The Hammer of the Sun (60 page)

Only the Ravens stood apart from the gathering, eating the mass of fish they had caught and smoked while Kermorvan was away, and loath to share; most men were glad of that, for they remained a fell and uncanny folk, and there was hardly a man there of either camp who had not suffered some loss at the hands of their fellows, whether of home or kinsfolk or his own blood. Among the Kerysmen in particular there was great ill-feeling against them, but it was mitigated by the belief that their desertion was a potent omen; also, Kermorvan had put Elof, who spoke their tongue best, in charge of them, to see that they neither offered nor suffered any treachery, and every man was too much in awe of him to risk anything.

Kermorvan lingered only long enough at that camp to send out scouts, Elof among them, and plot what they found onto the maps the nobles brought him. Then, shortly before dawn on a day of mist and rain, a whisper ran through the camp that was more thrilling than any trumpet or drum. The new king had commanded silence; and all his subjects, old and new, were already given to heed him. In a pale half-light, with no fanfare save the muted thunder of their own bustle and tread, the last army of men formed up and marched away to do battle with the ancient Powers of the world.

Chapter Eleven
-
The Hammer of the Sun

There was no way now their presence could be concealed from the Gate; it grew before them as they trudged along the snow-bound hills above the Great River's southern shore, from a notch of grey between hummocks of white to the great crowned ridge that Elof knew only too well. Roc, riding as ever at his side, spat and cursed. But as they drew closer, coming out of the hills onto open plains, frosty and snow-sprinkled, they agreed that its aspect seemed to have changed again, though clearly there was no dragon coiled around its crown now. The grey walls seemed to glisten blue in the sun, as if filmed with ice; and above them there was snow, thick crests of white crowning every roof, outlining every rail, every balustrade, every plinth, picking them out clearly so that each man of the army could see, even at this distance, the towering strength of the stronghold they must face. Ils whistled, and turned to the chief of her duergar. "Not so bad for man's work - eh, Gurri?"

His dark eyes scanned the ridge, and he rubbed his flat-chinned jaw. "Man's work, and ours, 1 guess, in days when such things were. Long in the breaching, long in the undermining. Months, perhaps."

"Time is Louhi's servant," remarked Kermorvan. "But I doubt if she will leave us free to try either. If we are to besiege that burg, we must first get by…" He stopped, and reined in his warhorse. From somewhere ahead of them, the High Gate or near it, a weird sound arose, a deep pulsing rattle, rhythmical as a heartbeat, and beneath it a soft roaring note, hollow and thunderous, that rose and fell upon the bitter wind but never quite faded. Elof could not for the life of him identify it, and to judge from the excited comments he heard among Kermorvan's guard, neither could anyone else.

"Like a heartbeat, hey? But
dry
…"

"More like hammering…"

"Like breath!" said a nervous voice. "Another bloody monster, panting for air…"

"Or flapping its wings…"

Ils snorted. "Might be some kind of an engine, maybe!"

"Aye!" said Roc fiercely. "A huge waterwheel, bigger than the Mastersmith's even! What deviltry's she about, up there?"

But Kermorvan made no answer, he was gazing around him with furrowed brow, considering the scene, looking across the open space to where it dropped away, no longer to cliffs but onto the steep slopes leading down to the chain of deep lakes that flowed from the Gate falls. A cold gleam came into his eyes then, and a wry smile; he frowned once more, and called to one of his captains. "Have the Raven chieftain come to me!" He turned back to the others. "I was going to say, we must get by her defenders; and if I mistake not, this heralds their coming. The Ravens cannot or will not say how many there are, save that there are more than us; which is not hard to believe…" Even as he spoke, the sound faded away altogether; the sudden silence quivered like a tautened wire. He thought for a moment, then gestured to another captain. "Sound the halt! Then the battle order, and see them formed up! Send out the rest of the scouts! We go no further in marching order, it's too vulnerable; we'll give battle while we're still in the open, not among Louhi's hills!"

The horns sang in strident discord through the ranks, and the long serpentine columns halted, broke and began to cluster together on the plain, gathering slowly into a series of concentric rings, so wide they covered more than half the plain. For a time all was chaos, horns signalling, men shouting, horses neighing; for although the twenty thousand of Kerys had all seen some campaigning, they had less experience of the tight and flexible formations that Kermorvan demanded. Foreseeing this, he had had to divide his own well-trained men, weaken their dependable lines to leaven the mix and pass on as much of their knowledge as they could on the march. He took his stand with his captains and friends upon a rocky eminence atop a low rise of ground.

With the many banners of the two armies floating above his head he was easily visible as a pillar of calm above the milling masses, one moment conferring urgently with captains and nobles, the next calling cool orders that disposed one group or another about the lines, or set another to scraping shallow breast-works out of the hardened ground; but those close to him saw how his mouth worked, and how closely he scanned the hillsides for any signal from the scouts.

"What ails you, my long lad?" demanded Ils. "You've seen bad battles enough in your day!"

"Aye, and never loved a single one of them!" retorted Kermorvan grimly. "But least of all one in which I am doomed to hang back, to command thousands to spill their Wood before J so much
as risk any drop of my
own."

He turned sharply as the Raven chieftain struggled through the melee and hailed him with grim respect, raising spear and shield. "
Ayeha
! Where will you have the Ravens perch?"

Kermorvan lifted a hand. "Gather them below the hillock here, where you can hear me!"

The old man eyed him a moment. "I thought, he will place us in the front line, that his foes may seem to strike against themselves." He paused doubtfully. "Clan has fought clan often enough. It is a place of some honour…"

Kermorvan shook his head. "I have a better for you. Hold yourselves ready to my command - and keep down your banners till then!" Abruptly the air was shuddering about them with the same rattling thunder and roar as before, but nearer, much nearer. The Ekwesh tensed, spun about and sniffed at the wind like a hunting hound, this way and that. Then he lifted his spear and pointed at the rounded crest of the high hill before them. All eyes followed him, but upon its unstained whiteness there seemed to be nothing to see. Suddenly it was as if the sharp skyline of the hill grew blurred; another breath and it had grown a fine fringe, that swelled and wavered and rose higher. All along the rim of the hills that spear swung, and as it passed, as if somehow calling it up, the line arose, shimmering like wind-blown grass. In the utter silence Elof heard Roc, standing beside him, swallow convulsively, and realised then how dry his own throat had become. The line stretched out in a great half-moon around them, from the hills inland to where the land fell away down steep slopes into the valley; at that end small specks were still bounding to complete the line, and rank upon rank behind it. For this was the shieldwall of the armies of the Ekwesh, and every seeming grass-blade was one of their long oval shields, man-high. The army below, that a moment before had seemed so vast in its numbers, dwindled and shrank in Elof s eyes before that shimmering mass. He saw men's faces grow pale all round him, their knuckles whiten upon rein and weapon. Kermorvan, apparently impassive, was quietly and unnecessarily loosening his grey-gold sword in its scabbard.

"Look at them!" breathed one of his captains, appalled. "Look at the numbers of them! There must be fifty thousand if there's a man!"

"And more in yon tower!" growled lis. "But we'll deal with them later. For now, it's only slay two to one; and in the old days it was a poor duergh couldn't manage that now and again!"

Still in the eerie silence, save for the crunch of feet among the snow-clad stones, a long section of the northernmost line detached themselves and padded downward, hunched down and slipping swiftly behind hillocks and along gullies, till they were just beyond bowshot of Kermorvan's lines. They stopped there as if waiting, for one long breathless moment, and then, at an order howled from the hill, they swung up their short spears in a glittering mass, whirled about, away from both armies and towards the tower of the Gate itself. It seemed to Elof, straining his eyes that he saw high on the balcony below the round tower a soft gleam of gold that shifted, as it might be fair hair; but dark hair he was too distant to make out. Then the Ekwesh cried out a single word, unmistakably a salute, and lifting their shields of stiffened hide over wood they sang out a hooting, carrying call and rattled the blades of their spears flat against them.

Aotu-u-eh!

Across the ridges the whole vast army echoed them, and the drumming of the shields swelled and rang off the cold rock walls of the valley, a savage, terrifying music of war.

"That's what the row was!" barked Ils, her large eyes creased into deep wrinkles as she squinted across the snow.

"Not quite!" said Elof. "There was more…" Below the rise the old Raven chieftain, growing impatient, seized his shield and slammed it hard, and all of his men would have echoed him had not Kermorvan barked for quiet; they subsided at once, but looked sullen and resentful. Even as he spoke, the foremost of the enemy whirled back suddenly; among them a chant began, a sung line and a massed response, almost like a sea-shanty.

Awey-yeh!
Heugh!
Awey-yey-yeh!
Heugh!
Aotu-u-ueh!

On that last word all joined in, brandished their spears and rattled them against their shields once more. "You speak their tongue better than I, Elof!" Kermorvan murmured. "Can you catch any of that?"

"Only the salute, the last word.
Aotu
. It means
Slay
!" They were leaping in time to it, dancing even, a strange bounding step, on the spot at first, then carrying them forward a step, one, two -

With frightening suddenness, and a great howling shout of
Aotu
! the dance became a charging run, and the first wave of Ekwesh swept forward towards the lines of Kerys and Morvanhal. A shoal of arrows hissed out to meet them, and many fell beneath the feet of their fellows; another shout from the hill, and the rush halted, but did not retreat, remaining there, the copper-skinned men dancing and chanting in mockery while the deadly shafts sang into their uneven lines and sent one after another sprawling in agony on the frozen soil, impaled and contorted, grotesquely propped up by the embedded shafts. It was an evil spectacle, so much bravery so ill-used, and for one long moment it held all eyes in horror; all eyes save those of the Ravens, who had looked upon worse and laughed. It was their shout that brought Kermorvan whirling around. "A decoy, by the Powers!" yelled the king. Like a grey tide creeping, the southermost quarter of the shieldwall had detached itself and advanced, was even now padding stealthily down the lower slopes and onto the plain. "
Sound, horns! Stand to your posts
!"

As they saw their ruse discovered the black-clad chieftains upon the hill stretched out their spears and called in baying voices; the advancing troops abandoned their stealthy, crouching gait, and with a great shout and rattling of spear upon shield they sprang up and broke into a fast trot that rapidly became a headlong downhill plunge. The crisp snow flew up beneath their feet and hid them, so that the shields seemed to glide forward across an icy cloud, and the crunch of each man's footfall, magnified many a thousandfold, became at last the mounting, unearthly roar that they had heard across the hills.

Kermorvan measured the distance with a keen eye, then waved his hand. A horn sounded, and from within the ranks the catapults he had taken from the ships sang and slammed. It was a well-timed stroke. Rocks and darts went whistling down upon the advancing lines; black-armoured warriors were transfixed, dashed down like skittles or crushed outright, but they left hardly a gap in that immense line, nor slowed the onrush. Some rocks overshot, but came tumbling back down the slope to take the Ekwesh from behind; here and there the snow-cover broke and slid away in little avalanches, sweeping warriors away helpless as insects struggling in sand. The catapults were frantically, reloaded, and some even had time to fire. But the main lines were already under the arc of their flight, and it was only the few stragglers they caught. Now arrows began to sing down from the hilltops, a long shot, but in the tight-packed formation Kermorvan had ordered they seldom wanted a mark. Men fell groaning and screaming, but their cries sounded thin and ridiculous against the rising thunder of oncoming feet. For the first time Elof actually felt a thing he had only read of, the earth shuddering beneath him at an army's tread. Amid their snow-cloud the Ekwesh came on like the stormy surf of a vast ocean. And like surf that first massive onrush struck Kermorvan's shieldwall, and burst over it with a roar.