“Aye. But there is an old saying from before the Worldfire: who sups with devils must use a long spoon. Albrecht has already supped too deeply with the devil. Kor’s forces has he rallied on his border. Should he whip his own army away to deal with treason here, can he trust Kor not to fall upon him from the rear, alliance or no alliance? No, he is tied to Kor, must watch him every moment, and thus is hampered. So we have time. Just so much as it takes to get the barbarians to move; no more.”
“That time can I judge now,” said Sandivar. “I have, in an art I have, seen beyond the Jaal. The barbarians are massed and ready. So is Albrecht’s army. But it will take Kor some days to move his legions across the river to a rendezvous they have set at Grancsay and more time to move them south. The wild oxen that they ride are not fast travelers.” He rubbed his bearded chin. “We have a week, perhaps ten days.”
“Aye, if I have judged aright. But surely that’s what Albrecht will do—gather intelligence, find what and who moves against him, join forces with the barbarians, then move south as planned, and crush whatever rears its head in opposition by sheer weight of numbers. He is no fool, to try to fight on two fronts when he can have Kor as ally and not enemy. Meanwhile, more couriers, on the fastest horses left to you, good Hagen—these to spread the secret word in town and village and in the coverts of the outlaws. All haste, and perhaps we have a chance…”
Rested, his blood surging with impatience, Helmut strode the walls of Markau. Beyond, flocks now grazed hungrily in fields grown rich with grass during the siege; the peasants still hauled to a place far from the town the hundreds of wolf carcasses with which the plain was littered; below where Helmut stood, children played and laughed outside the wall as had not been possible in weeks. Farther away, over the Frorwald’s darkness, kites and ravens still circled and swooped.
Soon, thought Helmut, the lords would be coming in. His eyes searched the horizon greedily for the sight of pennons and the glint of sun on armor. And would they stand behind him in a fight against such long odds? Then a voice from below snapped his train of thought: “Good prince…”
Nissilda stood there, with two handmaidens. The gown of clinging blue was changed for one of green, and, if anything, she was lovelier, for it was a smoldering green, like the deepest, most unknown parts of the sea. “Aye, m’lady?” Helmut said, and leaped easily to the ground, cloak swirling. He bowed. “Your servant…”
“You walk a great deal…”
“Waiting. Only waiting for your father’s friends to join us…”
“Could you not as well wait and walk in a garden?”
“Aye. No doubt I could.”
“Then let me show you ours—poor now, ravaged by the crush of animals penned within our gates during the siege; but I will explain to you what it was and what we shall make of it again.”
“Aye, m’lady,” he said. “Would be an honor.”
“Then will you offer me your arm?”
He hesitated; she was on his right. Then he did; and she slipped hers through it and let her small hand rest on the cold steel of the morning star quite as if it were natural flesh instead. They walked together, thus, the handmaidens dropping far behind.
Though worse for wear, the garden drowsed in afternoon somnolence and was fragrant with the perfumes of roses crushed and tulips trod upon. And there was a maze of high, clipped hedge wherein two could walk side by side and lose themselves, or at least be unobserved.
Nissilda, as if she had not just missed destruction in the siege, talked lightly, of small and happy things. Helmut watched the way her eyes shone as she caressed a blossom that had survived intact or caught sight of some especially gorgeous butterfly circling over a flower bed. Her laugh had a trill that stirred something in him almost lost and forgotten, but did not quite wake it up.
When they had completed a circuit of the garden, she said, “I hope soon it will be lovely once again, as it was before.” Her body brushed against his. “Do you like lovely things, my prince?”
“Sometimes I think I do, m’lady. When I see you touch a flower. But always something comes between. I have told you and so has Sandivar: to reclaim my kingdom, a great price I pay—that I shall never really smile, laugh, nor love again.”
She looked up at him. “Oh, pshaw,” she said. “What foolishness.”
“But it is true. Within me is a deadness…”
“No man’s so dead but what the right woman can bring him back to life. For that is what women are, my prince—life. It comes from us, and we tend it till it’s grown, hold, suckle, nourish it. Women are specialists in life, as men are in killing one another off. And this I will say to you: show me a man convinced he cannot love, and every woman in the country will attempt to prove he’s wrong. Your condition, to a woman, is not a disability, only a challenge.”
“A challenge?”
“The greatest man can present to woman; and no woman could e’er turn it down. I think, my prince, that though you be a great warrior, still you have much—” she broke off then, as from the high keep of the castle, its great and battlemented towers, trumpets chorused with silver throats. Helmut dropped her arm, whirling. Again the trumpets blared, and once again; and from the keep there came a shout: “The great lords come! They come, they come!”
With a trace of bitterness, Nissilda said: “Aye, my lord, now leave me. Well I know, man’s business comes before woman’s, war always before love.”
“Aye,” said Helmut. “With your permission.” And he strode quickly toward the city gate.
They came from leagues around, the counts and barons of the countryside, the lords of Boorn, Hagen’s neighbors and his allies when he had petitioned Albrecht in the court of Marmorburg. There was old Count Bomas, tall and thin, with eyes like ice, of whom it was said he had once executed fifty barbarians taken in battle at Yrawnn with his own hand; and there was Baron Linzze, short and dumpy, his face drink-flushed, who once had broken the phalanx of the Eastern Tribes with a wild and reckless charge of cavalry. There was Baron Luukah, not much more than Helmut’s age, who yet had to prove himself in combat; and there was a host of others—the strongest, fiercest, most independent nobles of the land, their throats full of Albrecht’s misrule; and yet, no new-hatched ducklings these, to follow blindly where someone else led or incur penalties without first weighing them. When, in the Great Hall of Markau, much wine had gone around, only one or two of them were drunk. The rest, keeping themselves close-checked, waited for Helmut and Hagen to speak.
Hagen spoke first, “My lords,” he said, standing at the head of table, “you have not come here blind. Not one of you but knows that here’s returned the great Sigrieth’s bastard, Helmut, next in line to throne, had not Albrecht usurped. You know by now, as well, of his victory over wolves that held us siege. Full intelligence have you of Albrecht’s alliance with the dog-eater and barbarian Kor and his determination to move south. And of the state of Boorn under Wolfsheim’s rule—well, need I speak? You’ve seen men subserved to half-wolves, betrayal planned of our neighbors to the south; and aye, before that, regicide and regicide again. Boorn, the world’s savior, has turned world’s outlaw. I think we must oppose ourselves against that; and must find a standard under which to rally. My own life, honor, and fortune pledge I to him who lifted what might have been the last siege of Markau, and whose likeness to that father we all loved is startling. He sits here by me now, and would have words with you of great import; and so I give you Helmut, bastard of Sigrieth, prince of Boorn, and bid you listen closely to his case.”
Helmut arose, in his chain mail and dress shirt, with the morning star, on which all eyes were riveted, polished and gleaming, and Rage scabbarded at his side. “Good lords of Boorn,” said he. “In my own name I cannot call upon you; only in my father’s. Of me, you have no knowledge; or if any, only as a child. And that, maybe, not long ago. Yet, by sorcery, as I think you all have heard, my growth has taken place, and that along hard lines. Ten years have I spent in study of the art of warfare, a
nd my teachers were the best that ever bestrode this earth since it was cooled and formed into a solid ball. Battles have I fought in, and honors have I won; but none that you have ever heard of. Still, I ask your liege. Not in my own name, but in the name of Sigrieth, late king of Boorn, and in the name of mankind. For if Boorn is not saved for mankind, then goes all the world over to Albrecht’s bestiality and Kor’s barbarity. Not to sit on the Marble Throne of Boorn in Marmorburg nor to vaunt myself do I ask your help. But only to save our beloved land and the world’s light; and should, in that fight, I die—and the fight be won—then my death would be more than welcome.”
His eyes ranged around the table. “You have known the father. All of you have had favors from his hand and may have done him some. What claim he had upon you, I now ask, but can’t enforce. You have been oppressed; you know what awaits your people and your world. If you will give me men and swords to fight for Boorn’s freedom, then I will give my life, if that is what it takes. Risk I have to offer you, and liberty. Or safety and slavery can you choose by doing nothing. That choice is yours. I am no talker. God willing, I am better fighter. Thank you all.” And he sat down.
For a long moment there was silence. Then the young Baron Luukah, untried in war, stood up. He was one of the few there who were in their cups. Batting his eyes, he frowned at Helmut. “But I can remember you,” he said thickly. “As… child. Not long ago. Jush little boy.”
“Aye, m’lord,” said Helmut. “But I have lived some years since then.”
“No.” Luukah shook his head violently. “No, jush a striplin’. You can’t expect me, a baron, to follow somebody so mush younger…”
“I am not younger, m’lord, but some one or two years older, now,” said Helmut. “And with spurs I have won in battle.”
“No! Don’ believe it. Trick some kind.” Luukah stepped backward over the bench, out onto the floor of the hall. Suddenly he drew his sword. “If you not… child, less see you disarm me. Not with that morning star—I mean with sword.” He waved his blade. “C’mon… C’mon…”
“Sit down, Luukah,” said someone wearily.
“No,” the lord insisted, “’F gonna follow man into battle, want proof he’s better man…”
Helmut nodded. “Well said, m’lord. So put we both ourselves unto the test.” He walked around the table, held out the morning star to Sandivar. “Be so good as to unlash that.”
When it was drawn away, a kind of sigh went up around the table at the livid stump revealed. Luukah stared, then brandished his sword. “I mean it, Helmut. If I can take your sword or score a cut—”
“Then you shall lead the revolt against King Albrecht,” said the other wryly. He was aware of all the eyes riveted on him, and of Nissilda, even, watching from the balcony above. He drew Rage and advanced on Luukah.
Luukah moved, very quickly, and suddenly Helmut knew he was up against something rarely encountered—the master swordsman. The young man was quick and graceful as a striking snake, and drunk or sober, his blade arm had its own life and its own intelligence. They laid blade to blade, then went at it, swing, thrust, parry, lunge, thrust, and swing. The blades rang in the Great Hall like chiming bells, and Luukah’s grinning face betrayed naught but confidence. Nor was it unjustified—especially with Helmut off balance because of the unaccustomed freedom from the morning star’s weight. So little as that could give an opponent the upper hand.
Across the hall they fought and back again; and neither could disarm the other, nor even penetrate his guard. Sweat started from their foreheads, and Luukah’s breath came heavier. But there was no change in the clean rhythm of Helmut’s breathing; and now Helmut knew he had naught to fear; when lungs went, legs followed, and arms were not far behind. He waited patiently for that instant of disrhythm; and, as he pressed Luukah harder, it came. With a dazzling speed, a display of swordsmanship that brought the lords to their feet as one, Helmut moved in, apparently directly in the path of the chopping blade. Instead, he pried the sword from Luukah’s hand with Rage’s ringing blade and threw the weapon far across the hall. Then Luukah was helpless, with Rage’s point pressed hard against his throat.
“So, Baron Luukah,” Helmut said, smiling. “The matter of age still disturbs you?”
Luukah, gasping for breath, husked: “Quarter.”
“No question of aught else.” Quickly Helmut sheathed his blade. As he turned back toward the table, the room was subtly different. Helmut, flushed, held out his right arm. Silently, Sandivar rebound the morning star.
Before that was done, Luukah strode around the table, still panting, a tiny trickle of blood running from the scratch where Rage had just broken the skin across his Adam’s apple. “Helmut,” he said.
Helmut turned, his hand away from sword hilt. “Aye, m’lord?”
Luukah’s dark eyes met his. Then Luukah smiled. “I pledge you liege,” he said, and put out both hands and clapped Helmut’s left between his. “By Gods, I pledge you liege and life and fortune!” He whirled to face the others. “Nor dare you, be you men, to do less!”
For a moment, the vast hall was unearthly silent. Then gaunt Count Bomas shoved back his chair, his wintry face and wintry eyes raking hard over Helmut. “Aye,” he said. “This man is surely great Sigrieth’s son, and I for one will pledge him liege and follow him where’er he leads.” His bony hand whipped a dagger from his belt and savagely sank its point into the table. “I say death to Albrecht! And I say, up with Morning Star!”
And that began it. All at once the rafter timbers rang with voices. “Morning Star! Morning Star! Morning Star—!” And the lords of Boorn hurried forward to pledge their liege.
CHAPTER XI
At the Grancsay rendezvous below the Jaal, Albrecht sat his war-horse on a ridge and surveyed the great army ranked below him. Down on the plain, line after line of tents stretched seemingly to infinity; and each square of canvas housed its complement of half-wolves. The nickering and whinnying of their horses filled the air; the supper fires of those who cooked (many preferred raw meat) made a cloud of smoke; and the soldiers themselves moved here and there about the bivouac so that, from this distance, it was like watching a swarm of ants. A hundred thousand strong, this was surely the largest army ever assembled in Boorn.
And yet—was it strong enough? Albrecht stirred uneasily in the saddle, the fingers of his right hand toying with his sword hilt. To conquer the Lands of Light, yes; no problem there. And soon his forces would be swollen by Kor’s thirty thousand barbarians—and a hundred thousand wolfmen were enough, too, to assure that Kor would be wiped out when Albrecht turned on him at last, after that Southern conquest. Though Kor valued highly the lives of his wife and son, the wife and son whom Albrecht had exchanged as hostages meant nothing to their husband and father. Women there were aplenty, and sons he could always sire; they were only pawns in a very intricate game. Use Kor to help him conquer the South, then turn on Kor, erase that threat always at his back, that dagger always at the throat of Boorn, and take the Dark Lands as his fiefdom, too. All carefully worked out in Albrecht’s head and confided yet to no one, not even loyal Eero, who sat his mount here beside him. And as well: strange matters were astirring in the South. Sorcery and revolution; and that cursed Morning Star.
He had had dispatches once again this morning from his spies down there. The siege of Markau lifted, the Black Wolf dead—ah, that last struck him to the heart; Kierena dead, she with all her beauty and her sorcery… the only fitting mate he’d ever found, and now—She was a wizard, how had it happened? Only another wizard could have done it; and that meant, could only mean, Sandivar.
So probably they’d have to fight before they ever reached the Lands of Light. The word this morning was that the lords were rising up against him, joining forces and melding armies into one. Other word, too, that the outlaw bands of ex-soldiers (it had amused him to think of them preying on those recalcitrant nobles down there) were coming in, as well, and adding their strength to that of Mornin
g Star.
Whom, they said, was Sigrieth’s bastard.
But that, he thought, was surely absurd. Not a half year gone had he chopped the hand from that child, and no child could grow to manhood that swiftly, even had he survived the amputation and abandonment. Unless, of course—Sandivar, curse him, he thought. There again, it could be Sandivar…
Then Eero growled: “Your Majesty—”
Albrecht came back to the world and raised his scowling face. Then he heard it, a strange sullen moaning from afar.
“They come,” said Eero. “Kor and the barbarians.”
“Yes,” Albrecht said and waited.
Louder grew that curious sound. Then they appeared: Kor and his fighting men. With the red of dying sun behind them, they topped a distant hill; and Albrecht drew in his breath with awe.
For they were splendid on their great bulls, whose lowing and bellowing made that moan. Their helmets gleamed blood red in the sun, and pennons fluttered from their lance heads, and the last red sunlight danced along their broad-ax blades and on the dagger tips of the great horns of their riding bulls; and in the fore, with much pomp and panoply of savage sort, came Kor, his sable cloak thrown back, his silver-finished helm with its silver-and-steel bull horns all agleam, his great shoulders straight, his visage fierce. The huge red bull he rode snorted and curveted, tossed its horns and bellowed, and the sound was like a trumpet… He saw the camp and gestured, and turned his bull, and the barbarians followed him across the hilltop in what seemed an endless flowing river of fighting men. Albrecht let out that pent-up breath. With that army joined to his, no fear of Morning Star now! He smiled, and signaled Eero. “Let us go down.”
“So it’s rebellion you have to cope with, eh?” said Kor, as they sat that night in Albrecht’s pavilion. “Your lords have rallied round the bastard?” His eyes narrowed and he grinned in his beard. “Perhaps we’d better wait right here until you’ve coped with them.”
The Sword of Morning Star Page 14
