafts of death on the barbarians from the southern lance-tower. So the guardsmen led the hundreds they had reaped back to the battlements. But not even there would they find Ara-Karn.
* * *
Now the tide of battle had utterly turned. The lord of Rukor rested from his first gre
at outpouring of strength; he sat on the rear parapet and drank water greedily. By him, an armorer hammered the brilliant helm back into shape. Other men of the reserves gathered earth to scatter over the steps, so the blood should be absorbed and the footing bettered.
The third army of the barbarians were now climbing the ladders – warriors of lesser tribes, and half the mercenaries from the cities of the South. They went up the ladders, but even in the absence of Ampeánor the barbarians were struck dead by the score. The air below the Iron Gate was thick as in a slaughterhouse, despite all the mercenaries and slaves could do to cart away the corpses. The guardsmen and Tarendahardilites drove their lances pitilessly, happy for the groans and screams they were begetting. Not a single man of the barbarians could win again to the bloody parapet.
Forgotten now are those guardsmen and refugees, save for Berowne and Ullerath. Only some names are remembered: there was a Coriolarthil of Rukor, and a Shilvas of Vapio, and Egdar Borniltharn of the Eglands. There were two men named Ghirlando, Black Ghirlando and Bone Ghirlando. Their names alone survive, carved on the stone walls of the yard between the gates. The men themselves are gone. They did not fight as the barbarians, each man striving to do better than his comrades and gain a greater share of plunder. They fought together in the triple line under their leaders and their lord. Each man’s shield guarded his neighbor as well as himself, they thrust their lances in harmony and sang with one voice. So it is said that the barbarians fought only a single man upon the Iron Gate, a man of six hundred arms and heads, and but a single will.
Below them, the kinsmen of Ampeánor’s second victim were laying down their brother before the feet of Nam-Rog of the Durbars.
‘Nam-Rog, you know us,’ said Kan-Birn. ‘Always have we sided with you in the councils. Now our brother here has been wounded by the great Southron Elna-Ana, and though we have closed his wounds and wrapped cloths about his ribs, he lies in pain and cannot move. His breathing is clear, and he speaks and sees, but will not eat or move. It is said that you have skills of healing, and that you hold the herbs of Gundoen, which Hertha-Toll prepared for him before we crossed the Taril. Heal our brother, and be sure that henceforth the tribes of Durbars and Pes-Thos will be as one.’
The aged chief bent low, and passed his hands over the great sprawling body of Aln-Brin-Daln, he who once had been feared in all the huts of the far North.
‘Yes, I will heal him,’ he said, and drew his war-knife and cut the throat of the Pes-Thos. The black blood ran in great gouts out of the gaping flesh onto the stones.
Kan-Birn drew his own knife and would have fallen screaming on the Durbar chief had not a score of Durbar spearmen defended their chief.
Old Nam-Rog calmly wiped and sheathed his knife. ‘Rest easy, Kan-Brin, and you also, Estar-Brin. Did you not see that he was dying? Would you have enjoyed the hours of his pain? Or else he had somehow lived – then do you not see it must be only as a cripple, a man of no strength or mastery over his limbs or bowels? Men who live even a year so, will carry their deformities with them into the world beyond. Now he shall be reborn whole-bodied and clean, and be thankful for it.’
‘O Great Chieftain, and was this the best you could do for him, to complete the Southron’s work?’ cried Kan-Brin.
But Estar-Brin stood coldly by, his hands playing upon the long handle of his sword. ‘And have we not a hundred slaves who might have tended to him?’ he mused. ‘Had we not won three chests full of treasure, rightful payment for our deeds? O Chief, I do not blame you for your view. Maybe it is true. But the right to give the death-blow belonged to no one but Kan-Brin and me, and for that I blame you wholly. I go now to kill the Southron and avenge my brother. After that we shall put into a barge the body of our brother. And then I shall kill you.’
So the two brothers gave the corpse into the arms of some of their followers and went up the ladders in search of Ampeánor.
But Nam-Rog leaned against one of the stone disks of the fallen Pillar of Victory. He looked up to the men high on the narrow ladders, fighting and dying beneath the lance-thrusts of the Southrons. ‘May their wish be granted, and may they kill him soon,’ Nam-Rog murmured. ‘I do not like this Southron, the tales of him begin to trouble me.’
In long lines the slaves bore from the rocks the bodies of the slain. Nam-Rog and the chieftains had said that the order of the armies had been chosen by lot; in truth they had secretly ordered all the strongest tribes in the first two armies in the hope that they, in the first rush of battle, should conquer. Now of the last three armies there were few great champions, and the mercenaries, without Erion Sedeg, fought indifferently. The manfall was terrible, the gains scant, the hours over-long. The waiting warriors grew dispirited. The chiefs met in council, but did little more than count the men missing from the circle, men mowed down by the murderous strength of the Southron champion, him whom they could not cease from calling Elna-Ana, the Return of Elna.
Suddenly the battle on the Iron Gate waxed furious again. At one end of the wall Kurn-Vorna Aln and Gorn-Tal fought to gain the parapet; at the other Kan-Brin and Estar-Brin strove to reach Ampeánor. In great, battering strokes Estar-Brin swung his huge sword; even so, he could not pierce the shield wall. The others atop the ladders saw him, however, and fire kindled in their hearts.
The din mounted to the clouds, and the guardsmen began, very slightly, to waver.
Kurn-Vorna Aln saw it. He shouted into the ear of Gorn-Tal under cover of his shield; then the Fulsar stepped back down a rung. Gorn-Tal was fighting now with another of his weapons, a battle-axe one-bladed and backed with an iron spike. The Orn strove upward, battering and shattering the shields. A gap showed in the shield-wall. A groan of fear sounded from the lungs of the guardsmen there. They recognized this barbarian and were desperate to halt his onslaught. Four or five leaned out far over the parapet, driving their long lances at the twisting great body of the Orn. Then it was that Kurn-Vorna Aln shot up at the guardsmen with his short strong bow.
Those iron-beaked arrows at such short distance were not to be stopped by bronze, leather or bone.
They drove deep into the defenders’ bodies, to the feathers. The guardsmen cried out and died. They fell forward over the parapet. A break opened in the shield-wall. Gorn-Tal jumped up, shearing off lance-heads and shattering shields before him. Two fell beneath the blows, three more were wounded; the rest drew back.
Gorn-Tal stepped boldly on the parapet.
From the square below, the dark form of the Orn-Jalijha-Yurling-Roighalni-Fulsar seemed to burn in the sky like a beacon. All the warriors knew him. Lifting their weapons they screamed his praises into the stricken air. The uproar staggered the guardsmen.
It also brought Ampeánor back into the battle.
He saw the wild man on the parapet and the space around him. Quickly the lord of Rukor caught up his helmet and a lance and leapt forward.
Another barbarian was even then clambering onto the narrow parapet – Kurn-Vorna Aln of the Fulsars. Proudly he stood at the side of the Orn-Fulsar, his brother. Even then Ampeánor loosed his cast.
The lance flew true. The Fulsar brought up his small shield at an angle before his face, so the lance did not break through the layers of leather and studded wood, but skipped off and flew harmless into the deep empty air. Kurn-Vorna Aln, however, staggered back under the force of the blow.
The Fulsar chief stood at Gorn-Tal’s left. Had the Orn not been wounded in his shield-arm, maybe he could have reached out a steadying hand. But that arm was bound fast: and Kurn-Vorna Aln fell. Unwounded he toppled from the parapet, and his curses echoed off the iron as he fell. The men high on the ladders reached to catch him in vain. On the jagged bed of rocks the life broke from the Fulsar’s body. So his spirit rose to join those others hovering over the scene of the battle, in the hundreds, like two clouds, urging on with voiceless cries the deeds of their companions.
On the battlements the lord of Rukor moved to do battle with the chief of Orn. Gorn-Tal
without a word aimed a ferocious blow. The axe smashed against the shield. Ampeánor kept his footing, leaned forward and swung the blue blade at the legs of his enemy, at the knees where the vital strings are bared. Gorn-Tal leapt back; unheard-of, such agility in a one-armed man. So, dancing and dodging on the slick lip of the parapet with empty death on one side, the two warriors did battle. Furiously they exchanged blows to the cheers of the opposing sides.
Madly and in vain did the two brothers Kan-Brin and Estar-Brin shout at the Orn to cease. Then, desperately, they strove to gain the battlements. It was as if they would have fought through half the length of the shield-wall to reach the High Charan. But Berowne hurled an enormous stone into Estar-Brin’s face; the Pes-Thos was too swift, and the stone rolled down half the length of the ladder behind him, crushing men as it rolled. It was a marvel the ladder did not snap beneath the weight. The Pes-Thos rose again, and opened five wounds on the body of his enemy with the greatsword, jabbing it like a lance, so that the guardsmen called on the captain to give back; but Berowne would not. Ullerath fought his way to the side of his rival, and together they beat back the barbarian. Bloodied in a score of places, the Pes-Thos chieftain had to relent. Weary and dazed, the battle-fury beaten out of him like fire out of iron beneath the blows of a smith’s hammer, Estar-Brin swung down the rope to the bloody stones below, where Kan-Brin awaited him.
‘Glad enough of the sight of you was I this time,’ Berowne breathed, leaning on the Eglander’s shoulder. ‘But why save me, when you know I will take Kiva away from you?’