Hearing, she kissed me again and shoved me back to stare into my eyes. She said, “Gods, Collin. Did you think I didn’t know?”
“Know what?” I used the moment to rip the fatty paste of my disguise from off my face, while she wiped at me with a swatch of pocket cloth.
“That you would be here, great fool. Elioseen is my father’s sister. She’s of my blood. Gods, Collin, I am the heiress to Marack’s throne. Do you think she’d do what she’s done, and I’d not kno?”
I frowned, suddenly angered at I knew not quite what. “She never told me.”
“I will be Marack’s queen, Collin.” My anger had grown. “Whatever you’ll be, my dear, is dependent upon what happens now and after. Which means we have first a war to win, in which I’ve been named your leader. Would you change that too, without informing me? If so, why then, when this immediate bickering’s over, you may have my sword.”
There was some shouting then to our left, but nothing happened. Murie was saying, “Hey, love. I’m truly sorry, and my pride is oft like your own, a burden I’d dispense with. There was no time. She told me but short hours ago. You were already here.”
What with the winds and the guttering candles, the hall had darkened further. A few bats had flown in, too, and an Alphian, seeing them, got off two more empty “clicks,” then hurled the useless weapon at my student-warrior, Tadee— who picked it up and hurled it back.
“My lord,” Murie continued, “you are Marack’s commander, and there’s not a one of us who’d have it another way.” She squeezed me tight, kissed me one last time, snatched Caroween from Rawl’s arms and both of them ran to the four proud daughters who stood shivering beneath the high tables to pull them away to safety. ‘
It was at that point that first blood was drawn. An Alphian, seeing the prey being taken, made some laughing remark to the grimly glaring Marques, vaulted the table and seized the last girl’s arm. She screamed and struck back; upon which, with one quick, raging move, he cut the poor girl’s throat.
Whether he would have grabbed for a second girl, I do not know. He wasn’t given that chance. Rawl Fergis covered the intervening space in one mighty leap and before ever the sky lord could make his move to escape, whirled his great blade and split him straight through the skull and collarbone.
In the ensuing awful silence, while he cleansed his blade deliberately on the “angel’s” robe, Rawl shouted to the still-raging Marques, “As he is, so will you be, you bastard. For I tell you now, sir, that whatever happens here tonight, ‘tis you who will not leave this hall alive!”
Marques stayed where he was and Rawl returned to our ranks where there’d been an instant drawing together. Murie and Rawl’s redhead—they’d given the girls over to the king and queen—had returned too. Tarkiis, watching it all, his eyes smouldering, still held back for whatever reasons—and I would not be baited to attack them.
Of the twenty white-tabs who’d placed their swords with us, I directed ten to the service of the king and queen. “You will escort them immediately,” I ordered, “to yon exit to the corridor which leads to the royal quarters, and await us exactly there. If we are slain, they will then tell you what to do.”
If we had tried to make such a move ourselves, which I would have preferred, Tarkiis would have attacked, instantly. This way, he dared not strike, lest we take him in the rear. The question then was: What would the uncommitted white-tabs do who still barred the way?
A sergeant of the ten saluted me briskly … At the king’s side, he made known my instructions. Caronne arose, Hooli riding his shoulders, to wave a hand in acknowledgment. Then, with his small band of the queen and the three daughters, and protected at front and rear by our white-tabs, he moved toward the exit.
The uncommitted white-tabs, and there were at least fifty of these to the rear of Caronne’s table, still barred the way. I roared instantly and in my most menacing tones—and my voice was amplified by Hooli, you can bet—for a path to be cleared, and for swords to remain in their sheaths….
And they stepped aside, muttering.
Indeed, to a man, when the king and his guard had passed, they began slowly to make their way toward the south end of the hall to stand around in small groups, watching. As is so often true of people when given any kind of leadership, many chose instantly to duplicate the act. The two hundred or so merchants, priests and the like fled almost precipitously toward the great opened doors through which the night wind still blew, and with an occasional mist of rain. And after them, though at a slower pace, went the remaining hundred white-tabs.
Odd paradox. Though fleeing the proximity of bloody battle, the lot of them—and they were now a great half-circle of frightened faces—were still afraid to leave the castle; to trust that somehow they could make it past that ship out there. They stayed, hypnotized by what they watched, and terrified by what they knew would happen—either way.
I asked suddenly of Murie, “My love, have you been aboard the sky ship?”
“Indeed, I have.”
“How many men, then, would you say are there?”
“Perhaps forty, no more.”
“Surely they have some means to communicate. It makes no sense that these here must fight alone, without the others knowing.”
“Well I know, Collin, that they can speak from ship to ship, but not from man to man except by voice.”
I shook my head in disbelief. It truly made no sense. I was again sweating profusely. My mental picture was of the Alphian ship ending this entire charade of posturings and threats by simply blowing ourselves and the castle to hell in a single second—it was by no means pleasant.
“What?” I asked curiously, “is this god-awful pox upon yours and Caroween’s faces?”
“Nothing, my lord,” she smiled, “that won’t come off with a few crisp latherings.”
I shook my head again. It was unbelievable, their stupidity. But then, they had nothing at all to relate to. Even a native intelligence must have some experience.
We’d been stomping our feet, shaking our shoulders and dressing our shields for what we knew was coming. Steel mesh settles that way, and will not, thereafter, bunch and prevent the free movement of one’s limbs; especially the sword arm. To our front the thirty or so Marackians who’d chosen to remain with the Alphians had been ordered to the fore. They’d dressed a line directly opposite us. But then the Alphians decided to move down too, forcing the thirty to split so that they could take the center position.
Tarkiis called out something which became unintelligible for the sound of a great wind which suddenly raced through the hall. Half the torches were immediately blown out. We were left, all of us, with illumination scarcely better than bright moonlight.
But again Tarkiis called out. This time his words were a shouted command. “On them!” he shrieked… “Kill me this scum who dares oppose our almighty Diist”
Only twenty feet separated us. They came across it like a surfer’s dream of the “perfect wave”—and broke to a boiling foam against our shieldfront. The Alphians, without a doubt, were fine swordsmen. It was probably the single thing they’d honestly worked at; been truly trained to do. As with everything else connected with the original Dark One and this hew facsimile, however, their knowledge, like their weapons, was flawed. They fought as individuals. A duel between Alphians would, I’m sure, be a sight to see. But that was the extent of it. They hadn’t the slightest understanding of the coordinated attack, mutual protection and the like. Their greatswords, though devilishly sharp, were of so light an alloy that there was simply no weight behind their blows. They carried no shields. But a shield is not just for defense. It is also a weapon to supplement the prime weapon, the sword!
So When I say that they “boiled against our shieldfront,” I mean just that. They landed twenty blows to our one—and accomplished absolutely nothing. We killed two sky men and seven white-tabs in the first assault. I killed an Alphian with a simple thrust from between Murie’s shield and mine.
The left wing of their front, made up mostly of white-tabs under a damned good sergeant, then drove around us to turn, and smash back against Gen-Rondin, Sernas, Kodder and five of our new Marackians. They were met with an unbelievable fury, as is usually true of defenders who have already consigned themselves to death. The opposite is true of an attacker under the same circumstances. He, as a rule, knowing he has the edge in numbers, holds back, confident of victory, but wanting to be around to enjoy it. … After a minute or so of this, and we were almost a complete circle now, we simply locked our shields tighter and marched this way and that, driving the enemy before us and stepping over the bodies of the slain.
Tarkiis finally had sense enough to call them off. And, since we were in the exact spot where the fighting had begun, I whistled our men to stop, too, not to pursue. There were now twenty-nine bodies on the bloodied tile of the great hall. Just two of them were ours, brave Tadee and one of our white-tabs. Of the other twenty-seven, ten were sky lords.
Sweat, blood, and soot from the torches made all of us as ghastly gargoyles where we stood panting and leaning upon our weapons. A quick glance around me revealed that what with the wind whistling through the eaves, an occasional mist of driven rain, and torches reduced to but a quarter of those we’d started with, Glagmaron Castle’s great hall looked now like some hellish inferno. More bats had joined us, their shadows a grotesquerie of flapping corpse-shrouds.
‘Tarkiis!” I yelled. “I repeat what I said before: Lay down your arms, sir, for your day is truly over. You may even survive a Fregisian Court, though I’ll not guarantee it. Surrender your men—or we will kill you all!”
‘To you, you damned animal?” Tarkiis screamed his hatred; actually ground his snow-white teeth in rage. He was like a boy of ten or twelve, spoiled rotten; accustomed to having his every word obeyed. “We’ve forty comrades on our ship, with weapons that do work. We have four more ships with full crews, and you ask me to surrender?”
“My Lord Marques,” Rawl intruded suddenly to Tarkiis’s companion, and I could not help but note that his features were all twisted in the flickering torchlight, “whereas our Collin offers you life, I, sir, have nothing but death to give you. Hey, now?” He raised on his toes to squint. “There’s no use hiding, for I see you there behind your betters. Come out, sir, now, and face me, for ‘tis said mat you’ve given my lady some hurt, you craven bastard, and I will not let you live.”
Marques stepped forward, pale, resolute; his fear in part conquered by his hatred of the taunting and the taunter. He whirled his sword but once around his head, to hear the whistle of it, and said proudly, “You have it wrong, Sir Animal. No man of the great race of Kentii duels with that which is born of filth and slime. Will I deign to slay you? Certainly—as I would a gog in the pens….”
Rawl loosed his shield from his left arm. The AlpWan smiled. I called with some alarm, “Hey, comrade.. You’re giving him the advantage.”
But my sword companion, brash, unheeding, angry, stepped from our ranks to whistle his own great blade in an arc made shimmering by the torches. He stamped his feet on the tiles and said bluntly, “Come.”
And Marques came. And he, like Rawl’s sword, was also a glittering whirlwind of light, a living blade to touch my stalwart five times for each glancing blow returned. Watching, I thanked the gods that my men had not been forced to fight them individually. For when given room, Marques, like the Alphian I’d slain in the temple square, was a veritable death machine.
Rawl was no fool. He knew what I knew in the first few seconds. He therefore wasted no more efforts in parrying or swinging wildly in the hope of a lucky hit. He simply stood solidly, turning always to face his enemy, accepting cuts on shoulders, arms, and thighs—and waiting stolidly for the error. He told me later that unless he bled to death first, which would have taken some time, since Marques’s cuts were shallow, the only way he could be killed was by a straight thrust right through the mest of his hauberk. And that, he said, could not be done. One: The Alphian hadn’t the strength to deliver. Two: It was the one blow he could parry, and with ease.
And he was right. Indeed, the first time the Alphian tried was his last time. The thrust came. Rawl, his shield-hand used but lightly in a two-hand grip on his greatsword, left the grip to deliver instantly a smashing blow to the Alphian’s sword-flat, catching it on his forearm. The sword went flying. The Alphian, off balance, could only turn to his right; upon which Rawl plunged forward to seize him in, as Hooli would put it, “a Terran, double hammer-lock” (he’d dropped his own blade). In but seconds, as we all watched with something akin to awe, we heard the snap of Marques’s neck, and that was the end of that…. But not quite.
A second Alphian, enraged, came boiling out to avenge him (a case in point of a developing loyalty—or simple frustration). My quite heavy-handed Sir Dosh—he’d personally slain four of the white tabs—stepped pompously out to greet him, and like a fool also threw down his shield.
Within what, seemed like seconds the Alphian had accomplished what Marques had failed to do. He’d run Dosh through the midriff by throwing his full weight behind the thrust. Dosh, a puzzled look in his bulbous eyes, fell, skewered to the hilt like some stricken giant kaati.
Gen-Rondin then moved to go to his aid. But our lewd and lecherous Lors Sernas, putting his heavy shield to one side and snatching Murie’s from her arm, himself leapt out to straddle Dosh’s body.
“Hey, now!” he yelled to the Alphian victor. “I know you, you bastard who’ve slain my friend. And I’ve noted, sir, that you are one who profanes our Hoom-Tet laws of love by abusing such pleasures for sport and money. Now, I, sir, intend to take your parts, once and for all; for you truly don’t deserve them …” He went on in this vein. And the Alphian} having not the slightest idea as to what he was talking about, was still sufficiently confident because of the success of what he thought was his first killing, to seize Marques’s sword and come at Sernas….
Our Hishian who now had a protective device but half the weight of his own, danced his opponent measure for measure. He brought it all to a stunning halt, finally, by the use of the Omnian dirty-trick expedient of kicking his opponent square in the groin and then taking his head when he’d dropped his weapon to double over in screaming pain. Two of ours, Kodder and a White-Tab, then rushed out to seize Dosh’s body and pull him to our circle. He was still breathing. Indeed, he looked up to bat his eyes at me and say huffily, “By the gods, Collin, I’ve a stomachache to end them all. Would you have a potion on you, sir, or perhaps a faldirk to the jugular?” I knew he was in great pain. I said, “Let be, old comrade. We’ll tend you shortly. Believe me.” But he was again unconscious, which eased my own feelings of inadequacy.
All the while, in this mad and sulfurous atmosphere of hell-fire, duellos, whistling winds, graveyard shadows and a cold reality of bloodied tiles and sword-slashed bodies, I too, was shuffling my feet and shrugging my harness, preparing for my personal challenge of Tarkiis which, since I was Marack’s champion, was as fated as the orbits of Capil and Ripple.
It was more than a question of personal revenge for Murie. If I could strike Tarkiis down, slay him, well, what with all that had happened, that could be the end of it. With the Overlord dead, no white-tab would oppose us. I doubted that the remaining Alphians would either. But even as I procrastinated, for that’s what my hesitation amounted to, a couple of things intruded. The first was Hooli. The second was Tarkiis, himself….
There’d been such a roar of wind tearing at the battlements that I’d thought a sudden buzzing in my head was a part of it. Not so. Nor was it a product of the communications node buried at the base of my skull. Only the Deneb and Kriloy had access to that The Deneb was long gone, and Kriloy used a dit-da-da warning. I turned toward the king and Hooli—and Hooli’s voice exploded inside my head with full amplification—“Damn, Collin! Stay open. You’ve a natural blanking ability you know.”
And at that exact moment, Tarkiis led his
remaining sviwrdsmen in a sort of kamikaze chargel
I yelled mentally: “Hooli! Not now!”
“Yes, now. It can’t wait, Collin.”
. “Get—out—of—my—bloody—head!” All around me, I could sense and vaguely hear, but not see, that a fight was raging, a howling, screaming melee of flesh and steel. “Just cool it, Kyrie. There’s something I’ve got to say.” “Say it.”
“Use the belt laser. Take ‘em out now. If there’s a reaction from the sphere, I’ll handle it. We’ve got to get you back to Gortfin, have Elioseen put you aboard the skyship where you can then seize the controls. After which, you’re to blast anything of metallic alloy that comes within scanning distance.”
“Just like that?”
“Yup. I told you, Kyrie. I warned you that this would be a possibility.”
“You warned me.” In my instant anger, I, too, had begun to ignore the no-quarter fighting around me. “I’m suddenly thinking, Hooli, that it never was just a “possibility,” but rather that it’s been a fact all along, just waiting to happen. The only question, brown-bag, was when? How’s about the sphere? Will I be blasting that, too?”
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