by Adam Corby
Slung on the side of every man’s pony, within easy reach, were their bows and the thick bundles of slender death-birds. Yet more bundles of arrows were wrapped carefully in waterproof pelts on the pack-ponies. These were the tribe’s only hope – Ara-Karn’s boon – and more than one man found his hand often straying to the bow and arrows to fondle them and gain comfort thereby.
They traveled southward, past the skirt of Kaari-Moldole toward the distant blue mountains of the Spine of Civilization growing above the horizon. This was not their usual path; they feared to travel as they were used, for fear of facing Orn ambushes in every ravine. There were easy valleys by clear-welled streams that all the tribes knew and used in common. They knew these trails; Gen-Karn knew them also. If he had not attacked them after the destruction of the Korlas, it could only have been with some other, greater treachery in mind.
They rode up into the foothills of the Spine, where few tribes went. Above them towered the peaks of the Spine, ever bluely snowbound, cushioning their heads against the clouds. Beyond these mountains lay the soft verdant lands of the lush Southlands, where the streets had golden fountains. But there was no way to cross the Spine, save through the Pass at Gerso.
Even here in the foothills the air was stiff and thin compared to the soft air by the sea. The warriors urged their ponies up the rocky trails, among steep lands where trees were scarce and stunted. Then they turned their faces to the dark horizon and began the long and arduous journey.
Along the way Ara-Karn asked the chief about the Assembly, its history, and of the place whither they were bound.
‘It’s the Assembly,’ responded Gundoen simply. ‘Once a year, at the end of the growing season yet before winter has set his teeth into the earth, all the tribes journey from their home-fires and go beyond the dusky border that separates Her world from His. There, with his head towering out of the darkness, stands Urnostardil, the Table – a great mountain like to one of the higher of those there’ – he gestured with his gloved hand – ‘yet with his peak lopped off. His sides are steep and rough, assailable from but a single face, and there only up a narrow, back-and-forth trail fit more for the nimble beasts than mounted men.
‘Upon the top of that Table meet the tribes. Each year we all gather, for there is room there even for all of us, if you can imagine it so great. And the tribes choose the Warlord, he who is by name the leader of all the tribes. In the past several years, because none has dared to go against him, Gen-Karn has been the undisputed Warlord.’
‘How is he chosen?’
Gundoen shrugged the massive shoulders encased in iron. ‘How else but by combat?’ he asked. ‘Some years the Warlord is a powerful man indeed, and other years not so powerful, depending upon the man and his circumstances. For a man may be a great fighter, but an indifferent leader of men and not crafty enough in all. Or the Warlord may be the chief of his own tribe or not; and his tribe may not be a powerful one. Now, Gen-Karn has become one of the most powerful of the Warlords ever, for he is the chief of the Orns, one of the most wealthy tribes with great warriors – mountain and lake folk, and great fighters. It has the greatest number of clans, and, since Gen-Karn returned to lead them, they have become very wealthy dealing with the Southron merchants. Moreover Gen-Karn is clever as a wounded fulsar beast and half again as ferocious. Of those who went against him in the first years of his rule, not one lasted for more than it would have taken you to count two score – and not a one did he leave alive, except Elrikal of the Forun tribe. Him he left living, if you care to call it so: missing both legs, one eye, and his right hand. He was a broken man after that, without even the courage to cut his own throat, which any man with honor should have done. And since then no man has dared to face Gen-Karn.’
Gundoen fell silent awhile, looking down to where his own gloved hands cradled the reins of his pony. For a time there was only the creaking of leather on leather and the clinking of the iron fastenings. Then the wind turned and came from the horizon, bringing with it the bitter chill of the snow-chained peaks. They had left autumn behind in the low golden forests; here in the hills it was winter already.
A low chant arose from the rear of the long columns, hollowly sounded in the throats of metal-clad men – a battle-chant, the chant of the last survivors on the Table – Tont-Ornoth, El-Sabak, Born-Karn, Vel-Star, and the others whose names were legend – and Sil-Sa-Pal, the woman with the hair of gold, who wore her dead husband’s armor fighting the man who would become a god, until Elna’s men threw her down the side of the peak to her death. It was the Awaiting Chant, of the time when the battle had come to a last long lull, and the final charge was being planned by the civilized men who were led in person by Elna, soon to make himself the first Emperor in Tarendahardil, the City Over the World. It was a chant as desolate as these wolf-spurned hills, as mournful as the last cries of a wounded falcon calling for his dead mate. The stranger seemed to like it.
Gundoen shook his massive frame, rumbled the phlegm in his throat, and spat.
‘I could have challenged Gen-Karn,’ he said. ‘To be a challenger a man must only be a member of one of the tribes, a good hunter, and have accomplished some great deed. And all of those things are mine. Yet I have seen Gen-Karn fight, and though I know his tricks and weaknesses, I also know my own. And I am not the man to beat him. He is clever with a sword, and fast – and only greater cleverness and speed will best him. Now if it were only wrestling, ah!’ The chief’s great chest swelled. ‘Then you’d see a sight. I’d crack him like a rotten nut between these arms of mine. But with a sword I was never your man. You saw me, back among the Korlas – sometimes I fight as if I were wrestling.’
He turned back on his pony and ‘Ho there!’ he called. ‘Have you nothing pleasanter to sing than that old dirge? Do you trust my leadership so little as that?’
Laughter answered him, and the men changed their tune to a simple marching chant, picked up from the happier peoples of the fat Southlands.
Gradually the sky fell darker before the traveling columns. Goddess sank low in the sky, four fists high, then three, then two. And at last She was but one fist above the far, undulating horizon, a great copper ball in a yellowed corner of the blooded sky. Above them the sky was a deep darkness, more green than blue; and ahead, where the ponies’ heads were turned, the sky was almost black.
Only once did they cross the tracks of other men. That was when they were crossing the wide smooth trails leading down to rich Gerso at the Pass of Gerso. Then they could not help but meet other travelers, for it was only in the very deeps of icy winter that these paths were still. Yet the men they encountered were no more than a few traders with their ponies returning with pelts and gold to Gerso – no threat to Gundoen’s strong warriors. Ara-Karn looked to the South curiously, as if he wished to leave the warriors and go that way.
After they had crossed the paths leading to the city of merchants, they headed more toward the North. Gundoen led them down out of the rocky hills for the softer forested lands. Here they made much faster progress without worrying about treachery. For it was doubtful that Gen-Karn could have guessed they would be coming at Urnostardil from so far to the South. And by now he would have drawn in whatever spies and ambuscades he had set to gall them, for the time of the Assembly was very near. By now, Gundoen said, the man would be concentrating on the politics of the tribes, for he had ever been the first among chieftains to lead his warriors up the Goat’s-Track.
When they had come down into the lowlands they found that here, too, winter had beset the land. The trees were nearly naked, and chill winds blew the thick leaves about. Here, where She was weaker upon the border of His lands, the air was darker, colder, and more bleak; summer was none so intense, spring came later, and winter lay upon this land many passes more than upon the lands on the ocean’s edge.
And now they were come to the great dusky border, between the lands where men may dwell in Her light and those forever dark beneath His sleepless Eye, where none
but Madpriests dwell. Here the valleys were dark like shut dim places, and only stunted, distorted things grew therein. And whenever the warriors rode down the back of some great hill, flaming Goddess would fall away beyond the earth, and Darkness, chill and implacable, would swallow them. Their breaths would come steaming from their mouths, and they must guide their ponies more slowly, lest they stumble and fall.
And when they would rise once more to the Goddess-swathed gold of another ridge, then they would breathe more easily, a bond seemingly loosed from their chests and the prickling gone from their armpits. Nor would they hasten their pace, now they could see the path clearly; but rather they paused and milled about. They gloried even in this faint warmth of Her gaze, looking to see Her, faint, pale, and shrunken upon the lip of the far horizon.
They came over the crest of a spiny-backed hill with more of rocks than shrubs. And when they passed away over it they said a final prayer to Her who looks down upon us all with warmth. They prayed for their women and children and the fate of their village. They prayed for victory in the coming struggles. This was no ritual prayer beset with high formulae, led by arcane initiates, priestesses, and kings, but a simple sincere thing, spoken in the silence of every man’s heart. But whether the stranger prayed or not, none could say.
The chief then tried to cheer them, and they laughed with him. But the darkness echoed back their hollow laughter, and the eyes of the men were wide and dark. Not even the chief’s voice sounded as heartily as it was used.
Then they kicked the flanks of their unwilling ponies and passed from the lands of living men. For now they had gone beyond the utmost reaches of the dusky border and were in the lands on which only His Eye looked down from blackened skies.
And they knew that somewhere beyond the last hills, not far along, the land fell sloping down to the dark chill seas of darkness, broken only by rare jagged peaks of bare sweatful stone, where nothing lived but monstrous reptilian fishes with jagged sharp teeth and no eyes bulging in the darkness of those sunless seas. And above it all, darker than the darkness, hung the citadel of black rock, of Him who loves men not.
They rode on in silence for some time.
Only the beat of hooves and the hiss of pine torches interrupted each warrior’s solemn reflections, and not even Gundoen broke that silence. They had come this way many times, but before they had always known they would return.
The ponies started in the darkness. Wide flared the nostrils of the ponies. Even the men could smell that clammy, reptilian smell that fills the stomach with revulsion. The ponies tried to break away – they were held in line only by the strong fists of the riders.
‘Where is it?’ called Gundoen, forcing his pony back along the lines. ‘Can anyone see it?’
‘I cannot see it,’ shouted one man in terror. ‘But it’s there to the right of us! Listen!’
They fell silent.
A noise came to their ears – a noise of horror. A shambling, brutish slithering, a rustling, a slime-filled crawling sound. Softly it parted earth and the stunted branches, softly – yet such was the bulk of that monstrous thing that even in stealth it made the noise of a troop of men.
The sound grew steadily for several moments, then stopped, pausing uncertainly. It came again, louder, and the frightened ponies bucked and neighed. Yet there was no cause for such alarm, for the noise was receding.
‘Come on now,’ called Gundoen, when the dank dark woods had been silent for several moments. ‘No need for worry now. The Assembly and Gen-Karn are more than enough concern for us.’
Gradually the warriors started forward again – yet more slowly, more cautiously, than ever before.
‘A Darkbeast,’ replied Gundoen to Ara-Karn’s question. ‘They are the only large things that can live in the darkness. They exist off ponies and such animals as get lost in the darkness. They can swallow a colt whole, in a single gulp! The scent of so many of us must have been what frightened it away. What a deed it is to hunt one! It takes more than a score of trained warriors just to kill one; but those men can wear the teeth of a Darkbeast and be honored above all other hunters. In my hall there is such a tooth, from a Darkbeast slain by Oro-Born, one of the great chiefs of my tribe. If we return aright, I’ll show it you.’
The men moved forward at hardly a walking pace. They traveled in a silence broken only by the curses of a man whose pony had made a mis-step or been lamed. Twice they ate in the darkness, but did not lie down to sleep. It would not have been necessary to cover themselves with the small tent-dim-place here; but to lie in the snow in that defenseless land, under the moveful, malevolent Eye of God, was too eerie to let any man find rest.
They came to a long, tall slope and followed it up to the weird, star-pointed sky; and when they had reached the peak of the ridge, they spread themselves out in the frozen darkness. There they fed themselves and their ponies one more time and stooped to examine their weapons in the flickering torchlight.
Before them, glowing like a crown of flames, stood the flattened peak of a great mountain, standing far above them. This mountain had neither root nor head, but only the slanting middle, suspended under the vault of heaven, glowing as if alive. Along its edge tiny figures worked their way up the slopes – antlike things, which were men mounted on horseback.
Gundoen swept his massive, ironclad arm out in an expansive gesture before Ara-Karn.
‘Behold Urnostardil the Table, site of the Last Stand, and ever since the spot of the Assembly of all the tribes of the far North,’ he said.
* * *
In the lambent darkness among the few scattered fires, Kuln-Holn regarded his master. This was the first time he had ever journeyed far away from the sea and the place of his home village. The mountains he had disliked, for they were cold and foreboding; nor did he like being among the warriors of the tribe, who could speak of nothing but the men they had killed and their chances of survival when they went against the Orns. This kind of talk was chilling to Kuln-Holn. Mostly he had ridden in silence, nursing his unfamiliar pony along and concentrating on his dreams. He had looked to his master often, in the long and wearisome journey. It was upon him that he depended for comfort and secureness.
The warriors about him spoke and jested in low tones, eating dried meats, fish pasties, and hard dark bread. They had found some pools of sour water nearby; in addition to this they drank ale out of the stoppered clay jugs. They drank until their throats burned and hearts beat faster, then they wiped their beards with their gloved hands and threw the jugs away. This was to be the last meal before the ascent to Table, and Kuln-Holn heard their murmured questions about what they might encounter on that golden summit.
Kuln-Holn ate somewhat with them and took a bit of ale as well. When they drew forth their weapons to care for them, he searched about in his packs. He had only a long knife, more fit to the task of skinning fish than slaying men. He had never been in battle or even killed a man and did not know what it would be like. He feared it. Yet if battle did come, he knew it must be with Her consent, a part of Her plan – for was not Ara-Karn Her messenger, and had he not counseled it? So, dutifully copying the motions of his fellows, Kuln-Holn the Pious One began sharpening the long blade in the firelight and the cold light of ever-moving God.
He was still drawing it across the whetstone when Ara-Karn approached him. The shadow of his master blocked off the nearest fire, plunging Kuln-Holn’s hands into darkness.
‘Assemble your gear and bring our ponies.’
Kuln-Holn scrambled to his feet. ‘But, lord, there will be time for that. The others have not yet—’ he began, but stopped. His master had turned and strode away, hearing none of Kuln-Holn’s words.
Quickly, Kuln-Holn sheathed the fish-knife and tossed the whetstone in his wallet. He took the ponies from their feed, threw their bags over the backs, and tightened the straps. He followed his master, leading the ponies carefully through the bunched masses of men and horses.
He found Ara-Karn standing be
fore the chief, awaiting him. When Kuln-Holn had brought the ponies to him, Ara-Karn turned back to the chief.
‘I do not know how to answer you,’ Gundoen said hopelessly, in tones that surprised Kuln-Holn.
‘I have known you well, Chief,’ said the stranger, ‘and liked you even better. Yet I am not one of you. Ask your men – they know it well. I have profited much from living amongst you, and you have also gained much from me. We are quits, then: you saved me from the sea, and I helped you destroy the Korlas.’
‘They are not all gone,’ pleaded the chief in harsh tones. ‘Some are even now on Table, above us. But we’ll slay them, you and I. I killed one more than you, remember.’
Kuln-Holn saw his master smile. ‘God grant you will. Yet to my mind we were even. At any rate, that is no longer my quarrel. I will leave you now, taking my servant with me.’
The chief looked down at the ground, up to the golden crown of Urnostardil, and suddenly back to Ara-Karn. ‘I cannot stop you, then?’
‘No.’ The master shook his head, gently yet firmly. ‘I would have gone earlier than this – back when we crossed the paths to the South. But I wanted to see this Table of which you have spoken so much. Do not fear; what is the loss of one man among so many warriors? I have shown you the ways of the bow, which none there’ – he gestured to the mass of the Table above – ‘will know aught of. Believe me, your cause is not now so hopeless as you fear. You need me no longer.’
