The Hammer of the Sun (26 page)

"Oho!" exclaimed the leading footsoldier less harshly, for all that his voice was rough, and with a glance up at the rider he advanced upon them. The other footmen looked scarlet-faced and panting, but he seemed to breathe easily enough. The face below the helmet was lantern-jawed, of late middle years and weathered the hue of brick; his nose and cheekbones were a mess of scarlet veins, and wispy colourless eyebrows shadowed very cold blue eyes. His expression was still suspicious, though he was evidently taking in the marks of their exhaustion and Elof s bloodstained clothes. "Been mixin' it with the man-eaters, have yer? Well, but What'd you expect if you go strayin' off into the Highlands, then? As soon clamber up Hella's quim; what sort of a way is that to be gettin' to my lord king?" He stiffened suddenly. "Or don't tell me the bastards bore you off from the Lowlands…"

"They took us some way northward," said Elof. "A week's march, maybe. For that is where we came ashore, when our ship foundered. We are not of your land, soldier, but from its sundered kin across the oceans; we come as emissaries and as friends."

The mounted man straightened up in the saddle so sharply his armour rattled, and the other soldiers exclaimed in a blend of excitement and disbelief, cut off at once by a peremptory wave of his glove. "A marvel indeed, it seems!" he remarked to the footman. "An emissary from all the way over the seas, he claims?"

"I do," answered Elof calmly, but with weight. He seldom minded how he was addressed, but he was not going to defer to this young puppy who would not address him directly.

"Well now!" remarked the footman, with an elaborate show of courtesy. "That's fine, very fine. Because, by Verya, an emissary's got no cause to conceal his name and quality from lawful authority, has he now? From a captain of the First Line like his lordship 'ere?"

"No indeed!" said Elof, increasingly nettled, though he knew well he could not reasonably expect to be believed at once. "I make you free of them. I am Elof, called Valantor, Mastersmith of my land's guild, and this is Master Roc, my friend and helper." He raised a hand to his neck, striving to stop its trembling, while the captain swung himself dubiously out of his saddle. "As earnest, my stamp of rank."

Captain and sergeant took one look at the carved jewel Elof held out to them then looked hard at each other. "Ah…" began the captain uncertainly; but the sergeant seemed in no doubt. He rapped out an order, and behind him the ranks rippled like mown grass; the horsemen bowing low to their saddlebows, the footmen hastily kneeling. So did the sergeant, but upon one knee only; the captain, after dithering a moment, bowed low from the waist. Roc cocked a sardonic eye at Elof. "Know any more tricks like that?"

"I'm not quite sure what I've done!" admitted Elof. He had murmured, and in northern dialect at that, but the soldiers were on their feet so fast he feared they had overheard. Then he understood; the salutation had been impressive but perfunctory, a purely formal honour to someone they were giving the benefit of a considerable doubt. These folk evidently valued appearances.

"Still, shows they've a sound respect for smithcraft anyhow," remarked Roc. "You ought to like that."

"And something about the land itself, perhaps," answered Elof quietly. "If so, I like that less."

Captain and sergeant were conferring, while the horses began to stamp and chafe in the lines. Now the captain turned back to them and doffed his helm, revealing a square, slightly boyish face below blond curls, with a nervous flutter at the corner of one eye. "Well, noble sirs," he began, a fraction more politely. "I regret, though it is hardly surprising, that I have no orders concerning such unexpected guests. This is too deep for me, or any, I think save my lord the King himself. And his Court Smith." His eyes, lighter blue than the sergeant's were studying Elof's face for any sign of dismay at that, and themselves grew uneasy at what they read there. "I am taking steps to send you to him at once, and speedily; the transport that landed us awaits still at the riverhead. Aurghes here will command your escort. For your own safety, please be guided by him in all things, however restrictive this may seem. As you have had occasion to find out, these are troubled times. We will provide horses for you - or if the mastersmith cannot ride," he added, considering Elof's blood-stained clothing and forestalling an angry outburst from Roc, "we will happily draw him down in a litter…"

However polite, it was a command; Elof shrugged, unwilling to be hoisted about like a sack of potatoes.

"Of course. If it is not too far, I will try to ride. But ere we depart, we have endured days with little food, and stand in some need…" The captain nodded curtly, gestured to the sergeant, who snapped his fingers at his men; they fumbled around belt and harness, and produced the usual scraps and morsels that patrolling soldiers will carry with them. They were mostly young men, some very young, their faces much like any of their contemporaries in Morvanhal, but without the open quality he might have expected there. When he thanked them they neither grinned nor saluted, and some bowed their heads in an instinctive way that irritated him. Then at a word from the captain two dismounted and held their stirrups for Elof and Roc; evidently they were meant to do their eating on the move. Elof wavered as they helped him up; the saddle was not the kind he was used to, high-bowed and stiff. The captain rode past and the troop wheeled into formation around them, Roc urging his mount clumsily up to Elof s side. "All right?" he growled. "I know you rode a bull bareback and all that as a lad but…"

"I'm fine," said Elof impatiently. "Just let me get some food in me…" But the captain barked an impatient order, and the troop wheeled about as one, fell into file and went thundering away downhill. The travellers' mounts responded with the rest, so swiftly they almost toppled their riders from the saddle; there would be no sudden escapes on these well-trained beasts. Over the slope they clattered, stones scattering and rattling away in little avalanches beneath their hooves, and a cloud of yellow-white dust boiled up around them, sparkling with mica. Not even that, though, could keep Elof from the food he had been given. It was rough, some kind of tough dark bread and even tougher morsels of dry meat and cheese, but it heartened him so much he had to take care not to overeat, and be sure Roc had his share.

He needed it, for the ride that began thus soon gave him cause to regret his pride, and ere it ended left him slumping in his saddle, borne up by Roc at his side. At first he could still take notice of the view from the path, looking down upon low and tangled scrubland and then the tops of dense pinewoods, cool in the evening haze; but by the time the troop went thundering among them the light was failing, and his sight blurred. They looked strange, stunted, so much lower and thinner they were than the pines of his own land. And though their familiar scent drifted around him, it was oddly mingled with others he did not know. Even the soft bird-calls among the branches sounded strange. To his exhausted mind he rode through the distortions of a feverish dream, subtle and sinister; he doubted even the flecks of light that flickered in the distance, flitting this way and that about a great bulk of shadow beyond the trees. He
half feared that even the solid shadow of Roc
at his elbow might suddenly distort and melt into some nightmarish shape. Only when he heard the sharp challenge of a sentry, in much the same words as in his own land, did he realise the shadow was a wall, and that they had come to some kind of strong place; he heard sounds he knew well from campaigns with Kermorvan, the familiar firelit bustle of a busy military post. "
Stand! Who goes? Under which King
?" "Under Lord Nithaid," answered the captain coldly. "And about his business. Anehan captain of horse, with…" The hesitation was slight, but it rang in Elof s hearing. "
Arrivals
to take ship for the City at dawn. So pass us to the landing-stage, and look lively about it!" They clattered on through a narrow arch; the wall was high, and had a strange look about it, but in the torchlight Elof could not be sure why. They passed between a cluster of buildings, low and austere, and into the looming shadow of a tower. It was of no great height, not more than four or five stories, but very strong in the building, and fortified all around its peaked roof. It reminded him unpleasantly of the Mastersmith's lair, and that added the final touches to the nightmare. The riders passed through another gate, and beyond the lights; darkness fell deep again. He could not think why the hooves sounded so hollow all of a sudden, and when they helped him from his saddle, heavy-limbed and shaking, he stepped down into that darkness as if it were deep water.

He awoke, shivering, beneath a pile of coarse blankets that reeked of horse. Looking up, he saw only the canopy of a leathern tent, silvered with dew; beyond its open end the air was grey with heavy streamers of mist. A chill droplet struck his bare neck, and he reached about in sleepy haste for his clothes. They lay beside him, foul enough to make him shudder as he pulled them on, but he was heartened to find his pack and sword with them, all intact; whatever the captain had meant, they were not prisoners to be disarmed yet. There were voices not far off, indistinct yet tantalisingly familiar. He swung onto his feet, then staggered and fought wildly for balance. A moment he thought himself still sick, then realised that he stood upon caulked planking, that truly was heaving gently underfoot to the tune of a hundred muted creaks and groans. Gingerly, still striving for his balance, he peered through the opening and stepped out.

He found himself on the deck of a beamy barrel of a boat, of the old-fashioned kind called a cog, with high bows and stern which might have looked comical had they not been topped with catapult platforms. Beyond the stern, and the sail that hung limp and slick with damp, the top of that ominous tower glimmered through the mist; they must still be at mooring. From the bows, where the smoke of a brazier entwined with the mist, Roc's voice hailed him to break his fast. Aurghes the sergeant was there also, seated crag-like by himself, and some eight troopers lounged around the decks, wrapped in cloak and blanket; three or four dark-haired sailors, busy with line and tackle, were cursing them roundly in a rolling speech. The soldiers seemed not to know it, or they might not have lain so docile under its lash, but Elof understood; it might have been the Nordeney speech of his boyhood, for all the strange turns and twists it sometimes took. Roc made him known to the shipmaster, Trygkar by name, a smoothfaced old man so expressionless and bland that Elof guessed he was enjoying his crew's barbed humour.

"It is only the wee breeze of dawn we are after," he remarked, "to shift this mirk, and then away downriver to the capital. What river? Why, Heryonas, to be sure, that we northerners call Eran; you have come down into the Vale of Heryonas, Tel Eran. Down Heryonas to Yskia-nas lies our road, and down Yskianas to great Kerys the City herself." A cool breath touched Elof's neck as he named that august name, as if it had some summoning craft of its own; suddenly the mist-serpents were writhing weirdly in a freshening wind. "By your leave, gentles!" said the shipmaster hastily, and strode past them to bellow orders at his crew. Elof turned to watch, and found the sergeant at his back; he must have moved noiselessly as a cat, to listen in on their conversation. Pointedly he turned his back on the man.

"So, not a foot further to ride," grunted Roc, as the squaresail flapped and fluttered above them. "Which will at least give you a chance to recover a little…"

"Thanks, Roc. But I'm well enough now."

"To gather your strength, then. You may have need of that; we both may."

Elof made no answer to that. They leaned on the rail and watched the cog pull away from the fort at the riverhead, that seemed to materialise now out of the thinning mist. Suddenly Elof leaned over and peered, and swore under his breath. "You see that?"

"What?"

Elof glanced at the sergeant out of the corner of his eye. "I don't want to point. Just look at that wall…"

"Kerys, yes! You can see it against the tower, the buildings; they're ancient, of weathered stone, but that wall's spit-new!" He watched the emerging sunlight play on the raw face of the stone for a moment, sucking his teeth as if at some ill taste. "So even well within its bounds Kerys needs strong walls now. Those reivers have a long reach." The cog glided out peacefully into the centre of the stream riding easily on the freshening wind, and the mooring soon vanished behind a slight bend in the river, hidden by the vale's steep flank. But for some time the tower could still be seen above the pines, and it loomed longer in their thoughts.

Before that first day's end the pines themselves had fallen away behind. Tired of having his every word marked, Elof was wearily content to sit quietly and watch the changing banks of the vale; by day and at ease he no longer found its blend of familiarity and strangeness so unsettling. He soon began to notice other trees among the pines, of the broad-leaved, seasonal kind, and as the hours passed he saw their dominance established; straight birches, some of kinds he did not know, were joined by ash and elm and what he learned were chestnuts, but few of them approaching the heights he was used to. The same was true of the beeches, and Elof was beginning to think that this was a poor land for trees when the cog had to steer hard to avoid the corse of a great willow uprooted and toppled of its own weight into the river, almost blocking it. Its pale hair still lay outspread and waving upon the water like the locks of Saithana daughter of Vellamo, and branch and twig raked the cog's hull as it passed. There were more willows then, massive brooding trees trailing their grey crowns in the water like aged and brooding powers of the forest, casting their shadows cool and dank along the banks. And as the land grew less hilly they passed the first of the great oaks, gnarled and ancient and regal as kings of old, their broad branches overspreading the stream and diminishing it in their shadow. Not even in Tapiau'la the Forest had he seen any greater or more aged, and his awe grew when he saw that an immense avenue of them stretched out before him, flanking the river as if it were a road. When Roc pointed out the weathered remains of a high marker stone, with a carved figure of distance half hidden by thorny undergrowth, his suspicions were confirmed. The oaks had not simply grown thus; they had been planted beside that stream, surely at a time when it was a much used thoroughfare. They asked Trygkar; though taciturn by nature, he had taken some fancy to them when he found they both spoke the Northern tongue, and were experienced mariners. He agreed. "But how many hundred years since, who can say? Not me, gentles, not me, and there's few know the old Eran any better. These were wild lands in my grandsire's day."