by Robert Ryan
They eventually came back to the archer. His bow was long since restrung. Now, he was inspecting his arrows, checking their heads and shafts and red fletching.
The king nodded to him. “Those are long shafts,” he said.
“Aye,” the archer answered. “But I have long arms and the bow is well-matched to me.”
“How far can you fire?”
The archer considered the question for a moment.
“With these arrows, close on three hundred yards.”
“And how far can you shoot with accuracy?”
“That’s a different thing altogether. Perhaps a third as far, depending on conditions.”
Gilhain rubbed his chin. “That’s further and more accurate than most.”
The archer grinned at him. “I’m a tall man, and strong. I’ve been shooting since my youth, and there have been times when I went hungry if I missed. That sort of thing teaches a man to shoot well.”
“I don’t doubt it,” Gilhain said. He looked out speculatively at the enemy host. “You could land an arrow among them?” he asked.
“I could, but at that range it would do very little damage.”
“True,” Gilhain said. “But should you see an elùgroth somewhere in the front ranks, it might be worth the attempt. If you strike one thus, there’s ten gold pieces in it for you.”
The archer grinned. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“Good man.”
Gilhain looked out at the enemy again. They were not quite so far away that the archer faced an impossible challenge. Yet it was very nearly so.
He paused where he was a moment, studying the host. Something seemed to be happening among it, for there was movement in its center. But the host was so massive that he could not realty see anything that far away. It waited there impatiently, a dark mass commanded by its dark masters. From both sides it stretched out wings to encircle the whole city. But Cardoroth was large, and those wings were stretched thin. They were not for attack but merely to ensure no one left or entered the city.
Gilhain gave a small sigh. How many times had he studied the host? And how many times had he found a weakness? But it did not matter, he would keep on looking and thinking. And even if he found no weakness, then this much at least he could be grateful for: the enemy did not build and employ siege engines. They did not use them in their homeland, either among the elugs or Azan. The land was not suitable, being mostly mountainous and rough. Nor were there walled cities. And anyway, they preferred to fight just as they did here. The elùgroths took pleasure in it, and they worked their soldiers up into a mad frenzy. Sometimes, Gilhain thought, they would attack the wall with nothing but hands and teeth if their masters asked them to.
There was movement along the rampart, and then Arell was there. She gave Gilhain a quick curtsey. “Your Majesty,” she said. Then, she pointed her finger firmly at Lornach. “You,” she continued. “You haven’t come by for your examination as you said you would. Are you a fool? Do you know what sort of injuries you may have sustained in your fight with Hvargil? Do you know that some injuries are internal and not apparent straight away?”
He started to speak, but she cut straight through whatever he would have said.
“Don’t bother to answer that. I know you know. I’ve told you these things myself often enough.”
She turned to Gilhain. “This is unacceptable. I’m responsible for treating any injuries to the Durlin, but I can’t treat them if they don’t cooperate.”
Gilhain turned to the short man. “Well, Lornach, why haven’t you done as she requested? It seems to me that there are very good reasons for what she asks.”
Lornach gave the healer a hard look, but it did not fool Gilhain. He knew the bond that was between Arell and all the Durlin, Brand especially.
“My lord, as it happens, I did report to her for an examination.”
Gilhain glanced at Arell. “Is that so?”
Arell snorted. “If by report for an examination he means that he rolled his eyes at me, pointed to his arms and legs and said ‘all still here,’ before walking off, then yes, he’s been examined. I wanted more than that though.” She returned Lornach’s stare. “But he pleaded that he must report to you directly. I only let him go after he promised to come straight back. But he never did.”
Lornach clapped a hand to his forehead. “That reminds me, my lord.” He pulled from a pocket in his white surcoat the cloth belt Gilhain had given him to wear as his champion. “This is yours, Sire.”
He reached out to give the cloth to Gilhain.
“Don’t change the subject, Shorty. You can keep the cloth – you may need it again someday. But for now, go along with Arell. You know she’s right.”
Lornach tucked the band of cloth away again. “But Sire, she lectures me all the time on what to eat and how to exercise and—”
“More likely,” Gilhain interrupted him, “she tells you not to drink so much beer.”
Lornach pretended to look surprised at the comment, but the answer he was going to give died in his throat and a sudden wariness came into his eyes.
Gilhain looked around for the source of Lornach’s alarm. Immediately, he saw it. A vaporous fog had begun to rise from the stone floor of the battlement.
“Drùghoth!” Aranloth yelled.
Gilhain knew what they were. He had seen the sendings before, nearly been killed by them. But there was something different about them, now. Not only had they appeared this time in broad daylight, but the last had brought with them a chill that left ice everywhere. These brought with them heat, and though they seemed less distinct, less solid than the previous ones, they moved more quickly. And already they formed up into nine vague forms and swept toward him.
The eyes of the sendings burned with a white hot hatred, and in their hands they bore curved swords that glinted and sparkled like the water of a lake when the sun strikes it with slanting rays.
The forms of the Drùghoth were gray and wavery, and their approach was something like the shimmer of heat rising from a hot surface. As they drew near they gained more substance, and it seemed that sparks flew from their keen-edged blades, and their eyes had become like glowing embers.
There was stunned silence on the battlement. Gilhain drew his sword. He heard the same sound of steel slipping out of leather sheaths behind him. The Durlin were close, Lornach closest of them all. But it was Arell who found herself standing between him and those who had been sent to take his life. Arell the healer. Arell, who cured rather than killed.
5. A Dark Shadow
Brand felt a violent chill in the air, and a shadow obscured the already mist-dimmed sun. The chanting of the Halathrin continued, though he heard faltering notes within its rhythm.
And then, even as they reached a crescendo, the Halathrin abruptly ceased their ritual. Brand understood why. An elùgroth was come.
The sorcerer walked calmly around the narrow trail at the edge of the dark tarn. With him were elugs and hounds.
The world seemed to stand still, and into the dread silence the elùgroth spoke.
“A pretty little ceremony, for a nobody who is long dead.”
Surprisingly, some of the Halathrin laughed. There was joy in the sound, their voices filled with a mirth that no human could match. For even as the immortals tasted of bitterness that men did not know, so also were they confident in their remembered joys.
Brand felt his heart lighten at the sound of their voices.
“Long dead, perhaps,” Harlinlanloth answered. “Yet not a nobody. Halath did more than most to stymie the plans of your master. That is why you try to sleight him. And your hatred therefore speaks eloquently of his success.”
“Yet I am still alive,” the elùgroth said coolly, “and he is still dead.”
“All things die,” the girl replied. “Even Halathrin. Even elùgroths.”
She said the last word with a venom that he had never heard before. He knew the speech of her people, yet nothing had prepa
red him for the emotion they could put into words. For them, words were power, they were the embodiment of thought. So he had learned, but to hear it was a different thing.
The elùgroth gave the impression of being less impressed.
“You will die now. All of you. Mortal and immortal, and the staff shall be mine.”
The girl looked at him, still calm. “We are well matched, and these others,” she pointed to Brand and Kareste, “are not without resources.”
“I am Khamdar,” the sorcerer said. “And I do not fear the threats of young girls, immortal or not. Even less do I fear the stuttering powers of mortals who reach out beyond their station and ability.”
The great hounds spread out behind him, hulking things of tufted fur and muscle, eager to pounce at their master’s word. Growls throbbed in their throats and the claws of their massive paws ripped the damp earth. Behind them the elugs, less keen perhaps, but still deadly in their way, took up positions.
Brand glanced at Kareste. He saw that exhaustion still hampered her, and something passed between them. She nodded. He would fight Khamdar and delay him, and while that happened she would destroy the staff. It was ready to be burned, and once a fire was lit it would take hold of the bier rapidly.
A moment later he saw her look at Harlinlanloth. There was a slight flicker in the eyes of the girl. The Halathrin understood and would be ready.
Brand saw also in Harlinlanloth’s face the resolution that it must be so, else evil would always seek the staff, no matter how or where it was guarded.
Brand turned his gaze back to Khamdar. The sorcerer stood still, and yet he seemed to grow. As though a shadow fell over him, darkening and lengthening, he became taller, thicker, more massive. Nor did the growing cease. In a few moments he towered above them all, a gigantic form, clad in black, blocking out the mist-dimmed sun. Red fire, like flickering embers, ran and sparked along the length of his wych-wood staff.
The enemy had become massive, and Brand had no answer to that. But he attacked anyway, for that was who he was. He refused to let any obstacle, no matter how great, intimidate him.
The Halathrin blade earned long ago by one of his ancestors flashed. Khamdar, for all his size and power, seemed surprised. Brand took advantage of that and flung himself forward fiercely. Yet still the elùgroth had a chance to send a spurt of wicked flame from his staff.
Brand rolled and ducked. He came to his feet again, but the elùgroth had backed away. Now, the hounds and elugs raced forward. And yet Brand was not alone to face them all. Suddenly, the Halathrin were with him.
The immortals did not swell in size. Yet, in seeming defiance of the dark shadow that fell over them from the expanded elùgroth, the light that seemed to always shimmer about them shone brightly, and their pale swords glittered. They headed for the hounds and elugs, and Brand was free to keep driving at Khamdar.
The elùgroth backed farther away, but it was a feint. What he did next surprised Brand. There was a shimmer and disturbance in the air, and then Khamdar seemed to sprout wings. Great clouds of darkness billowed behind him, and he rose from the ground. With a giant leap his chill shadow passed above Brand and then landed behind him. Then the shadow moved toward Kareste.
Brand turned and raced after the elùgroth. Even as he ran he drew and flung a dagger, but it passed into the shadow with a sizzling sound. There was a scattering of red sparks, and then the blade fell smoking and broken to the ground.
Kareste had already set flame to the bier. She sensed the danger behind her and turned to face it. Instantly, she gestured with her hand and a wall of flame sprang up between her and the elùgroth.
Khamdar hesitated, but only for a moment. That was all that Brand needed. He was upon his enemy again, his sword flashing, and Khamdar spun around to face him.
The two of them fought. The massive elùgroth swung his staff in a mighty down-handed blow. Brand darted to the side. Fire erupted from the ground in a crimson plume where he had just stood, and the earth heaved and scattered rocks and dirt.
Brand stepped in, stabbing with the point of his sword. Khamdar deflected the blow with his staff, and then swung it around again. It whooshed over Brand’s head, all shadow and streaking fire as he ducked, and then he moved in to attack again.
This time Brand led with Aranloth’s staff. He did not swing it as a weapon; instead, silver-white flame sprang from its tip and he lunged forward with it.
Khamdar was ready. His own staff, gigantic as his swollen body, swept it to the side. The sudden jolt knocked the weapon from Brand’s hand. Yet he summoned flame to the sword in his other hand instead and continued to drive forward.
Khamdar seemed shocked. There was doubt in the burning eyes that looked down as though from a great height, but still he sent a bolt of lightning sizzling through the air.
Brand dodged, feeling the heat of a hundred deaths pass him, and then the scream of a Halathrin from somewhere behind who had not seen it coming, or who had not moved as fast.
Brand glanced back. One of the immortals, charred beyond recognition, fell to the ground in a smoking heap of ash and bubbling metal from ornaments and blades. Brand knew he had made a mistake by looking behind him. He gritted his teeth and turned, but Khamdar had already used the momentary distraction to advantage.
The sorcerer had turned also and passed through the fading wall of flame that Kareste had raised. He knocked her aside as Brand watched, and she seemed too exhausted to even try to stand in his way. She fell into a crumpled heap.
Nothing now stood between Khamdar and the bier, and he reached for Shurilgar’s staff that lay at the top of the burning heap of timber.
Brand, a sinking feeling in his stomach, leapt after him.
6. Relentless Swords
The Durlin leapt into the fray, but Arell was there before them. She ran at the sendings, crashing into them and causing them to stumble and slow. She paid for her bravery, for a spark-bright sword slashed through the air and struck her. What damage it did, Gilhain could not see. But smoke coiled up from the wound.
Arell was not done yet. In the midst of the attackers she drew a knife from her boot and stabbed. It sunk into the sorcerous flesh of the one who had struck her, but did no apparent harm.
The creature, too close to slash again, elbowed her out of the way, and though the blow would certainly have hurt, she recoiled as though with great pain, and wisps of smoke drifted from her clothing. Another sending struck at her, and she stumbled and fell, and even as she tumbled to the ground it delayed the enemy, for now they must trample over her body.
Arell had given the Durlin the little time they needed. They were gathered now around the king, and their swords met the spell-blades of the enemy. And though steel rang against steel, or its sorcery-created semblance, the weapons of the Durlin had little effect on the vaporish bodies of the attackers.
One sending broke through the ranks of the Durlin. It reached out with its blade, lurching toward the king. He deflected the strike, flicked back his own blade in a killing blow, but the thing still came at him.
Gilhain backed away. How could he fight something that steel could not kill? He spared a glance at Aranloth. The lòhren was not that far away, but he was being attacked himself. Two of the creatures had spark-filled hands around his throat. Where their blades were, Gilhain did not know. Perhaps the lòhren had disarmed them, or maybe the hatred of the sorcerers who sent these things was so great that only the violent and slow death of their enemy would satisfy them.
There was a scream ahead of him, and a Durlin died. His white surcoat burned, and a flaming sword erupted with a spume of fiery blood from his back. A moment later another Durlin perished.
Gilhain stepped back further. He did not wish to retreat, yet he had no choice. He knew also that it was only delaying the inevitable.
And then Arell was among them again. Her clothes were rent by blade; blood-soaked ash stained the cloth around the tears, and pain showed on her face. What had happened to her
knife, Gilhain did not know. How she was even alive, he knew less. Yet she was there, and in her hands was a bucket.
Gilhain sidestepped and dodged another thrust of a fiery blade lunging to kill him. He made no attempt to strike back. That was useless, and he endeavored now just to defend himself. He had thought that Arell would use the bucket as a weapon, but she did not.
The healer came up behind the sendings. And then she tossed water at them in a high arc. It fell down on them from above, splashing and sizzling as it struck the backs of the attackers. Steam rose in the air and unearthly cries of pain with it. But the attackers kept on coming.
Arell had done more though than get one bucket of water. She had gathered a half dozen soldiers and they each came behind her with their own buckets. These they had gathered from the back of the rampart where they were kept to help wash blood off the battlement floor.
The soldiers flung the water in their buckets at the same time. A wall of flashing water struck the sendings. Screams rose into the air and the spark-glittering swords dimmed and fluttered.
For once, the blades of the Durlin suddenly seemed to have more effect, and each strike caused pain and injury. The creatures screamed again, but then they gathered themselves and drove forward. Their swords burned once more, and the Durlin backed away.
“Water!” yelled Arell, and soldiers raced to retrieve it. But the buckets were further away now for the closest had already been used.
Time seemed to slow, and Gilhain knew that death hovered in the air all about him. There was a growing rumble, and then a crack of thunder. The sky darkened; a gust of air hit his face, and the sendings seemed a little less certain.
Gilhain spared another look at the lòhren. He was free of his attackers, and they seemed to shrink from him as he stood tall and spread his arms wide.
Thunder cracked again. There was a flash of light in the sky, and then the heavens opened. It rained. Nor was it just normal rain, but a downpour such as Gilhain had rarely seen.
