“I!” Jarik echoed, loudly.
“And this one!”
“Both. Yes. And we must talk, and make a bargain. For I know that Jarik Blacksword is a man who keeps his bargains! Come, and I shall tell you more, and show you somewhat.”
It was then. She rose and turned to lead them to another place to “show them somewhat” and it was then that Jarik Blacksword, reminded that he was a man who kept his bargains, confused, unhappy, aware of a bargain unkept, mistrusting; it was then that he kept that bargain he had made with the Lords of Iron.
Chapter Fourteen
Then Dimness passed upon me, and that song Was sounding o’er me when I woke To be a pilgrim on the Nether earth.
— Dean Alford
On the instant of her turning away, Jarik rose with the Black Sword in his hand and all in that same swift movement plunged its glass-smooth blade through the silvery armor and the body of Her who had used and reduced and subverted him and sore confused him, and that after he had made bargain to do death on Her. The Lady Karahshisar of the Snowmist he stabbed deep and hard now, and he was at pains to angle the blade downward into her womb, where quickened his own seed.
He heard the beginning of Jilain’s outcry and There was Darkness.
*
“Jarik!” Jilain screamed, with the hideous sound of pain and terror in her voice, and Jarik clapped spurs to his horse, for those horrid ugly creatures were carrying her into the necrotic grey fog that was their home.
And he overtook them and struck again and again with his shining iron sword, so that snarling animal heads flew from bodies that were neither beast nor human and which gushed blood that spurted over hands furred and clawed like those of beasts. Such a taloned hand or “hand” tore down his leg, though he felt only the blow of its impact and the sudden cold in his leg without taking note of the frightful wounds that poured forth his blood in a scarlet sheet while he struck away the arm of the creature. Overtaken, seeing the blood of their horrid rearmost brethren spilled, the other animal-men panicked as beasts might, which had less than the brains of men. A taloned hairy paw leapt out, hooked, and arced down so that Jilain’s face was ripped into a scarlet ruin while another of the creatures bit away the fingers of her right hand and a third — at the same time as Jarik, shrieking as one gone entirely mad, struck his blade deep into its furred back — tore off the left breast of Jilain Kerosyris and hurling it from him thrust his snouted beast’s muzzle into the wound to tear out her heart with its teeth. Lady Snowmist, Jarik Blacksword thought in agony, calling on the only god he had, if only I had the Black Sword! And then the masters of those creatures of the fog, those un-men of the fog, came gliding forth like wraiths from the domain of ever-shifting grey and while Jilain died and one of the un-men tore away Jarik’s right arm so that his shoulder fountained blood and was terribly cold, the creators who were the Lords of Fog of Akkharia in their grey masks, laughed in swirling gusts that were like the fog itself.
*
“Jarik!” Jilain called. “What are these — what are they?”
“The Iron Lords,” Jarik told her, and he smiled. “The Lord of Destruction! And the Lord of Annihilation! And the Lord of Dread! The Lords of Iron, Jil, whom I serve! My allies — our allies!”
“Well done, Jarik,” boomed forth the metallically ringing voice of the Lord of Destruction, from within the mask of gleaming blue-black iron that was a part of his iron helmet that was not iron.
“Well done, Jarik!’ rang the metal-echoic voice of the Lord of Dread, from within his mask-helm of black iron that was not iron, but he did not say “Jarish.”
“You have slain our sister Karahshisar, Jarik, and well done,” called the Lord of Annihilation, and his hollowly, metallically echoing voice was full and soaring with the happiness of triumph. “The Lady of the Snowmist is no more!”
“Aye!” Jarik Blacksword said in jubilance and with pride, catching up Jilain’s hand in his left and fondling the hilt of the Black Sword with his right, his hand of deeds. “It is done. The bitch died not hard by the Black Sword, and so did the seedling within Her for it was mine and I’ve no desire to be siring a son born of our enemy!”
Annihilation said low, “You … lay with her? With Karahshisar?”
“Aye, or so She said, Milords of Iron — twice. For She had want of a child of mine.” And Jarik’s chest stood forth and joy and pride were sunshine on his face.
“Hoho brothers,” the Lord of Annihilation called in a voice that might have emanated from a well walled with iron, “the feisty little earth-grub of an anthro-man has lain with a God on the Earth! Twice, it says! Hoho Jarik, and then you did death on her, is it? Slow about accomplishing your mission for Us, were you? In no hurry to slay Our enemy, were you?”
“I —”
“Hear him, hear it!’ Annihilation interrupted. “‘Aye,’ it said! Hoho little Jarik, stupid little mortal with the dirt-grubbing hands, then surely turnabout is fair prey, and We appreciate the pretty little girl, anthro-girl there by your side, ally Jarik, and We shall all have her … twice, yes twice!”
Jilain cried out, “Jarish!”
And Jarik cried out “No!” and drew the Black Sword of the Iron Lords against those Iron Lords themselves, the very gods themselves.
But they only laughed and pointed, the gleaming Lords of Iron, and Annihilation drew his own sword of dread black metal that indeed was not iron, and he extended it so that its tip was levelled at Jarik. On the point of making attack, Jarik saw only a shimmering in the air, and then the gushing licking hungry flame, and he felt the terrible heat. He knew then that he had burst into flame exactly as those three Hawkers the Iron Lords had slain, in seconds, that day in Blackiron. And Jarik Blacksword knew that he was dead of the Iron Lords his allies, though he had carried out their mission and kept his bargain with them. One last thing he heard, in Jilain’s voice:
“Jarish!”
and
“Jarik!” she called. “They charge!”
And she sent another arrow into another of them before letting go her bow to draw forth her sword even as he did, rising behind her while scores of the men-at-arms of Indwell came leaping at them. Battle was ferocious then, with the Black Sword and the weaving flashing blade of Jilain taking heavy toll. There were many and many, and so Jarik chose no specific enemy, no victim, but merely slashed and chopped and slashed, back and forth with all the force of his mailed arm, tearing his blade free of this shoulder and shearing through that neck as though its helmet’s curtain of mail was not there, back and forth and back like one utterly mad, blind, the battle-rage on him and possessing his soul and his arm. A hurled ax sundered his shield and he knew without pain other than that of the jarring blow that his arm was broken. It dropped to his side. Still he swung and swung the other, his arm of deeds in great back and forth slashes while his useless arm flopped and flapped like a stricken sail. Blood streamed out in a ribbon of red from the mirror-smooth blade of the Black Sword, and heads flew. And when two blades at once smashed into her buckler so that it was splintered and she knocked off balance, Jilain Kerosyris staggered side-wise, very much in the wrong direction, and the Black Sword sent her head arolling on the backswing. And back dashed that awful blade even while she stood geysering blood and shuddering, headless, and the battle-blind Jarik saw her only after she had toppled and lay partway across one of his feet. Then did he shriek out his rage and horror. He faltered but an instant while still the enemy came and came. He resumed his slashing, not again and again but all in one great back-and-forth horizontal 8 that struck down enemy after enemy. And still they came, the minions of the Lord of Indwell who was the minion of those gods on the earth forming the Forces of Destruction, and Jarik staggered at a blow and felt the blow and the blast of cold when his left arm was chopped away, and he fell to a knee when his left leg was chopped away by an ax like a slice of the moon, and still he swung and slashed until his helm was splintered above by an ax that did not cease its shearing downwar
d smash until it was wedged in his lower teeth.
*
The fifth un-man fell, and then the sixth, and Jilain nocked her final arrow and drew string and let fly. Then did a seventh fall. She rose then to whirl smiling upon Jarik, who was bound and watching helplessly while she came in a wake of un-human blood to his rescue.
“There, my love! All are dead,” she said, “and we — ” Then a great burst of blood started from her mouth, at the same time as her shining leather coat bulged at the chest and was sundered as the gory leaf-shape of a spearhead burst through. Blood sprayed Jarik and it was only after that that he heard the sound of the spear striking her back. With a hideous look in her eyes and with her mouth fountaining scarlet she toppled, falling forward — and the spearhead standing from her bilobed chest drove into the face of the love and companion she had sought to save, and dying Jarik knew that he should not have done death on the Lady of the Snowmist, for he saw the blue-armored figure beyond and above the beloved, dead head lying on his shoulder, and Jarik knew that this was the Lord Cerulean, a god on the earth, and enemy of Elye Isparanana who was Karahshisar — whom Jarik had slain in keeping a bargain with the Forces of Destruction.
And he believed.
“Die slowly, little man,” the Lord Cerulean said hollow-metallically from within his gleaming blue helmet-mask that was fashioned into the head of a great hawk.“Die slowly, soil-grubbing anthro-man, for it was you who brought death on the Lady Cenilean! Die slowly — and mayhap you will last long enough to hear news that the very last of your kind has been destroyed, annihilated, extirpated from the face of this planet!”
The last? But — but I Saw myself fighting side by side with Her who must be the Lady Cerulean, a god on the Darkness.
*
“Jarik!” Jilain called, in a voice of great sorrow.
But he heard only dimly and too he paid no heed, for the beautiful, beautiful Lady Tiger was bending over him, smiling, all soft and seductive and beautiful and for him, him; what cared he now that her strange minions — neither tigers nor men and yet both in one — were enjoying the body of his Jilain; was he not after all about to enjoy the supreme experience of being night-mate of the beautiful beautiful, the incomparable Lady Tiger?
“If only the Iron Lords had not taken back the Sword, and we had the Lady Karahshisar’s guidance,” Jilain made lament; and then she was shrieking, shrieking; but Jarik, in a private heaven inhabited only by himself and Lady Tiger, could not be concerned over such trifles …
and
In the keep of the Lady of the Snowmist the healer called Oak bent over a fallen god, seeking desperately to heal while Metanira and another named Wildflower stood close and aided him and Jilain Kerosyris stood well away, out of the light, where he had bidden her go and take that hideous terrible murdering Black Sword that was a thing of sorcery and murder, and Metanira glanced around and screamed.
Oak looked up, and his hands went as if frozen while he, too, stared.
Snowmist Keep had been breached and broached. A figure stood there, and though it showed no eyes, it was surely looking at Oak bent over a wounded and fallen god, seeking to heal Her. The invader was armored all in scintil-lant black that even over there in a dimmer area of the chamber was like black water running in sunlight. Boots of the same shod him and rose up his calves; from the boot-tops blossomed leggings of that armor to vanish beneath the skirt of his black coat of the same, its long sleeves feeding into gauntlets that rose to mid-forearm and were reinforced by small plates of blue-black iron, like the horn of Jilain’s helmet and bow. Like cloth the armor was, and at the same time like woven metal; the same as that armor of Snowmist’s, save that it was black, black. An unornamented black helm that Oak knew was not iron covered his head, with a curtain of the black-lizard-glistening armor covering three sides of his head. The mask attached to the helm rendered him featureless while curving back on either side under that arras of woven mail that might have come from an invulnerable black snake. The mask, of that blue-black iron which Oak knew was not iron, was pierced by eyeslits and a grim slitted mouth that was like a gash, without lips. Nothing could be seen within. A strange iron not iron “nose,” too, was mounted on that boding helm-mask.
Oak saw no mouth. Oak saw no eyes. Oak saw nothing of that grim tall figure’s flesh or features; only its form which was that of a man. And in one of those mail-gauntleted hands it bore a sword that looked identical to Jarik’s; black and shining and glassy, reflective as water or gemstones of jet or the wings of deathbirds in the rain.
“So!” The voice came from that dreadsome mask all hollowly and metallically, echoing within the chamber formed by mask and helm. “So our servant Jarik kept his bargain to do death on our dear kith, Karahshisar, and well done — and you Scry-healer, now seek to save her, do you?”
“How — how came you here, Lord Destruction?” Oak asked, for Jarik’s memories told him that he recognized the voice of this god on the earth. “Yourselves told Jarik that Snowmist kept you close confined, other side Dragon-mount.”
“And Jarik believed!” The Lord of Destruction paced closer. The two servants cowered and Oak felt fear. “How can she keep us there nowf though? Eh? Eh? Stabbed her deep, did he not?”
Oak looked down at the body he labored over. “Deep, aye. But not dead. Dying. Unless … ”
“Stop, Oak. She — is — to — die!”
Oak stared at the featureless mask; stared at the two horizontal slits where eyes should have been. “I cannot do that. I must do what I do. It is what I do. You know that, Iron Lord. Jarik slays, and Oak heals — or seeks to heal!” And to one of the two servants of Snowmist so near to hand: “Wildflower. Hand me that wad of cloth.”
Wildflower, wide-eyed, pretty and young and fearful, looked at him, and chewed her pretty lower lip, and glanced at the Iron Lord who had appeared in Snowmist Keep. Oak stared, and she turned to do his bidding. The Lord of Destruction raised his god-sword of the god-metal and the god-power then, and pointed it at that pretty young woman with the daffodil hair, and she had not even time to shriek as she burst into flame, all over. She perished in seconds in roaring flame that also caught the wadding Oak used to staunch blood-flow. Metanira sprang back, for her skirt had commenced to smoke though she stood a long pace from the pillar of roaring yellow and white flame that had been her comrade.
Then the Lord of Destruction moved his arm, and the tip of his fire-spouting black sword was leveled directly at Oak.
Almost ridiculously as he was about to die, Oak’s thought was on the irony: this body and these minds were to be slain because of him, the healer, rather than because of that bloody killer Jarik, who surely deserved it!
Then —
The three long ships disgorged hundreds of men with axes and spears and swords and bright-painted bucklers. Sunlight flashed brightly, as if happily, off the bosses of brass and iron and copper on their mailcoats as they came charging up the long hill that separated the beach from the wark of Kirrensark. Kirrensark’s people, barely a hundred now and hardly recovered from the voyage followed so closely by the dawn battle with Ahl, awaited them. They took toll on those attackers with the stones they rolled down into their howling mass. From the tops of the masts of the trio of hawk-prowed ships swooped birds of prey not hawks and yet great hawk-like birds whose wings did not move; birds that glinted and shone and gleamed blue-black in the bright sunlight of day.
Jarik and Jilain burst from the Cloudpeak keep of the dead Lady of the Snowmist. They rushed down the mountainside as fast as they dared and were able. Below, men were dying. Aye, and the women and the children too, of Kirrensark-wark. Flames leaped high in an obscene dance of flickering horror; rushed up from houses and outbuildings alike, while the attackers ravened among weary defenders whose number they halved, and halved again.
By the time Jilain and Jarik reached the scene of leaping dancing orange flame and rolling dark smoke, even the screams had ceased, for all were dead. Winded and weary, Jarik a
nd Jilain nevertheless made attack. And too each slew a goodly number of the howling enemy before her legs were cut from under her and a thrown ax smashed in the face of Jarik Blacksword who had slain the Lady of the Snowmist and left Kirrensark’s wark open to attack by these human minions among the Forces of Destruction.
“AA, Gods may not slay Gods,” the Lord of Dread said. It is a law of the universe. Too, long long ago the Lady of the Snowmist wove a powerful spell, that keeps Us here, confined. We cannot leave this place to extend our benevolent protection to others as We wish, for she prevents us.”
Jarik asked, “She is a sorcerer?”
“She is a god.”
“As are you, Iron Lords?”
“Even as We are, Jarik,” the Lord of Annihilation said. “And it is hardly unknown that too often the gods must ask the aid of mortal men.”
“We want you to slay her, Jarik,” the Lord of Destruction said.
“You must slay her,” Dread said in his nimbly voice. “Slay the Lady of the Snowmist. Slay her slay — ” slay slay slay slay slay slay
*
“Done, done, all done,” the Lady Shirajsha said, shaking her head dolorously so that the firelight struck flashes of silvery grey from her frosty mask. Despair and self-pity formed a cloak about her mind, so that it was no longer an organ of cerebration at all. “I am all that survives — and you, of course, Jarik One-arm who were once Jarik Blacksword and once a man. First it was poor Karahshisar, and after that the Iron Lords sent death on that Lokustan of hers, Kirrensark, and the Gem Lords came for the Rod of Osyr, who died before any of us and who stayed dead, poor Osyr who was Osyshehir. Oh yes — after that the Iron Lords burned you so, Jarik, and raped your poor dear what-was-her-name so that she was never the same, and it was probably a kindness when the minions of the Fog Lords slew her and uh … where was I? Gone, gone, all gone, all of them, all of us gods come to your earth, my kind as well as our allies among your kind, and you, poor wreck of a, uh, Jarik, Jarik, and I, poor little Shircha who was once so beauteous; we can only wait here until they come for us. Ours to see it happen, Jarik, poor Jarik One-arm; the extirpation of your kind from this entire lovely young planet of yours and its population replaced with their half-formed, half-brained, part-beast creations, who or which will all be slaves to the Forces of Destruction become the Forces of Rule, throughout eternity! For they shall live and rule forever and ever. We sought men who were as we are, women who were as we are; thinking, with the tempering of emotion. They sought rule over the beast-men who would do only what they were told. And now they have won, Jarik One-arm who was once a hero once a champion of the Forces of Man and a man and, for that brief flashing silv’ry instant, a hero in the War! Well, well, Jarik. Not I! No! Perhaps what remains of your kind will go all stupid now and say ‘not me,’ do you think, Jarik poor Jarik what was I say — No! Not I. They will not have poor once-pretty little Shircha. They will not come and make me watch the ultimate Destruction and the rise and spread over this lovely world of their creations those obscenities their creatures, the New Creatures, the un-Men, aye and seek to impregnate me even me in hopes of gaining something viable, a bit of new blood. No! Shirajsha shall not wait for that. No, no, not the Lady Shirajsha, not little beautiful Shircha of the Web of Silver! I shan’t wait for them to come in triumph to us and do things to us and make us watch the Annihilation of all your kind from this entire lovely world we thought held such promise! No Jarik, poor Jarik One-arm, all is lost now and you can wait alone, alone, for I am too much the coward to wait for them to wait for them to come triumphant to us and make us watch all that and do things to us and laugh at us. Ah, ah, that would hurt, hurt, to be laughed at, for I am after all … I am … ”
The Lady of the Snowmist (War of the Gods on Earth Book 3) Page 16
