The wizards and the warriors tcoaaod-1

by Hugh Cook

  'Why didn't you come to me?'

  'I was ashamed. I failed, so I was ashamed.'

  'It was never your fault,' said Durnwold.

  The old man started to yell at Valarkin. He wanted Valarkin back at work. Valarkin gave a sigh almost of despair – a short, forced sigh, as if he had been hit in the pit of the stomach.

  'Sit down,' said Durnwold.

  Valarkin subsided to the ground, and watched as Durnwold shed his cloak, his chain mail and his sword.

  Leelesh let Durnwold into the pen – he did not so much as glance at her – and he chose a fat sheep. He grabbed it by the front legs, lifting it so it danced helplessly on its rear hooves. He walked it out of the pen to the shears. The animal, pulled back against his right leg, found all four cloven hooves helpless in the air. He set to work, first clipping away a couple of ragged patches of dirty wool clinging to the belly near the teats.

  The rest of the underside was bare of wool, but for a collar of wool round the neck; there was no wool on the face, only a thin layer of short, wiry, white hairs. Durnwold cut away the collar of wool, then began to shear in earnest, slowly peeling the fleece away from the left side of neck and flank, until he reached the backbone.

  In places the underside of the fleece was yellow, in places creamy white, however dirty the outside might be. Durnwold rolled the sheep onto his left leg and cut the fleece from the other side. One of the women took it as it came free. Durnwold knelt on the sheep's neck and cut away the ragged bits of wool clinging to its tail, then the dung-stained dags between its hind legs.

  Durnwold made it look easy, but he could make any physical skill look easy.

  Soon, the shearing was finished; they released the lambs. Set free, the lambs ran wild, sometimes springing straight into the air with four legs stiff, as kittens sometimes do. The lambs thought their mothers lost -the sheep smelt different now they were shorn – so the air filled with the bleating of distressed lambs. It would take a while for them to recognise their mothers, even though the mothers found their offspring without any trouble.

  Two were not set free straight away, for, overlooked earlier in the year, they had long tails and undipped ears. Valarkin was made to hold one. The old man clipped through one of its ears. The lamb thrashed and struggled; it was a sturdy beast now three months old. Seizing the tail, the old man twisted it in the middle till it broke.

  'A knife cuts more blood,' he said. 'Now turn it loose.'

  The lamb stood for a moment, fresh red blood from its mauled ear streaming through its short, tight head-wool. Then it bolted. The old man worked the second lamb the same, mumbling his satisfaction through broken yellow teeth: 'We'll have no long-tails like we did last year. No fights over who owns what, either. Those greedmouths on Tip Hill, they'd suck the spit from our mouths if we didn't stop them. Two years in a row they've snatched lambs we never marked. Now come over here, Durnwold.'

  The old man spoke again with Durnwold – Valarkin guessed he was after a promise of more money – then set off after the others, who were carrying the wool sacks back to the small, smoky, dirt-floor huts where Valarkin and Durnwold had been born and raised. The trampled earth around the pen was littered with dirty little scraps of wool. Valarkin shivered.

  'Well?' said Durnwold, putting on his chain mail. 'Are you coming with me?' 'Where?'

  'To war. Wizard hunting. Swords and hatchets!' 'I'm no warrior. You know that.' 'This is the age of the warrior,' said Durnwold, arming himself with his sword again. 'It's a dark age, then.'

  'All ages are dark, for those that won't make the best of them. Are you coming?'

  'I need time to think about it.'

  'Time is not in my gift, said Durnwold. "All I can give you is a chance.'

  He sauntered over to his horse, unhobbled the animal, swung up into the saddle and rode to the pen at a trot.

  'Well?' said Durnwold, looking down, reins in hand, reins falling to the bit which the bridle secured in the horse's mouth. Leather and cold metal. A tall man with a sword.

  'What should I bring?'

  'Everything you've got that's warm and woollen. We sleep rough tonight, and it's cold despite the summer.'

  He helped Valarkin up behind him, and the horse carried them toward the huts.

  ***

  From the door of his house, the old man, Grenberth-ing, watched his two sons ride away. His body ached from the day of herding and shearing; he knew it would still be aching on the morrow. He saw neither of the young men gave a backward glance at the place they were leaving.

  – So there they go then, the strong one and the oddling. Nothing for them but a sword in the belly, but how can they know that? Kits don't know they're born blind till their eyes open. What's to open your eyes, my bravos? What's so fine in living with folks who walk on air? They may walk on it, but they don't eat it. Without us and our like, the castle would starve in less than a season.

  – Durnwold. Was a life for him here. A dowry, a dozen sheep. Richness. The woman could still be bred from. She was a child bright enough, till the ice broke under her that winter, and her mother worked her body gone blue till it breathed. Strong body, meat and milk, heat in the right place. I'll have her down myself if you don't come back. Down and under…

  – And Valarkin. What does the oddling think he'll do in the cold outside? Stay here, and we could make a man out of him, but no, he has to walk on air. I remember when he was a child. I took him up on that blea hill in the rawky weather, and he croodled down like he was scared of the sky. Stay here, and we could make him something.

  – But now, they're going, the two of them. So go then, but there's nothing to gain but a sword in the guts. And the hand that drives it will turn it.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Before dawn, Morgan Hearst, and the half-dozen men who had volunteered to go with him, left the castle, riding eastward toward daybreak. They planned to go to the seaport of Skua, taking a corduroy road which the Collosnon had built across the swamps to the north of the Eastway, to give their invasion a road sufficiently wide for baggage wagons.

  Hearst's mission was to gain intelligence on the strength of enemy forces at Skua; if the target proved worthy, Prince Comedo's troops would march there to dare another bloodbath under the aegis of the mad-jewels. The plan was for Hearst and his men to link up with the main body of Comedo's troops at the High Castle in Trest: that was when a decision would be made.

  At Skua, Hearst would also try to discover – perhaps by kidnapping someone for interrogation – whether Volaine Persaga Haveros was still alive. If the oath-breaker was not now rotting down to earth along with the other thousands of unburied Collosnon dead near Castle Vaunting, then Hearst would try for the traitor's head.

  Durnwold had wanted to come with Hearst, who had told him it was more important for him to see how Elkor Alish organised a small army for the march: that way, he would really learn something.

  Riding east to the rising sun, Hearst felt light-hearted, excited. War again. What can compare with it? Nothing! Some day he would die – and maybe soon. But war was the only life he chose to live, and he would accept whatever death it gave him. He remembered other places, other times, when, facing death, he had challenged it with a roar which was half berserker rage, half exultation.

  So many battles. He had fought on a frozen river that was breaking up in the spring, so that ice would suddenly tilt or break, sending men in full armour plunging into freezing water. He had fought knee-deep in surf, blood in the water bringing sharks among the fighters. He had fought in fields of clutching mud, in forests, in ravines, on mountain slopes. He had fought when wounded, matching sword with sword when he had the sun in his face and blood in his eyes.

  – Death will be death, in its own good time.

  But for now, a Collosnon cavalry horse under him, companions to left and to right, a shared word, a joke… it was enough.

  Soon, the night was defeated. It was dawn. Back at Castle Vaunting, doors banged open; cursi
ng squad leaders roused their sleeping men: 'Get up, you idle corpse-rapists. Come on! Move yourselves! Hands off cocks! On with socks!'

  A rising wind, sweeping in from the Central Ocean, caught the doors, slamming them from side to side. A battle-horn sounded: rouse, rouse!

  The soldiers yawned and grumbled, stumbling into clothes and armour, but the leave-time feeling was upon them. Hot porridge to fill the belly for the long day. Snort of horses: a Collosnon mount for every man. Jingle of harness. Smells of sweat, leather, horse dung. Arguments.

  'Andranovory! That's my horse you're sitting on!'

  Last jokes. Sleep rubbed from sore eyes. The laboured breathing of men with brewery breath. Echoes crashing through hangover heads. Men yelling and quarrelling over missing clothes, lost boots. Clatter of swords and armour. Obscenity upon obscenity.

  On their mission east, they meant to destroy any Collosnon forces they found in Trest, and to find and kill the wizard Heenmor. The Melski had now told Blackwood that Heenmor had not gone north, as far as they could discover; scouts had found a marshland fisherman who had survived the Collosnon invasion, and who claimed to have seen Heenmor going east at the end of winter.

  Prince Comedo himself had solemnly sworn that everything possible would be done to kill Heenmor, and to secure the death-stone which Elkor Alish had described so well, so the wizard could take it south to return it to the Dry Pit.

  Prince Comedo woke in his clothes. He reached for the jug by his bed and drank deeply. The door opened; Gorn peered in, then, seeing the prince was awake, withdrew. What was the matter with him? Did he think that a prince of the Favoured Blood would oversleep on this day, his day, the day he rode out at the head of his army?

  He took another swig from the jug.

  His bottle, where was his bottle? Here! His green beauty, safe and smooth to carry him. That was part of the bargain he had made with the wizards. The woodsman Blackwood would carry the bottle, for the prince – his judgment was not necessarily impeccable -was convinced that Blackwood lacked the will to oppose him or betray him. Certainly he was more trustworthy than any of the unprincipled cutthroats who served Comedo as soldiers.

  The priest Valarkin would carry the spare ring for the bottle. Comedo congratulated himself on another brilliant choice. As a temple priest, Valarkin was automatically hated, and had failed to win favour with the prince's soldiers since arriving in the castle. If he ever wanted to steal the bottle, he would find it difficult to persuade anyone to conspire with him. Yet Comedo knew that Durnwold would protect his brother Valarkin if any soldier made a move against him. So you could have your cake and eat it – or, in Comedo's idiom, keep your virgin virgin yet shag it senseless.

  Comedo, cradling the bottle in his arms, imagined himself emperor of half the continent, with people falling down to worship on their knees at the very mention of his name. Hail him! Mighty warrior! Mighty conqueror! War, obviously, was the life he was made for.

  Elsewhere in Castle Vaunting, Blackwood woke beside Mystrel. His eyes were gritty; he had not slept much during the night. He remembered how she had wept; how she had despaired. But he had told her their future should be safe enough.

  Comedo's men would march with the mad-jewels to defeat any enemy they met, so there was no danger there. Blackwood was vague as to how the castle would be guarded while they were gone, as he had not been privy to the councils of war which had made the arrangements – but no doubt something would be done. In any case, it was not far to the High Castle. Five days' easy riding should get them there, so it was hard to see how they could be away for long.

  Somewhere, not for the first time, the sound of a battle-horn roused the castle.

  Blackwood dressed. He buckled on his belt; he was taking his hunting trousse, a bow and a quiver of arrows, and his canvas rain-shelter. Like every other man, he would also be taking a pack; these had back-straps so men could carry them, though horses would take the weight on the journey to the High Castle.

  Every man carried in his pack the issue Alish had insisted on. There were rations for ten days (dried meat, salted fish, barley flour, rice) and an issue of siege dust which would support life for twenty days if they ever got hungry enough to start eating it. Alish had also insisted that every man carry spare boots, fishing lines, fish hooks, at least one woollen blanket and at least two leather waterbottles.

  Mystrel was still sleeping; Blackwood decided it was best they parted that way. They had been through enough pain already. He left, catfoot, silent. Mystrel distrusted Prince Comedo, thinking he had some terrible fate in store for his some-time huntsman, but Blackwood doubted that Comedo would dare move against him now – not when the Rovac warrior Morgan Hearst owed Blackwood his life, and would doubtless be ready to repay that debt if the occasion arose.

  He could not guess what future lay ahead for Mystrel and himself – and for the child they were expecting -but he knew the future had to be better than the past.

  Outside, Elkor Alish was attempting to dominate the vast expanse of the central courtyard with his voice. He was harrying his underlings, checking armour, weapons, harness, boots, packs. Despite this business, he could not avoid the thought: here he was, again, setting off to war.

  War? Collosnon soldiers might die, but the true enemy was a wizard, Heenmor. It was not so much a war as a manhunt. But afterwards… yes, then there would be a proper war. The wizards had promised Prince Comedo that he would be given the mad-jewels once Heenmor had been killed and the death-stone recovered. Each mad-jewel was good for a year of use. With that magic to aid them, Comedo's armies would push south, killing as they went, until they reached the Far South and the Great Dyke itself.

  Blood would be shed – some of it, perhaps, innocent. He would allow it for the sake of the ultimate cause: to take revenge for the ancient crimes of wizards. As a member of the Code of Night, Alish was sworn to that cause. And if he could lay hands on the death-stone as well…

  Putting hesitation behind him, Elkor Alish faced the future with a resolute will, denying uncertainty with his voice and demeanour.

  Durnwold rose early, to see how Alish got things done – but Valarkin slept in to ensure he was properly rested.

  Chances for sleep might be scarce if they were attacked on the march.

  Valarkin had, the night before, oiled every bit of metal worth oiling, greased every bit of leather, rearranged the items in his pack a dozen times till it sat comfortably on his back – even though he knew a horse would carry it to the High Castle – and before going to sleep had rehearsed every sword stroke Durnwold had taught him in the few days they had been allowed for preparation.

  If intellect could conquer, then Valarkin was determined to triumph; if preparation meant success, then he would astonish a whole generation. Whatever happened, he was now Comedo's ring-bearer, guarding a ring giving access to the green bottle, which was now loaded down with provisions of luxury. Providing he survived this campaign, he would be in a position to gain power. That was what he wanted: what he needed.

  Miphon woke slowly, reluctant to face the horror planned for their departure. Phyphor had warned him, on pain of death, not to interfere. This morning, his mind was a turmoil. Should he obey? Or try and warn the intended victims? Or try and kill Phyphor? The truth was, Phyphor had the authority of the whole Confederation of Wizards behind him. And Miphon could not kill Phyphor and Garash and Comedo and Alish – he would only get himself butchered.

  Reluctantly, hating himself, Miphon decided to comply with Phyphor's instructions.

  He checked his gear. In his pack were selected medical items, including knives, hooks, needles, thread, laudanum, honey, bandages and garlic. He felt a certain sense of futility. He could doubtless save a few lives here and there, but what was the good of that in the face of so much slaughter?

  In another tower, Garash woke with a little grin on his face. He was looking forward to the fun planned for their departure. And for the chance, if their expedition succeeded, to try to
grab the death-stone for himself.

  One did not lightly plan to outwit and doublecross a dangerous wizard like Phyphor, but Garash was determined to do it. For power. And for revenge: he still remembered the day of horror after he had been caught by Heenmor's blast-trap, unable to see the light, and thinking himself perhaps blind forever.

  Mystrel woke a little later. She thought she felt something – the child in her belly? It distracted her only momentarily. Blackwood was gone! She opened the door. The corridors were silent, empty. She ran, calling his name.

  Alish, elsewhere, was handing out the small, red charms on golden chains. The men had not expected to see them again so soon: only a chosen few had been told they were leaving one of the mad-jewels to guard Castle Vaunting. Now some guessed: but all of them, even those with their favourite drabs and doxies living in the castle, put on the red charms without question.

  None dared argue with Elkor Alish, the master swordsman, for after the battles against the Collosnon he was no longer known as 'the man who does not shed blood'.

  Blackwood's turn came. Blackwood was last. •What's this for?' said Blackwood, holding the little red charm on its golden chain. 'We're not using a mad-jewel today, are we?'

  'Put it on.' said Alish.

  ***

  It was a quiet room, empty but for a man crippled by Heenmor's magic: the man whose hands were chunks of rock, whose left leg had been turned to rock below the knee, whose face was disfigured with stone. His one good eye watched as Phyphor entered, carrying a lead box which bore the null sign of the dead zero: the sign of the nether magic.

  At that moment, Questor entered the room. He was the nominal captain of all the soldiers, and the prince had designated him to be left in charge of the castle 'as a mark of my special favour.'

  'What are you doing?' said Questor.

  Phyphor made no reply, but took out one of the mad-jewels. Misty yellow light swirled and pulsed within it. Questor tried to draw his sword. He lurched, staggered. His face began to slacken. Before sanity left him completely, he screamed, realising what was happening. Then he laughed, flapped his hands like wings, and went reeling away, colliding first with one wall then the other.