by Brian Daley
Beast and master went down, the charger rolling over on the helpless man, and the knight struck the Duke through.
Springbuck spurred forward and rewarded the knight by sending his head leaping from his body, helmet and all, with a single sweep; a fitting end for him. In a moment the Prince had unhorsed and, removing his mask, knelt by Bulf’s side. The injured man’s breath came in a rattle, but he somehow recognized the face of the Prince, whom he hadn’t seen in years.
“It’s done for me, your Grace,” he wheezed. “But how good to fall on a field of triumph when I’d thought to lie on one of defeat. Your benediction, if you please, worthy and well-come son of Surehand, and then please save my poor sister-in-law from Ibn-al-Yed.”
Tears clouded Springbuck’s vision; he heard life leave Bulf Hightower. He felt undeserving of the old man’s respect, but removed the helmet of iron and put his lips lightly to the still-warm brow, a final salute.
A thought came to him. What had Bulf said? His sister-in-law! Of course; how else could Ibn-al-Yed have lured Bulf out but to have captured her in some way and used her as leverage? That was why Bulf had joined this unequal fight and sent flankers around, to try to save his brother’s widow. Bonesteel, whose sister Rolph’s widow was, was standing at the Prince’s side, face conformed in anger.
Then they were both running for their horses, gathering men as they went.
* * * *
With a dozen prowlers at their backs, Gil and Dunstan charged from the trees at the rear of the pavilion of Ibn-al-Yed.
Gil wore a steel cap and held his reins in his teeth as did his companions. With the Mauser in one hand and the Browning in the other, he led the band as they rushed at the unsuspecting bodyguards ringing the sorcerer’s tent. Bey’s underling seemed to have retreated within.
Since the sentries were giving their whole attention to the battle in front of them, the attack from behind surprised them completely. Most were scattered before they could bring up their halberds.
Their sergeant made to bring the remainder into some order, making them stand fast with the flat of his sword and threats of the wrath of Ibn-al-Yed if they failed.
Gil fired twice into the air over their heads, but still the sergeant made them hold. Gil shot him in the chest and the others broke and fled.
The American jumped from his horse with half his men and Dunstan, leaving the balance to watch the horses.
He hoped that his quarry hadn’t escaped, warned by gunfire, but needn’t have worried. Racing forward he saw the well-remembered figure in golden mask and billowing caftan step toward him, then heard him cry out in an alien voice, a language known to few.
A weakness of terror fell on them all, even Dunstan the Berserker. They dropped their weapons and collapsed to the ground as the horses went insane. Transfixed as they were, it would have been only moments before they died at the hands of the counterattacking guards, who were summoning courage to return.
But they didn’t die. In that desperate instant the blast of a war horn filled their ears, drowning out the intimidating words of Ibn-al-Yed and permitting Gil to shake his head and clear it. Webs of confusion and panic were carried away by the full winding.
He groped at the braided lanyard secured to his harness and clipped to the butt of the Mauser. Bringing the weapon up, he fired as quickly as he ever had, before the startled sorcerer had a chance to resume his litany.
The short range compensated in some part for haste. A bullet crashed into the cantor’s leg just below the hip, bursting through bone and changing the incantation to a howl of pain and anger.
Gil climbed shakily to his feet, recovering the Browning and ordering his men to control themselves and their horses. This they did, the prowlers ashamed that they had to be instructed by an outlander and Dunstan with new respect for the American.
Gil turned to find the source of the horn blast and didn’t have far to search.
Standing at the entrance of the tent was a handsome woman of middle years, her disheveled hair a gentle brown shot with gray. Her eyes were glazed, as if she saw little of what had happened. Her gown had been partially torn from her, testifying to rough usage. She was plainly a courageous Lady, who’d found some unconquerable core of will in herself; in her trembling hands was a curled horn, its long baldric dragging in the dust at her bare feet.
They all owed her their lives, Gil knew. She’d done a deed of uncommon valor, refusing to succumb to the spell of Ibn-al-Yed—an act none of them had been able to emulate.
As gently as he could, he took the horn from her hands and seated her on the ground. Her skin was cold, yet perspiration shone on her face. Gil dashed into the tent to find a robe or blanket; he’d seen shock many times before.
Ignoring food, drink and the military maps strewn on low tables, he strode across the deserted tent to a pile of bedding and cushions, from which he snatched up a fur robe. He didn’t miss the confusion of the bedding and the bits of torn cloth that confirmed violation of the woman outside. Has Ibn-al-Yed celebrated victory before the fact of battle? Gil didn’t stop to wonder.
He went and saw to his savior’s comfort as best he could, judging it better to keep her outside than move her into the tent, where she’d evidently suffered so much. He stationed his men for security and tried to see what was happening on the field of combat.
The day had turned, with the help of the expedition from Freegate.
Holstering his Mauser, Gil drew his sword and stepped over to the staff from which Ibn-al-Yed’s standard flew. He severed it as if it were an enemy. The menacing black scorpion wafted gently to earth, never to fly again, for he plunged his sword through it and left it pinned for its initial and final defeat.
Then he turned and saw that, incredibly, the sorcerer had somehow made it to his feet and was attempting to hobble to his tent.
The American bounded after him in a fit of rage and swung him around. With one hand around the swarthy neck Gil ripped off the mask, glad to have someone on whom to vent his anger.
He’d planned to break the man’s jaw, punish him for what he’d caused both inside and outside the tent, but instead shrank back.
Ibn-al-Yed was without features: eyeless, mouthless, lacking any characteristic belonging to a human face.
Gil struck the thing before him, hard. He knocked it to the ground with a fury that did nothing to relieve his revulsion.
When the troops of Ibn-al-Yed, having seen their field commander fall, witnessed the humiliation of the scorpion symbol of their supernatural leader, they began to run or fight free of the conflict and fly in the direction of Earthfast.
Gil was joined at that sad pavilion by such of the victors as had survived.
Chapter Twenty-Five
It’s none of your nobility impelled me on my way. It’s guilt and hate, and love and fear; these roused me forth each day.
Nor had I any righteousness, no heaven-sent commission; a man’s the sum of circumstance, of training, times, position.
The greatest burdens I have known, and conscience can’t ignore— I’ve bolstered men unto their deaths, I’ve led them into war.
And am sustained by just one thought: I heard and did respond and taint myself to drive the shadows out from Coramonde.
—From “Virtue Abandoned”, The Antechamber Ballads
Bulf had been the only fatality among their leadership. His nephew Sordo, barely more than a boy, assumed the Dukedom on hearing of his uncle’s death, as was the custom in their family, although Sordo hadn’t been due to advance until his majority. He was the last of that high pedigree, save only his recluse grandfather. All addressed Sordo as Hightower, and he did his best to project the dignity his predecessors had.
With him came Springbuck, Sordo’s uncle Bonesteel, Reacher and the rest. The Prince was quiet, appalled by the sight of so many brave and earnest men put low, their lives wasted.
When Sordo saw the woman lying in shock on the ground, he gave a cry. Casting aside his helmet, he thr
ew himself down at her side and wept. “Oh, Mother! My father they’ve slain and his brother, and now this third and worst calamity of all! Surely the foe exacted the bitterest measure of hurt from us!”
Bonesteel, too, wept to see his sister so.
Sordo’s grieving subsided as he turned from his mother and spied the writhing thing that had been Ibn-al-Yed, its featureless face and cringing form a study in anonymous fear. It tried to drag itself, leg bleeding badly now, from the fury of the victors. Sordo sprang to his feet and shook a gauntleted fist at the anome.
“You are not the source of all our hurt,” he choked, fighting to master the racking sobs. “But much of it issued from you. Would you go now, crawl from your wages? No, don’t stir until I make this day dearer yet for you!”
He snatched a short, heavy mace from his belt and rushed to the creature’s side, looming over’it like an avenging demon. Before anyone could speak, the boy swung the mace over his head and smashed Ibn-al-Yed’s unwounded leg at the knee, pulverizing the bone.
An inhuman scream of agony was torn from the innermost depths of the blank head. Such was the pain it felt that the thing pitched forward unconscious. Sordo broke into hysterical laughter and bent over the sprawled body, so wild a look on his countenance that no one could move or speak for fascination of it.
“No swoon will save you from me,” he whispered. “I’ll kill you by inches.”
But Springbuck, nearby, took his armored shoulders in his hands and brought the boy’s eyes up to his own. There were only a few years between them, but the Prince looked much the elder, wearier and hardened to mastery of self.
“This one is not for you,” he said. “Now go see to your mother. Don’t fall to his level by doing his own sort of deed to him. We mustn’t become the things we despise; in that lies their surest victory.” Sordo stared for a moment, biting his lip, then turned again to his mother.
None of the besieging force could be seen; they’d all been routed when their leaders were thrown down. None, that is, except the dead and wounded who still lay on the bloodied field. Already the injured from the Hightower and the allied expedition were being carried back to the fortress and the dead gathered for their final journey. The victors were preparing to slay their fallen enemies, but Springbuck ordered them to be spared.
“These, too, are my subjects, though they follow false colors,” he said. “So let those who are able leave, and tell people the true Ku-Mor-Mai is come again to Coramonde. Let those who’ve been killed be buried with respect and not left to rot. If a man cannot go, put him in the fortress and let him be cared for as we care for our own. When this war is over and my reign is come, there will be enough wounds to bind in Coramonde. I’ll open no new one with the killing of more of my subjects than must be; who can make the dead alive once more and placate those who loved them?”
All were taken back by this. It wasn’t their experience in war to let live a downed antagonist, who might come after revenge. But Gil nodded in agreement and they knew this was another unusual notion learned by the Prince from the American. When they’d thought it through for a time, most decided it was a good thing.
Then the numb tranquillity of after-battle was snuffed out as a low, chilling laugh filled their ears. The golden mask of Ibn-al-Yed was its origin, though it had been ripped from its owner’s head. It rang hollowly and its dark eye sockets appeared to them to hold tiny points of light that brought vivid dread.
“King of fools!” it reverberated, “Princeling of tosspots and strumpets! Do you posture already? No, no, it is too early; you’ve interfered with the least of my affairs.”
Springbuck’s hackles rose. He recognized the voice of Yardiff Bey and knew that the sorcerer spoke from afar. The mask of Ibn-al-Yed was obeying its true owner.
“You have my let to kill the mindless thing that wore this false face I forged,” it continued, staring upward to a wind-scoured sky. “Ibn-al-Yed became too ambitious. In this way I converted him to a container for my will, another slave for Yardiff Bey.
“Do you think well of yourselves, little warriors? Ah, stand your ground then; you’ve only met the vanguard of the first of the armies I’ll send against you. Its main body is not far behind. I think it will be more than adequate to deal with this children’s outing you call an army. I have the might of all Coramonde to throw at you. It would seem you’ve abused my calling knock, but that won’t discourage my visit. Yes, lock yourselves up in that pitiful stone sty and say farewell to your gods. Your time to fight and fall is now well-nigh.”
The mask spoke no more, for Kisst-Haa lunged at it with a hiss and stamped on it with his horn-skinned foot, flattening it under his weight and puncturing it with his murderous claws. The mask could make no other sound after that, even at the behest of its creator.
But news of the approach of another army galvanized the allies into action. They quickly organized evacuation of the wounded and removal of the dead. Springbuck yielded on the disposal of enemy slain insofar as to permit their cremation atop a hasty pyre. As the balefire rose, foot soldiers and others from the Hightower came to aid in gathering up weapons, provender and other useful items from the emptied camp. Stray mounts and deserted picket lines were rounded up.
When Gil and Springbuck saw that all particulars of the mop-up had been established, they rode to the castle, where Sordo had taken his slain uncle and his mother. The Hightower was in an uproar like an ants’ nest when its home log is ripped open. But these ants were preparing to fight, not having heard the threat of the mask, and didn’t know the new odds they faced. The respite before a renewed siege was to be exploited to the fullest. Foraging parties were sent out to seize any supply or baggage trains left straggling behind, and to exhort the locals either to bring family and flock within the fortress or seek shelter in the deep forest.
Sordo took determined control of his family’s liegemen and put them under the direct supervision of his uncle, Legion-Marshal Bonesteel. Then he drew the Prince aside.
“I must go now to my grandsire and tell him that his second and last son is dead,” he said. “And while our sorrow is our own, and our loss prideful, I know that he would wish to salute you, however infirm he is.”
“Of course I’ll come, Hightower. It’s your grandfather and the other men of this place who deserve my own tribute.”
At this Sordo clapped hand to hilt and bowed. Then he led Springbuck up a broad staircase.
Gil, having seen this and heard it, inquired of Bonesteel what the two had been talking about.
“I thought all Hightowers were dead except Sordo and his mother, no? If there’s a grandfather, how’s come we haven’t seen him before?”
The Legion-Marshal turned from supervising the positioning of a liberated mangonel and looked to one of the castle’s lesser towers, pointing at its pinnacle.
“Up there is Hightower the First, builder of this place,” the old soldier said. “He was one of the principals of the second coagmentation, a wanderer and a warrior whom any man might admire. He came to Coramonde from sojourns in the far south and made his home here, after swearing allegiance to Springbuck’s grandfather. Many battles he fought, and many enemies he slew for Coramonde. He was quick to take anger, but quick, too, to forgive and benevolent to those under him.
“Age never bent his spine. He’s the last pureblood of a gifted line of men, blessed with vitality and vigor well beyond the years of us common men. He had entered his sixth decade in power and grace over twenty years ago when gods or demons afflicted him with blindness—no one knows the full story save him, I would guess. He renounced his rule in favor of his eldest son Rolph, who was only eighteen then. Hightower had married late in life. Then he shut himself away in yon tower. His family and some few servants have seen him since then, but no other, I think.”
* * * *
The walls of the stairwell spiraled up the tower and were damp and cold, poorly illuminated by occasional slitted windows. Springbuck scarcely noticed this; i
t was the usual way in the great castles he’d seen, Earthfast and Freegate being exceptions.
They came to a halt ten steps from where the stairway apparently met the ceiling. Sordo stepped to a fixture on the wall, a fish-head of copper long gone green, mouth agape, looking as if it were swimming toward them out of the very stone. He spoke into the hollow mouth.
“Grandfather? It’s Sordo. I must speak with you.”
The Prince had heard tales of the eldest Hightower’s hermitage and was fully prepared to be told to leave, but to his surprise the ceiling over the stairwell slowly swung away with a grinding of ancient gears. The newest Lord of the Hightower waited a moment, then led the way up the steps into a large, airy chamber.
At the four points of the compass were wide windows fitted with hinged shutters—an indulgence in a frontier fortress, the Prince thought. Though the day wasn’t cold, a fire burned in the hearth. The floor was covered with deep furs and all the walls were hung with tapestries. The windlass which had raised the lidlike stone door covered the stairwell was now unattended, and Springbuck couldn’t see its operator at first.
“Grandson, come here,” said a deep voice. With a start the Prince looked to a high-backed chair drawn up close to the fire.
They crossed to it and stood before Hightower, a man of imposing appearance and a rare warrior. He sat upright, a giant whose frame was utterly unbowed with the eighty and more years weighing on it. Time had been forbidden to steal his strength or slacken his belly, although the hair that grew down past his shoulders and the flowing beard and flaring mustache were purest white.
He wore glittering mail and heavy greaves, carefully maintained through years of disuse; through his belt armored gauntlets were tucked. Across his knees was a plain broadsword in scabbard, of such size that the Prince doubted if many men could handle it at all, much less carry it to war. Springbuck studied this tragic man, the massive architecture of chest and shoulders, the still-strong hands idle in his lap, eyes staring blindly into the fire. Here was a mountain among men bested by a foe he couldn’t put down with hand strokes.
