He heard something. He raised his aching head and peered through his bloodshot, bleary eye. Figures blocking his way. Ghoolegh. He tried to straighten himself in the saddle, fumbling for his sword.
He urged his warhorse into a gallop, feebly waving the spear, Bryionak, a croaking battle-cry breaking from his frost-bitten lips.
And then the horse’s forelegs buckled and it fell to the ground, pitching Corum over its head and leaving him exposed to the swords of his enemies.
But, thought Corum, as he sank into a coma, he would not feel the pain of their blades, at least; for a sense of warmth, of oblivion, was sweeping through him.
He smiled and let the darkness come.
THE THIRD CHAPTER
THE ICE PHANTOMS
He dreamed that he sailed a massive ship over an infinity of ice. The ship was raised on runners and had fifty sails. Whales inhabited the ice, and other strange creatures, too. Then he no longer sailed the ship, but rode in a chariot drawn by bears beneath a strange, dull sky. But the ice remained. Worlds bereft of heat. Old, dead worlds in the final stages of entropy. But everywhere was ice—harsh, gleaming ice. Ice which brought death to any who dared it. Ice which was the symbol of ultimate death, the death of the very universe itself. Corum groaned in his sleep.
“It is the one I heard of.” The voice was soft, yet intrusive.
“Llaw Ereint?” came another’s voice.
“ Aye. Who else could it be? There is the silver hand. And that is a Sidhi face, I’d swear, though I’ve never seen one.”
Corum opened his single eye and glared at the speaker.
“ I am dead,” said Corum, “ and would be grateful if you would allow me to be dead in peace.”
“ You live,” said the youth practically. He was a boy of about sixteen. Though his face and body were thin, starved, his eyes were bright and intelligent and, like most of the Mabden Corum had found here, he was well-formed. He had a great mop of blond hair, kept back from his eyes by a simple leather band. He had a fur cape over his shoulders and the familiar gold and silver collar and bangles on arms and ankles. “I am Bran. This is my brother, Teyrnon. You are Cremm, the god.”
“God?” Corum began to realize that the people he had seen ahead of him had been Mabden, not Fhoi Myore. He smiled at the youth. “Do gods fall so easily from exhaustion.”
Bran shrugged and ran his fingers through his hair. “I know nothing of the customs of gods. Could you not have been in disguise? Pretending to be a mortal in order to test us?”
“That is a fine way of looking at a rather more ordinary fact,” said Corum. He turned to look at Teyrnon and then looked in surprise at Bran again. The two were virtually identical in features, though Bran’s fur cloak was from a brown bear and Teyrnon’s was from a tawny wolf. Corum looked up and realized that he saw the folds of a small tent in which he lay while Bran and Teyrnon crouched beside him.
“Who are you?” Corum asked. “Where are you from? Do you know aught of the fate of Caer Mahlod?”
“We are the Tuha-na-Ana—or what is left of that folk,” the youth replied. “We are from a land to the east of Gwyddneu Garanhir, which in turn lies due south of Cremm Croich, your land. When the Fhoi Myore began to come, some of us fought them and thus perished. The rest of us—youths and old people for the most part—set off for Caer Mahlod, where we heard warriors resisted the Fhoi Myore. We lost our way and had to hide many times from the Fhoi Myore and their dogs, but now we are only a short distance from Caer Mahlod, which lies west of here.”
“Caer Mahlod is my destination, too,” said Corum, sitting up. “I carry the spear, Bryionak, with me and would tame the Bull of Crinanass.”
“That Bull cannot be tamed,” said Teyrnon softly. “We saw it less than two weeks since. We were hungry and hunted it for its meat, but it turned on our hunters and slew five of them with its sharp horns before it went away towards the West.”
‘ ‘If the Bull cannot be tamed,” said Corum, accepting the mug of thin soup which Bran handed him and sipping it gratefully, “then Caer Mahlod is lost and you would be wiser to seek some other sanctuary.”
“We were looking for Hy-Breasail,” Bran told him seriously. “The Enchanted Isle beyond the sea. We thought we might be happy there and safe from the Fhoi Myore.”
“Safe from the Fhoi Myore you would be,” Corum said, “but not from your own fears. Do not seek Hy-Breasail, Bran of the Tuha-na-Ana, for it means awful death to Mabden folk. No, we shall all go together to Caer Mahlod, if the Fhoi Myore do not find us first, and I will see if I can speak to the Bull of Crinanass and make him see our point of view.”
Bran shook his head skeptically. Teyrnon, his twin, echoed the gesture.
“We move on again in a few minutes,” Teyrnon told Corum. “Will you be fit to ride again, then?”
“Is my horse still alive?”
“Alive and rested. We found a little grass for him.” “Then I am fit to ride,” said Comm.
There were less than thirty people in the band which moved slowly across the snow, and of those thirty more than a score were old men and women. There were three other boys like Bran and his brother Teyrnon and there were three girls, one of whom was less than ten years old. The younger children, it was learned, had perished in a sudden raid which the Hounds of Kerenos had made on the camp when the remnants of the tribe had first begun its trek to Caer Mahlod. Snow rimed the hair of all and made it sparkle. Corum joked that they were all kings and queens and wearing diamond crowns. They had been weaponless before he came and now he distributed his gear among them—a sword to one, a dirk to another, a lance each to two more, and his bow and arrow to Bran. He kept only the spear, Bryionak, as he rode at the head of the column or walked beside his horse which would take two or three old people at a time, for few had eaten much in recent months and they were all light enough.
Bran had estimated that they were still two days from Caer Mahlod, but the going began to get easier, the further west they travelled. Corum’s spirits had begun to rise considerably and his horse’s energy was increasing so that he was able to make short gallops ahead to spy out the land. Judging by the improvement in the weather, the Fhoi Myore had not yet reached the hill fortress.
The little party entered a valley late on the afternoon of what they hoped would be their last full day of travelling. It was not a particularly deep valley, but it offered some shelter from the icy wind which occasionally blew across the moor, and they welcomed any shelter. Corum noticed that on the slopes of the hills on either side of them were gleaming formations of ice which had perhaps been formed from waterfalls blown by a wind coming from the East. They were some distance into the valley and had decided to make camp for the night, although the sun had not yet set, when Corum looked up from watching the youths erecting the tents and saw a movement. He had been sure that one of the ice-shapes had changed its position. He put this down to his own tired vision and the failing light.
And then more of the shapes were moving and it was unmistakable—they were converging on the camp. Corum shouted the alarm and began to run towards his horse. The shapes were like gleaming phantoms, darting down the slopes into the valley. Corum saw an old woman at the far end of the camp throw up her arms in horror and turn to escape, but a shimmering, ghostly figure seemed to absorb her and drag her back up the hill. Hardly before anyone was aware of it, two more old women were seized and dragged away. Now the camp was in a furor. Bran shot two accurate shafts at the ice phantoms, but the arrows merely passed through them. Corum hurled the spear, Bryionak, at another where its head might be, but Bryionak came sailing back to his hand without having harmed the phantom. However, it seemed that the things were timid for, once they had taken their prey, they faded back again into the hills. Corum heard Bran and Teyrnon shout and begin to run together up the steep slopes in pursuit of one of the phantoms. Corum called to them that the chase would be futile and would put them in even greater danger, but they would not listen. Corum paused fo
r a moment and then followed.
The darkness was creeping in now. Shadows fell across the snow. The sky bore only a tinge of sunlight, a smear of blood in milk. At the best of times this was poor light for hunting—and the ice phantoms would be hard to see in the full brightness of noon.
Corum managed to keep Bran and Teyrnon in sight, but only just. Bran had paused to shoot a third arrow at what he thought to be an ice phantom. Teyrnon pointed and they ran off in another direction altogether, Corum still calling to them, though he feared to attract the attention of the strange creatures the two boys pursued.
It grew darker still.
“Bran!” shouted Corum. “Teyrnon!”
And then he found them and they were kneeling in the snow and they were weeping. Corum looked and saw that they knelt beside what was probably the body of one of the old women.
“Is she dead?” he murmured.
“Aye,” said Bran, “our mother is dead.”
Corum had not known that one of the women had been the youths’ mother. He let out a deep, long sigh and turned away, and looked into the shadowy, grinning faces of three of the phantoms.
Corum cried out, raising Bryionak to stab at the things. Silently the phantoms moved upon him. He felt their tendrils touch his skin and his flesh began to freeze. This was how they paralyzed their victim and this was how they fed, drawing his heat into their own bodies. Perhaps this was how those people he had seen before had died, beside the lake. Corum despaired of saving either his life or those of the two boys. There was no means of fighting such intangible foes.
And then the tip of the spear, Bryionak, began to glow a peculiar orange-red, and when the tip touched one of the ice phantoms the creature hissed and disappeared, becoming no more than a cloud of steam in the air; and then the steam dispersed. Corum did not question the power of the spear. He swung it at the other two phantoms, touching them lightly with the glowing tip, and they, too, vanished. It was as if the ice phantoms needed heat to live, but too much heat overloaded them and they perished.
‘ ‘We must make fires,” Corum told the boys’.’ ‘Brands. That will keep them away. And we will not camp here. We will march—by torchlight. It does not matter if the Fhoi Myore or any of their servants see us. It would be best to reach Caer Mahlod as soon as possible, for we have no means of knowing what other creatures like these the Fhoi Myore command.”
Bran and Teyrnon picked up their mother’s corpse between them and began to follow Corum down the hillside. The tip of the spear, Bryionak now faded again until it looked as it had always looked— merely a well-made spearhead.
In the camp Corum told the others of his decision and all were agreed.
And so they moved on, the ice phantoms lurking just beyond the light which the torches cast, making small gasping sounds, little wet, pleading sounds, until they had passed through the valley and were on the other side.
The phantoms did not follow them, but still they marched on, for the wind had turned for the moment and it brought the salty Smell of the sea. They knew that they must surely be close to Caer Mahlod and sanctuary. But they knew, too, that the Fhoi Myore and all whom the Fhoi Myore commanded were nearby, and this gave even the oldest of the folk new energy and speed, and all prayed that they would be spared until the morning when they must surely see Caer Mahlod ahead.
THE FOURTH CHAPTER
THE COLD FOLK’S MASSING
The conical hill was there and the stone walls of the fortress were there and King Mannach’s sea-beast banner was there and there was Medhbh, beautiful Medhbh, riding a horse from the gates of Caer Mahlod and waving to him and laughing, her red hair flying and her gray-green eyes all alight with joy, her horse’s hooves sending up a flurry of frost as she cried out to him:
“Corum! Corum! Corum Llaw Ereint, do you bring the spear, Bryionak?”
“Aye,” Corum called back, brandishing the spear, “and I bring guests to Caer Mahlod. We are hasty, for the Fhoi Myore are not far behind.”
She reached his side and leaned over to fling an arm about his neck and kiss him full upon the lips so that all his earlier gloom left him suddenly and he was glad that he had not stayed in Hy-Breasail, that he had not been killed by Hew Argech, that he had not been drained of his body’s heat by the ice phantoms.
“You are here, Corum,” she said.
‘ ‘I am here, lovely Medhbh. And here is the spear, Bryionak.” She looked at it in wonder, but she would not touch it, even when he offered it to her. She drew back. She smiled strangely. “It is not for me to hold. That is the spear, Bryionak. That is the spear of Cremm Croich, of Llaw Ereint, of the Sidhi, of the gods and the demigods of our race. That is the spear, Bryionak.”
He laughed at the serious expression which had come suddenly upon her face, and he kissed her so that her eyes cleared. And she laughed back at him and then turned her chestnut mare to gallop ahead of the weary band, to lead the way through the narrow gate into the fortress town of Caer Mahlod. And there, on the other side of the gate’s passage, stood King Mannach, smiling in gratitude and respect at Corum, who had found one of the great treasures of Caer Llud, one of the lost treasures of the Mabden, the spear which could tame the last member of a herd of Sidhi cattle, the black Bull of Crinanass.
“Greetings, Lord of the Mound,” said King Mannach without pomposity. “Greetings, hero. Greetings, son.”
Corum swung down from the saddle, and again he stretched out the silver hand which held the spear, Bryionak. “Here it is. Look at it. It is an ordinary spear, King Mannach—or seems so. Yet it has already saved my life twice upon my journey back to Caer Mahlod. Inspect it, and tell me if you think it an unusual spear.”
But King Mannach followed the example of his daughter and backed away from the spear. “No, Prince Corum, only a hero may carry the spear, Bryionak, for a lesser mortal would be cursed if he tried to hold it. It is a Sidhi weapon. Even when it was in our possession it was kept in a case and the spear itself never touched.”
‘ ‘ Well,” said Corum, ‘ Til respect your customs, though there is nothing at all to fear from the spear. Only our enemies should fear Bryionak.”
“As you say,” said King Mannach in a subdued tone. Then he smiled. “Now we must eat. We caught fish today and there are several hares. Let all these people come with us to the hall and eat too, for they look hungry indeed.”
Bran and Teyrnon spoke for their few surviving clansfolk. “We accept your hospitality, Great King, for we are fare famished. And we offer you our services, as warriors, to aid you in your fight against the fierce Fhoi Myore.”
King Mannach inclined his noble head. “My hospitality is poor compared with your pride and your pledge, and I thank you, warrior, for your presence at our battlements.”
And as King Mannach spoke the last word there came a shout from above and a girl who had been on guard above the gate called:
“White mist boiling on the north and south. The Cold Folk are massing. The Fhoi Myore come.”
King Mannach said, not without humor, “I fear that the banquet will have to be postponed. Let us hope it will be a victory feast.” He smiled grimly. ‘ ‘ And that the fish is still fresh when we’ve finished our fight!”
King Mannach turned to Corum after directing more of his men to the walls. “You must call the Bull of Crinanass, Corum. You must call it soon. If it does not come, then we are over, the folk of Caer Mahlod.”
“I do not know how to call the Bull, King Mannach.”
“Medhbh knows. She will teach you.”
“I know,” said Medhbh.
Then she and Corum joined the warriors on the walls and looked eastward; and there were the Fhoi Myore with their mist and their minions.
“They do not come for sport this day,” said Medhbh.
With his right hand Corum took her left hand, holding it tightly.
About two miles distant, beyond the forest, they saw pale mist churning. It covered the whole horizon from north to south and it mov
ed slowly but purposefully towards Caer Mahlod. Ahead of this mist were many packs of hounds, questing and scenting as ordinary dogs run ahead of a hunt. Behind the hounds were small figures whom Corum guessed were white-faced Ghoolegh huntsmen, and behind these huntsmen were riders, pale green riders who, like Hew Argech, were doubtless brothers to the pines. But in the mist itself could be detected larger shapes, the shapes Corum had seen only once before. These were the dark outlines of monstrous war-chariots drawn by beasts which were certainly not horses. And there were seven of these chariots and in the chariots were seven riders of enormous size.
“A great massing, ‘’ said Medhbh, in a voice which succeeded in sounding brave. “They send their whole strength against us. All seven of the Fhoi Myore come. They must respect us greatly, these gods.”
“We shall give them cause,” said Corum.
“Now we must leave Caer Mahlod,” Medhbh told him.
“Desert the city?”
“We have to go to call the Bull of Crinanass. There is a place. The only place to which the Bull will come.”
Corum was reluctant to go. “In a few hours—perhaps in less time than that— the Fhoi Myore will attack.”
“We must try to return by that time. That is why it is urgent that we go now to the Sidhi Rock and seek the Bull.”
So they left Caer Mahlod quietly, on fresh horses, and rode along, the cliffs above a sea which groaned and roared and rolled as if in anticipation of the coming struggle.
At last they stood upon yellow sand with the dark and jagged cliffs behind them and the uneasy sea before them and looked up at a strange rock which stood alone on the beach. It had begun to rain and the rain and the seaspray lashed the rock and made it shine with a peculiar variety of soft colors which veined it. And in places the rock was opaque and in other places it was almost completely transparent, so that other, warmer colors could be seen at its heart. “The Sidhi Rock,” said Medhbh.
The Chronicles of Corum Page 13
