Horn of the River God: Book I of The Song of Agmar

by Frances Mason

  His mouth moved as the congregation swayed, “Fulkthra, Fulkthra, Fulkthra, Fulkthra.”

  Even the two tardy blacksmiths were swaying now, having merged into the congregation, their cynicism lost in the inexorable pull of the group. Alex felt himself swaying, and knowing it, stopped. Fanaticism was too easy a disease to catch. Caught by the force of the many, all good sense of the individual was quickly lost. Ilsa asked no such rituals of his followers. All he asked was that you be skilful. But perhaps that made him no different from Fulkthra. The blacksmiths had said as much before merging themselves in the mindlessness of the mob.

  Whatever the worship displayed in their professional skills they now swayed, all critical intelligence drowned in the chant, “Fulkthra. Fulkthra. Fulkthra. Fulkthra.”

  Brandon dropped his eyes to the swaying congregation, and brought his outstretched arms together, one hand under the empty pommel of the sword, the other under the tip of the sheath. He lifted the sword from the anvil. He raised it and held it high as though presenting it to a divine presence that only he could see. His face was intent, his eyes looking with adoration on what he held, and in them flickered fire, perhaps lit by religious enthusiasm, perhaps reflected from the lava in the cavern and the torches on the walls. He gripped the sheath, and the hilt, and drew out the sword.

  The chant continued, but increased in tempo and fervour, “Fulkthra, Fulkthra, Fulkthra, Fulkthra.”

  The sword shone like silver in firelight. What bone would do that? Alex wondered. Placing the sheath on the anvil Brandon went to the natural forge and plunged the blade into the flowing lava.

  “Fulkthra, Fulkthra, Fulkthra, Fulkthra,” echoed across the cavern as fire licked about the disappearing blade.

  Though there had been no moisture on the blade steam rose from where Brandon had plunged it. At first a wisp, then more, and soon the lava or the sword was hissing as if in anger and the steam poured forth like a river of moist heat, flowing down and across the cavern floor, occluding the lava, dividing and joining and dividing again, flowing about the men’s waists, and rising, as if to drown them. And still it flowed on.

  It flowed toward the opening and through, and wrapped itself about Alex like a cloak. He tried to shake it off. In his head he heard the now familiar call, “Blood, blood, blood, blood,” as if the chant of the men below was only the surface of a madness that needed to find a way into this world, and so bring murder with it. He stepped back and down the stairs, shaking himself violently to disentangle himself from the murderous stream of water infused with fire. It clung to him with almost sexual longing, and the voice called out in his head, insistent, demanding, commanding. Then, as if reluctant, the stream released him and flowed back. He peered through the opening again, and the steam was flowing back through the crowd of orange robed smiths, every stream in reverse, as the smiths all shook themselves and stared with horror at each other.

  One man showed no fear though. Brandon drew the sword out, the lava first clinging then suddenly slewing off as all the streams of steam were sucked back into the blade. And along the length of the blade fire now danced. He turned to the congregation again, stepped forward, and extended the blade toward the barrel of water. As the point of the blade approached the water surface it rose, straining toward the tip and then higher, as though the sword were being pulled out of a barrel of molasses in reverse. Then he plunged it all the way in. Despite the heat of the forge and the fire that licked the length of the blade, no steam rose from the barrel.

  When he drew it out again it was as transparent as the purest spring water. Somehow Alex understood that it was not merely as transparent as water. It was water, as had been the flesh of the woman in the necromancer’s tower. Along its length, written in fire, rippled ever changing runes, or rather, the water of which the blade was made, and the fire which flickered along it alternately wrapped around each other, forming runes of both fire and water, as if fire and water battled in changeability, each seeking to contain the other’s elemental power. What was this wonder? The two elements most at odds contained by and containing each other. Though the call to murder that had sounded in his mind seemed evil, yet this was the most beautiful thing Alex had ever seen, as if he were witnessing the moment of creation, when all elements, before then indistinguishably mixed, found their place and opposed their forces. When the very gods were born. The watery blade and its flames flowed in a circuit, along one edge to the tip and back to the hilt, the flow tugging at and deforming the fiery runes into a glowing stream as the water wrote transparent runes in the fire, an endless cycle of creation and destruction with never a moment of stasis, never a stable identity of either element or the runes which it wrote in the other.

  Brandon raised the blade, and the blacksmiths roared their approval. He stepped to the other side of the altar, and thrust the point of the blade through the empty eye socket of the statue of Saruthra. The blacksmiths screamed and cheered. “Fire rules sky,” they roared. “Fire rules sky. Fire rules sky. Fire rules sky.” Brandon pulled the sword point out, and gripping the hilt in both hands raised the blade like a conquering hero. “Fire rules sky and sky bows low,” they screamed, and with a mighty swing brought the blade down, cutting the statue in half. “Sky falls to fire,” the blacksmiths screamed. “Sky falls to fire. Sky falls to fire.”

  Brandon slid the sword into the battered sheath and lay sword and sheath on the anvil atop the altar. The blacksmiths filed past, brushing their fingers over the holy relic as they passed then touching their fingers to their lips and their heart. Then they collected their torches from the wall brackets and filed back toward the opening to the stairwell.

  Alex quickly descended the stairs far enough to remain out of sight as the line of blacksmiths made their way out and up the stairs. No sceptical or cynical voice could now be heard. All were silent now but for the sound of their falling feet. When he was sure the last of them had passed up the stairs Alex climbed back to the opening. The cavern was not so bright without the torches, but it still glowed from the lava, and especially from the natural forge, whose cascades lit the altar, and the anvil. And the sword.

  He crossed the islands between the fiery streams. The walls seemed to bleed. He remembered the call of the sword. “Blood, blood, blood, blood,” it had called. He wished to turn away, but he could not. He was drawn on, toward the altar, toward the sword, straining against his fear as though wading through water. But the desire to have the sword was greater than his fear. He reached the altar, reached up, and wrapped his hand about the sword hilt, lifting it down. There was no voice in his head, no call for blood. It was just a sword. He drew it from its sheath to examine it more closely. It was just a bone sword. Had he actually seen what he had thought he had seen, heard the voice he had heard? Or had it all been an hallucination, caused by the hypnotic fervour of fanatical followers of the god? He could not say, but he had the sword again. He had no more right to it than any other thief. Let the better thief win, he thought, and grinned. He slid the blade back into its sheath, letting go of the hilt.

  Then he heard the voice. It did not speak of blood. And it was not in his head. He spun around. A blacksmith stood there. How had that happened? He was losing his edge. This was not even another thief, or a sly prostitute, or whatever the emasculated man at the brothel had been. It was a big burly blacksmith. How could he not perceive the presence of a big noisy smelly hammer and anvil loving blacksmith? He wondered that the blacksmith was not wearing a robe like the others. He was naked, and his arms, especially his right arm, were huge, even for a blacksmith. He was asking Alex a question, or so the thief thought from the expression on his face. Alex could not really make sense of it. It was in a strange language, and if he had not sensed the interrogative force of it through other cues he would have thought it was a kind of singing, for it had a strange musical quality to it; not the sing song quality of the languages spoken by merchants from beyond the Silk Sea, but a kind of complex harmony that no single human voice
should have been able to produce.

  What was he going to do? If he fled he would be able to outdistance the blacksmith, but the blacksmith could yell out to his friends further up the stairwell. Even if he did not Alex would run into the back of the procession of robed blacksmiths making their way to the surface. He would not be able to get past them and this one would catch up with him. The man was not armed, or armoured, or even clothed, but he guessed a blacksmith would have some weapons skills from testing his products, and might easily disarm him. And anyhow, Alex did not want to stick the sword into anyone. He just wanted to possess it, since he had gone to so much trouble to steal it, and re-steal it. He had been bashed for it, which gave him an even more proprietary feeling. He had earned it. He looked to the door, uncertain how to act. When he looked back the blacksmith was gone. The hairs rose on the nape of his neck. This had happened with the man at the brothel too. Perhaps that had been a ghost, and the blacksmith was too. He peered carefully into the darkness, but could see no hint of movement other than the streaming of the lava and the light it cast and the shadows.

  He shrugged. He had seen a lot of strange things in this city. This was just one more. He lightly ran across the islands of stone to the spiral stairway. He would have to hurry, if he did not want to be trapped in here. There might be another way out than the way he had come, but without knowing it for sure he would not risk falling too far behind the blacksmiths. It was easier climbing the stairs than it had been coming down. He stuck to the walls, running his hand along the stone, feeling the changes in moisture and heat as he ascended. He quickly caught up to the blacksmiths, and followed behind at a safe distance. He peered up occasionally to see the line of torches along the edge of the well and could see when they reached the top.

  By the time he reached the top himself the line of torches extended along the curve of the tower’s outer wall and he followed as closely behind as he dared. He would have to time his run for the exit perfectly. If he was too close they would catch him. If he was too far behind the door would close before he reached it. If the inner trigger mechanism for the door was the same as the outer he would not be able to open it without one of their hammers. Those hammers had the mark of the blacksmiths’ guild on top, an image of Fulkthra’s anvil and hammer. He had seen similar keys for secret passages before, though none quite like these. Even with a more ordinary secret key there would be subtle complexities to the design that could not be easily mimicked, even by so talented a thief as Alex, even with his range of sophisticated lock-picking tools, at least not without his having first carefully examined the details. But these hammers were worse than that. No key fashioned from wax imprints of the hammer head design would be sufficient. From what he had observed earlier he knew there was some kind of mechanism internal to the hammer. Only a stolen hammer would open the door, and he could not steal one if he was locked inside and the blacksmiths were all outside.

  He could see the last of the blacksmiths filing out through the door. He sprinted toward it. He was so rushed he did not immediately notice the slight difference in the air he would usually have sensed. By the time he did, the presence had moved to block his escape. The door clicked shut. In darkness he could see nothing, but he heard the breathing clearly, heavy, like a bellows at a forge, and angry. Then the man spoke, hissing, “Sacrilege.” Alex had forgotten that the tunnel extended in the other direction also. This blacksmith had waited in the shadows, partially concealed behind the still open door as the others filed out. Perhaps he was simply the last to leave. But perhaps he remained as a guard. The sword was a holy relic to them, after all.

  “Sacrilege. Thief. Sacrilege. Thief.” The rhythm of the man’s speech was like the fanatical chanting in their shrine down below. The blacksmith pushed forward a shuttered lantern, unshuttering it to reveal the sacrilegious thief, and himself.

  Alex squinted against the sudden brightness. He did not recognise the man. It was not Brandon. But like all blacksmiths he was powerfully built, especially in one arm. He held the lamp high in one hand and swept aside his orange robe with the other. He unhooked the hammer from his thick leather belt. He raised it threateningly.

  “Thief,” he hissed, and raised his hammer higher, an instrument of vengeance for his terrifying god.

  Reflexively, Alex’s hand went to the sword hilt. The word, “Blood!” sounded in his head, a primal scream that permeated every fibre of his being. In one swift movement, seemingly without volition, he drew the sword. Or rather, so it seemed, the sword flew out of its sheath and sliced up, cutting the hammer through the haft, and thrusting up and through the chin of the blacksmith, through his soft palate, and into his brain. His eyes did not have time to register surprise. His soul had fled before his body began to fall. His body slumped to the floor, alongside the halves of his hammer and the lamp, which spilled its oil, spreading fire across the passage. Alex stared in horror. “Blood,” he heard again, and a chill ran up his spine. He was not a murderer, he told himself, but a man lay dead, and his own hand gripped the hilt of the sword that had killed him. Blood and brain oozed from the shattered head, which had been split like a ripe fruit, mingling with the oil and its fire, filling the tunnel with the stench of burning flesh. The stench of death. And he had done this. As he stared at the sword the blood on it disappeared, as if sucked through the blade’s surface into its core by some terrible unnatural thirst.

  He quickly sheathed the sword, and picked up the head of the hammer. He leaned the sword against the wall of the tunnel. In the light of the fire he easily found the place to press the key. He gripped the hammer head as he had seen the blacksmith do outside. There was a click and the door swung open, then slowly began to swing back. He picked up the sword.

  In the stinking street he searched and found a hole in the wall of a house, near the coffin he had hidden behind earlier. He hid the hammer head there, in case he ever needed its key again, though he was not sure he would ever come back to this place, given the death for which he was now responsible. Or was he?

  As he stood up the voice was in his head again. It did not scream this time though. It murmured, “Blood, blood, blood, blood.” Now it sounded satisfied rather than demanding. Alex shuddered. He threw down the sword and the voice stopped. He stared at it in the light of the glowing mould. Despite himself he was fascinated. And he had not gone to all this trouble for nothing. He picked it up again, but by the sheath, careful not to touch the hilt. He would have to get a sword belt if he were going to wear it properly. He took his climbing rope out of his pack and, using his knife, cut a piece from its end, with which he tied the sheath to his belt.

  Chapter 13: Jasper: Lurvale

  Jasper, knight commander of the order of Urysthra, god of war, watched from the shadows of the forest on the eastern foothills of the Rue Morte mountain range as the sun rose over the peaks, mingling slowly shortening shadows of snow-capped stone and greenwood canopy across the verdant valley floor. From the south, along the western side of the river, marched the army of Gwendur, a thousand lances, each comprised of a knight, his pages, and a couple of foot soldiers apiece; and more than ten thousand longbowmen. There would not be a goose unplucked in Gwendur for the feathering of those arrows. To the north, east of the river, at the head of the valley, the king of Vrongwe had arrayed his seven battalions on the slope of a low hill. Three thousand lances of Vrongwe, about nine thousand fighting men when the men at arms accompanying each knight were counted; and five thousand mercenary crossbowmen from the Archipelago of Kum. Between these two armies, on a gentle incline north east of the ford, stood the levies of the Comte de Lurvale, son in law to Augustyn, five hundred lances, about fifteen hundred fighting men; along with more than a thousand irregulars, barely more than peasants armed with pitchforks, their armour rarely better than tunics stuffed with straw. Lurvale’s forces were significantly smaller than those of the king, but if Augustyn’s forces forded the river that would change. The ford was guarded by Lurvale’s castle of Amur, just
south of le Comte’s position.

  This mountain range was rightly called the Way of Death, for many battles had been fought over the centuries in this valley, many crowns had been won or lost here, and many soldiers had died to the glory of those who would never remember their names. Jasper’s name would not be forgotten though. A knight commander of the Crimson Monks was no ordinary soldier. His god was War himself, and to his glory Jasper had made a name that would reverberate down the ages.

  Marcos, Jasper’s sergeant at arms, shot a look at his commander, who was holding his helmet under his arm, a mailed fist on his opposite hip. His face was marked with pox scars, and a jagged line of white showed against his olive complexion where once an arrow had pierced his cheek, all the way from joint of jaw to edge of mouth. The effect of the wound was to paralyse that side of his face and make it only accidentally expressive. When he smiled, which was rarely, only half of his mouth would turn up. The scar itself provided the rest of the smile, a shocking leer which terrified those who did not know him, and even made Marcos uneasy.

  “The king waits?” Marcos asked. His words hovered between statement and question.

  Jasper watched grimly. “The king’s a fool. If he charged Lurvale now he would ride over him and take the ford. With his crossbowmen he could keep the castle garrison at bay well enough to take the ford, then take the castle at his leisure.”

  “If kings were military geniuses we’d be out of work.”

  Jasper shrugged at the comment, outwardly noncommittal. He served Urysthra, the god of war, and would to the death, and hopefully beyond. Whatever the stupidity of Amery’s allies, Jasper was, like Marcos and all of War’s Monks, loyal to his paymaster in a way that other mercenaries were not. Fighting for the interests of his secular patron and for the glory of Urysthra was his life. But that did not mean he was not appalled by the military stupidity of his patron’s allies. Many a soldier expected death in combat, whether in the flush of youth or grizzled old age, but no soldier deserved to die for the stupidity of his commander, even if that commander was his king. If the forces of Gwendur forded the river thousands of the king’s knights would die instead of hundreds. He lifted his fist from his hip and pointed to the approaching forces of Gwendur.