The Hammer of the Sun (58 page)

Elof felt intensely uncomfortable. "You make too much of me!" he said. "The King-over-sea is a man to follow indeed, a terrible warrior but wise also in the ways of peace. Look rather to him!"

Kermorvan smiled wryly. "Whatever the truth of this, I begin to understand your wish, and to believe you. But it is not something that can be decided in a moment. For one, are all your clan of the same mind?"

"There are many yet in our own land. Here, there are many still ashore, some forty ships or more; them also we put in peril. But of those here at sea, all who remain are of the same mind."

"All who remain?"

"A few were foolish, or face-turners. But have no concern! No ship is weaker save by a handcount, and the clan is stronger without them." He touched the bloodstain on his mantle. "They served us for luck-offerings."

"Then hear me!" said Kermorvan into the ensuing silence, as they pictured in their minds what bloody moments had passed upon those still ships. "For now you find it well to join us, and I should be glad to welcome such powerful fighters under the Raven and Sun; but much of what we command might chafe upon you. We do not offer lives, for one thing; and you may not be so glad when the day comes that you must strike against your own kin." He paused, and the chieftain nodded curtly again. "Very well then! Against all this, and treason, we must guard. Our welcome is hard, but the times admit no better. You and yours must live and act only as we direct, till such time as we hold you proven!"

The chieftain said nothing, made no move; but a strong pulse beat visibly at his jaw, and a stony pride was in his eyes. Abruptly Kermorvan surged to his feet, towering over him and all others on deck, and whipped from his belt his grey-gold sword. "This the Mastersmith Elof Valantor made me in the forges of the mountain folk! Say, will you swear fealty and obedience on it? For else upon its edge you dwell; and it has never yet been blunted! Speak now, or begone; I will have everything, or nothing!"

For a long moment the old man gazed at him, then with a sigh he seemed to collapse like a punctured bladder. He bowed his head, and fell to his knees and beat his forehead upon the planking. "As you wish it, King-over-the-sea! We are your hounds, and at heel we follow!"

In truth, as he explained readily enough afterwards, he had expected no less. It was agreed, among lesser precautions, that his ships should moor well apart, his men camp ashore in small groups under guard, in return for which they would both receive and help to gather supplies, chiefly fish; and that in battle by land or sea they would be set in a place where they might prove themselves at once. To this the chieftain assented, adding with a cold twinkle in his eye "But hurry the battle, lord! For we are not mild folk, to sit idle at the doors of our tents! We breathe honour as the air!"

"Battle and honour you shall have soon enough!" said Kermorvan. "For now nothing hinders the searching party! See that it is made ready, for it departs within this very hour!"

In his place he left Ils, as was his wont at home; but to aid her he commanded Roc as marshal of the fleet, much to his astonishment and disgust. "For you know the land, and are a man of hard counsel, well suited to such a rank; and," he added in a lower voice, with a wry smile, "that is a thing you have achieved yourself. It is
no accident of
birth, like smithcraft,
or, for that matter
, kingship; and that Marja will not forget!" Roc snorted. To his vast chagrin, or so he gave out, Marja, instead of finding someone else, had waited out his nine year's absence quite faithfully, leaving him no honourable alternative but to cleave to her. In truth she obviously suited him much better than he pretended, for the years had settled him; only the matter of standing had rankled between them. Now Kermorvan had more than made that up, and chosen so vital a time that none would claim he favoured Roc from friendship only.

Certainly Elof was glad that two such solid natures were left in charge, as he and Kermorvan led their few squadrons of horsemen up the steep defiles above the landing site. It would not do to allow the Ekwesh to stage a surprise attack from the sea, and destroy the ships; the landing could be penned in then, and left to starve with no way of escape. As they passed below the crest of the hills, Kermorvan called to Elof, and together they left the column and rode up to the summit. Clinging to his saddle, Elof was too exhausted to speak when they reached the top, but he was able to seize Kermorvan's arm and point; there, barely distinguishable from the hill-crests against that grey horizon, was the distant shape of the Gate-tower. No dragon-coils crowned it now, no great head lifted towards the louring overcast; yet its aura of menace seemed undiminished. "I feel it too!" muttered Kermorvan. "Once so great, yet what has it become?"

"What has all this land become?" countered Elof harshly. "We linger from finding out, and night comes early; would there were more sun…" The two friends looked at one another, struck by the same thought; then they looked upward at the lowering clouds, already tinged with red by the low sunbeams. "It can't be!" exclaimed Elof. "Not already!"

But as the sun sank in a riot of hues, scarlet and peach and glaring dark gold, mantled overall in black, Elof took wing once more; when he returned his hair seemed strangely faded, his wings greyed, till he clapped them together and blew a rich dust of pumice about the company. "On every hand the fire-mountains belch smoke and ash!" he reported. "They look like pillars upholding this canopy! As in a sense they are. The Wild Lands are still thick with snow; the Yskianas is well-nigh frozen in its upper reaches, the rest awash with ice. In early summer! The attack has begun!"

"What of the Ekwesh?" rasped Kermorvan. "Or any force of Louhi's? Did you see anything of them?"

"I saw something - here on the southern bank, no more than three or four leagues hence. I could not get close enough before the light failed, but it looked to me like a great encampment around a town."

"A siege? Or a muster?"

Elof shrugged. "Either. I said I could not see. And there were a few small flickers along the northern shore, fires of picket camps perhaps; Ekwesh, if so. Those lands have been long deserted. Nothing more -and Powers, but it was cold up there! The Ice rides the upper airs now!"

Kermorvan looked grave, but he helped Elof unbuckle his harness. "Come warm yourself by the ovens, then; we dare not build open fires in this bare place. We must get away from it soon, even if that means pressing on through the night."

To nobody's surprise, it did. The cold grew fierce enough to discourage even the weariest from thoughts of sleep; the danger of never waking was too great. The earth rang flinty beneath the hooves of their mounts, their breath burned in their nostrils and steamed out in great clouds. Only a few stars glinted through the suffocating cloak of the upper airs, like the spear-points of a night assault; the moon when it rose shone a few pale beams through the ragged cloud, but the frost-bound land glinted enough to give them light to ride by. They cantered on like a column of dark-cloaked ghosts, and made good speed; near dawn they were already on the southern slopes of the hills, encamped beneath a stand of dead corkbark oaks, winter's victims, and were grateful to snatch a few hours sleep beneath the rising sun. Then fire was kindled, and Elof lifted once more into the air, climbing so high that to any casual eye he must be mistaken for a bird. But he knew well that among his foes there were eyes less casual, eyes of freezing blue, eyes of blazing green, and he held Gorthawer ready at his belt, the gauntlet on his arm. Only his heart felt unready to face either.

The land swept by beneath him as if his wing-beats brushed it away; there was little warmth in the light, but enough to keep him aloft for many leagues yet, and the warm south wind that had brought them ashore contended with the cold flow down from the north; their conflict sped him swiftly eastward towards the town he had glimpsed. He could remember the name of only one fortified town in this region, Torvallen, a holding whose lords had been a particular thorn in Nithaid's side. It did not augur well; like many of their northern cousins they might have sought to compact with the Ekwesh. Again and again he wondered what he had done in slaying Nithaid; the ruthlessness that had dogged him all through his life, that Korentyn in naming him had hung around his neck, had it betrayed him as before, and perhaps the whole world with it? All the bitter self-disgust of old came welling up in his throat, all the old ghosts flew mockingly beside him. What was he, who was he, that he should do such things, bear such burdens? He had never really known. But long before he reached his goal he saw a change that drove the phantoms of the past from his waking mind; that dark smudge in the lands around had changed shape, grown longer to the west, like some amorphous crea-ture stretching out an arm of its substance. And there was something moving among the river-ice… Puzzled, he went gliding down towards it.

They had agreed that while he was scouting, Kermorvan should not wait, but continue his drive eastward. Time was too short to waste; Elof could find them on the move easily enough, and it would shorten his journey back. So it was that he came upon the column as it was making its way across the southward slopes, and seeing for the first time the Vale of Kerys laid out before it. So intent were they all, even Kermorvan, on the sight of this, their ancestral homeland and the focus of all their legends and tales, that there was near panic as Elof came down among them, with men shouting and horses milling and rearing, ready to bolt. "I might have been another dragon!" grinned Elof breathlessly, as the alarm settled. "Could've settled on your wrist like a falcon!"

"You could hardly have caused more of a row!" said Kermorvan, irritably; then he grinned ruefully. "Oh, very well, I admit it; I was too struck by the sight to see a proper watch kept. What news, then, with such haste? Do you bring a band of reivers down on us?"

"Far from it! There'd better be none this side of the Great River, if they value their hides; there's a host of Kerys on the march!" /

Kermorvan seized him by the arm. "You're sure?"

"Of course! All straggling out along the high roads, with cogs plying back and forth on the River; they're breaking channels in the Ice as they go. I saw banners and standards I've seen before; on my second pass I stooped low enough to see the very shade of their faces, and nearly caused a riot -"

"Evidently a habit of yours; but small wonder, when the tale of Nithaid's death must now be well known. As well they did not singe your plumes with this smith's fire of yours!"

Elof frowned. "They hardly looked able. That's no orderly force, from the glimpse I got, save for a few under the banners of lords; and even the banners are ragged. The rest - straggling off in any order, a rabble army. No colours, armour smirched and gear fouled, as if they've fought through mires and slept in them too!"

"
After fierce winter, flooding thaw
!" mused Kermorvan, quoting an old piece of weather-lore. "Even a miserable failed thaw such as this. Very likely they have. But they cannot hope to meet the Ekwesh thus, not in their full array of battle, with Louhi to general them. Still, their coming would explain why she has not been free to strike at us across the land. I guess that the sooner we join them, the better!"

Three days later, when Kermorvan's force came trotting out of the hills above the march, it became clear that Elof s surmise had been right. The army was at its noonday rest, straggling out across the land like a ragged scar, stretching far into the distance; only here and there was there any trace of order. Yet when the first sounds of hooves reached the flanking columns, they saw sentinels enough spring to their feet, and
if
the weapons in their hands glinted dully, still they were held steady, and no man turned. Horns sounded, and the whole long line erupted; the country seethed like an ant's nest. Kermorvan exclaimed in astonishment as he saw it. "There must be tens of thousands here!"

"Such is the might of Kerys," said Elof quietly. "Each campaign Nithaid could raise a force thrice the size of ours, and still leave his lords some garrison. Did I not tell you?"

"You did, and I believed you; but it is another matter to see it before us. As well we make ourselves known ere it rolls over us!" He gestured to the riders to form up, and led them off downhill at a brisk canter, their mail and weapons jingling merrily across the breeze. "Now sound your horns!" he ordered. "And, standard-bearer, unfurl that banner!"

The hubbub had begun to die down, as the sentries realised this was only a small party, and saw their pale skins, and Kermorvan's long bronze hair blowing in the breeze. But when the silver cavalry horns split the air, and the long black pennon broke out and floated over the tossing crests of the helms, the melee broke out anew, men shading their eyes and pointing, gesturing furiously at the design of the Raven and the sun on the banner. For this was the emblem of the Ysmerien kings, that had not flown in this land for three generations, and had scarcely been seen above the heads of warriors for centuries before that.

At the very margins of the army Kermorvan wheeled his horsemen and brought diem, still in their tight formation, cantering cheerfully along the ranks. He kept a careful eye on Elof, who was having some difficulty staying in his saddle, let alone holding the line; but it did not stop either of them from noting how men who seemed sunk in weariness and filth, who looked up with disheartened desperation on their faces, sprang up with astonishment at the sight of this trim band of horsemen, and the banner they bore. Kermorvan at their head was a sight in himself, clad in the grim black mail coat of his fathers, but with a cloak of rich furs streaming out behind, and the Raven crest damascened on his breastplate glittering even in that sullen light. He wore no helm; his blowing hair served him for crest and crown, and above that stern and ageless face it made him look every inch a king.