The Raven Warrior

by Alice Borchardt

  The herd was led by a man running alongside the first two beasts. He was pulling a lead rope. The animals reminded me of antelope, but they were bigger, with long, twisting double horns, powerful bodies with thick chests and haunches. Bay animals with dark-brown coats, black legs, hooves, horns, and noses. They had fangs, something no hoofed beasts where I come from have ever had. Their mouths reminded me of a boar’s, with the fangs—no, tusks—pointed downward and large, serviceable teeth fit for grinding down though vegetation or biting off a man’s leg.

  Another man was running beside the double column of animals. He also held a lead rope attached to two animals, and he kept them in line as they thundered along the causeway. Another man brought up the rear.

  I flashed on the man at the rear. He was sun-browned and hard, wearing only the sort of loincloth that Roman gladiators once wore, ends tied at the waist, a long piece brought up between the legs and flapped over the front. Almost, it seemed he had a pelt of fine, light-brown hair that covered the tops of his arms, chest, back, neck, and bearded his chin. His stomach, inner arms, and hands were smooth and hairless, as were the backs of his legs.

  The double column of animals must have slowed at the front, likely to pass the city gates, I thought. He threw his weight against the column rear and they slowed. The harnesses that bound the beasts together tightened.

  The rearmost animal lashed out with one heel and caught the man holding the rope a hard blow to the thigh. He went down to one knee. Even as I watched, the purpling red mark leaped out on his skin. For a second, his weight was thrown against the double file of antelope and the column slowed and almost stopped.

  Someone laughed. He glanced toward us and his eyes met Albe’s.

  I remember I was stunned by the lightness of his eyes. They were so clear, a crystalline gray, that the irises seemed almost not to exist but would have melted into the whites but for the fact that they had a dark, almost black, ring around them.

  The look he gave Albe was a devouring one that said, “I want you!” Stunning as a slap in the face.

  Albe returned a frankly slow, salacious grin. This surprised me, and then I remembered her statement about taking pleasure even in rape. But then, she had not forgiven the one who had desired her, even to the destruction of her life. And the scars on her face were a testament to the ugly fact that she had forgiven neither herself nor him.

  Then the herdsman (I later found out that’s what he was) writhed and clutched at his throat; and I saw he wore metal chain around his neck. In a second, he was on his feet, chasing the unruly animals toward the city and through its gate.

  “How could you?” Cateyrin asked Albe.

  “What?” Albe replied.

  “Look at him as though he were a man.”

  “Hell, he was, wasn’t he? And a damn fine-looking one, too.”

  “No!” Cateyrin snapped. “He was Fir Blog.”

  I was mystified, but didn’t get a chance to pursue it because Meth said, “Hurry! It’s our good luck the square inside the gate will be a mess because the herdsmen don’t stop for anything. Their drivers don’t allow it. And likely, the household guard, led by the Fursa, won’t be able to surround us. Maybe we can slip past.”

  “Fine,” I said, jumping to the road. I started off at a jog, Meth running beside me.

  He was right, but we were almost caught.

  I had never seen a true city before. The plaza was filled with people. They all seemed to be cursing and running around, trying to put their sale stalls together again. That wasn’t what caught my eye, but the towers that surrounded the plaza. They were not completely black, but blue-black. The sides of some were translucent, and I could see beautifully garbed men and women moving around in them. Some were standing on balconies, looking down at the free show below.

  The shops, grouped at the foot of the towers, were in the late afternoon light a collection of jewels. The nearest shop to the gate was a cloth seller. It was stuffed with streaming bolts of silk, velvet, and brocade, seemingly in every color of the rainbow; and a few, perhaps even the rainbow never knew.

  The next shop, lit from above by a glass roof, was filled with bottles glowing with red, yellow, scarlet, blue, murky gold, orange, amber, brown, or black, the multiplicity of whose shapes almost defied description. Perfume? I wondered. Wine or something I did not know or had not yet encountered? The others, some sold raiment, some furniture. I saw beds, chairs, whatnots, who knows, all painted, polished, and inlaid with rich designs.

  Intermingled with the more permanent shops were the food sellers’ stalls, and they seemed to have been the ones most disturbed by the herd’s passage. Chickens, ducks, and geese, and some animals that looked like rats, ran loose, getting under everyone’s feet as their owners frantically tried to catch them. Fruit, cabbages, onions, garlic, berries had been spilled and lay heaped near the baskets that once held them.

  A rack hung with joints of meat sprawled at my feet. Tuau rushed forward and snatched up a plump roast.

  “Indeed, it is truly a wonder,” I heard Albe say. “But don’t let us stay to admire it. Move, Guinevere.”

  I moved, leading our party in a serpentine path over the dead, black rock that floored the square. I recognized the Fursa, who wore even more elaborate armor than Meth. He stood among his people at the center of the square, a dozen or more men with him.

  I glanced right and left. Albe was on my right, Cateyrin at my left.

  “When we get past him, follow me,” Cateyrin said.

  “Do it!” I shouted to the rest, and went head-on, directly toward the Fursa.

  He was smart enough to know something was wrong. His sword was out. I elbowed Meth aside and caught his blade with my own. Maeniel taught me the trick.

  I locked his blade at the hilt, spun around, my back against his body, and jerked his right leg from under him with my right foot. He hit the stones, his armor making a very satisfactory crash.

  Cateyrin was already making for a side street at a dead run. It was more like a tunnel than a street. The towers and the bridges between them darkened it into deep shadow.

  “They know where we’ll make for. Move!” Meth shouted.

  We reached a stair, a narrow one that led up, curving away among the black towers. From a walkway that bridged the street, a man looked down at us with idle, indifferent curiosity. A woman peered down from a balcony; she wore gold and black brocade. Then there were no more bridges, and the narrow stair was walled by the towers. We had to move along one at a time.

  Cateyrin slowed. “I don’t think they will try to follow us here. One determined person can hold the street.”

  “An eerie place, this city,” I said, remembering the broad plaza at the gate, the glittering shops, the translucent towers. The ones the stair ran among were obsidian black, with such a high polish that they reflected the blue-gold clouds of the evening sky.

  “Probably they won’t bother with this street at all,” Meth said. “They’ll go around and try to catch you at your mother’s house.”

  “It’s longer that way. It will take them time to—”

  “No more arguments,” I ordered. “We’re committed to this route. Save your breath.”

  We needed it. The stair wound up and up, until we came to a garden. Yes, a garden in the sky. The beds, like the rafts that floated on the lake, were made of wood and matting, and gigantic urns held trees.

  Meth stopped dead still at the entrance to the garden.

  “Here,” he hissed at Cateyrin. “Here. You brought us here!”

  “Yes. It’s the only way I could think of,” Cateyrin said.

  Meth moaned. “Oh, no.”

  “Oh, no, what?” I asked.

  He didn’t get a chance to answer. She appeared in front of me and roared.

  Everybody ducked behind me. Tuau rumbled, “Aunt Louise!”

  “That,” I told the cat in front of me, “is the best set of teeth I’ve ever seen.”

  She was one of the Aker
u, and a lot bigger than our young friend, Tuau.

  “What are you doing here, runt?” she hissed at Tuau.

  “She’s Danae,” Tuau said. “Don’t mess with her.”

  “Yes,” I said, trying to sound dangerous. “I am.”

  “Liar!” she spat. “You and your friends get out of here!”

  “How did they capture you, Aunt Louise?” Tuau said.

  She gave vent to a vicious snarl. “I’m working contract mercenary, runt. And I have my orders. Get out of here.”

  “We don’t want to harm the garden,” I said. “Just pass through.”

  “Aunt Louise, pleeeeease,” Tuau moaned.

  “You tiresome brat! How come you get into everything?”

  She paced back and forth in front of the archway where we stood. I think she probably outweighed me by twenty pounds, a pale, white-coated, rangy figure.

  Maeniel told me about cheetahs. I admit, I didn’t believe him, but he had given me close descriptions of cheetahs, lions, tigers, and leopards, wildcats and lynx. And yes, there were still some panther-sized cats roaming Europe. I had seen them at a distance.

  Her face was oddly sensitive, with large, sad eyes. She ceased pacing, sat, and threw me a cold look.

  “I get to eat the intruders I catch. I’ll have one of you. The rest can pass me by. Let’s see.” She eyed Meth. “Too much armor. Be like eating a turtle. You, girl,” she told Cateyrin. “Scrawny, no meat on your bones. You.” She gazed at me. “He says you’re Danae, and while I don’t believe it, I don’t care for any surprises. That leaves you, Nephew.”

  Tuau was leaning against my leg. I felt him trembling, and looking into Aunt Louise’s green gaze, gold eyes, I could understand why.

  “But,” she continued, “it’s against my principles to eat family, so I’ll take the ugly one.”

  “Oh, you will, will you?” Albe said.

  Fine, I thought. I was still holding my sword, and I reversed the handle and brought it up hard under her chin.

  “Go!” I shouted.

  The blow lifted her forefeet off the ground as Cateyrin charged past me, closely followed by Meth, with Tuau bringing up the rear at first. But soon he pulled into the lead.

  She was fast, Aunt Louise. I’ll give her that. She was away from me, backing even though I was sure she wasn’t fully conscious, and blood was foaming at her jaws. She gave a long, loud, wavering scream, and another of her kind charged out from among the flowers. He—and he was definitely he, balls dangling between his back legs—was even bigger than she was. He didn’t hesitate for a second.

  Behind me, I heard Albe laugh. I raised my sword as he bounded into a leap to fall on me and take me down. I raised the sword without much hope. He was so big, even if I got the sword into him, his teeth and claws might finish me in spite of my armor.

  But at the last second, Albe jerked me clear. The cat missed, coming down on all fours beside me.

  “Yiiiiiiiiiieeeeeeeee!!!!”

  It was without doubt the most ghastly scream I have ever heard an animal give, as the big male curled in on himself and began frantically to lick an important (to him) part of his anatomy.

  Albe knew where to land that lead shot.

  “Get out of my way, my lady,” Albe said. “I’ll finish them.”

  The male decided discretion was the better part of valor. He fled without delay and without shame.

  But Aunt Louise faced us down. “Think you’re good, don’t you? You better not miss.”

  “I never miss,” Albe said.

  “No! We don’t want this to be a killing fray. Back off and let us pass. Albe, watch out, there may be more of them.”

  Aunt Louise didn’t move, but she didn’t advance, either. Behind us, a balustrade separated us from a drop into the lake below. I was shocked to see how high we were as we ran along it toward a narrow stair where the rest waited.

  We passed a clean, red scatter of bones among the flower beds. The bones weren’t recognizably human, but the two skulls that accompanied them were.

  “Trespassers, I suppose,” Albe said.

  We reached the other stair and found it led right up and out over nothingness. The treads were attached to the outside of a tower. Attached is a bad word; they flowed out of the ribbed stone of one of the black and red ones. They were at broadest about ten inches wide. That’s not a lot when you’re looking at a four-hundred-foot drop. It goes almost without saying that there was no sort of a rail.

  Meth went first, followed by Cateyrin, me, Albe, and Tuau. He muttered under his breath, “She always was a hard-assed bitch. Think of it. Wouldn’t even cut one of the Danae a little slack. What’s the world coming to when the old gods are not honored?”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake, shut up,” I said. “I don’t need you distracting me.”

  Albe laughed. We were making the best speed possible, edging our way along, backs to the tower behind us, taking the steps one by one, feeling for each next step and getting a solid stance before we went on.

  “Look,” Albe said.

  “Look at what?”

  I was busy glancing back to see if Aunt Louise might be trying to follow and watching those ahead inching their way along to be sure they were safe. Silly, as I think about it now. What could I have done in either eventuality? Aunt Louise would be in the same precarious situation we were in. Worse, because she was a large animal that had to go on all fours, and this stair had been built to accommodate human feet.

  And if one of us fell, what would the rest do? Catch him or her? Laughable. The rescuer would go down with the victim.

  Yet Albe was holding my wrist.

  “Don’t,” I said.

  She let go, being also a woman of common sense.

  “Look,” she told me. “Is it not beautiful?”

  To be worried about beauty at a time like this! Yet she was right. All of one side of the valley could be seen from our perch. The sun, sinking into the misty horizon, burned a bright path over the water on the lake below and reflected in hues of copper, gold, and molten metal on the polished sides of the towers. The land below was posed in that green-gold shimmer that signals the approach of night.

  “Yes,” I answered. “Albe, it is. And dangerous, also. The sun is going down and the rocks will give back their heat into the winds.”

  Already they were rising and gusts tugged at us.

  Meth gave a low croon of distress. Armored, he was the most vulnerable of us all.

  Cateyrin encouraged him, “Keep going. It’s not far. The first time I came here, I was terrified, but after that, I came here every day. Well, almost every day. And it was easy. Believe me, you haven’t far to go.”

  But Meth was proceeding ever slower, until finally, he froze where he was. I looked back at Able and Tuau. She was cool, her face calm as she looked out toward the sun, its light reflected by the shimmering walls of a distant gorge as it sank in the distance. The wind was growing wilder and wilder. It tugged at my body, whipped at my hair, and at times numbed my face with its force. Cateyrin was weeping openly, begging Meth to keep moving.

  I edged toward her until I stood next to her, my body pressed against hers. I knew what I had to do. Coldly, I nudged her along until we were very close to Meth.

  “Please! Please!” she cried. “It’s only a little way now. I promise . . .”

  “Be quiet!” I said. “Meth!” I didn’t know I could sound like that. “Meth!”

  He turned a terror-filled face toward me. The wind hit again, and his eyes closed against its force. We felt dust and debris blown up and carried on it blind us for a second.

  “Meth! Get moving!” I shouted. I still held the sword in my right hand. I had not sheathed it. “Meth, if you stay there, I’m going to take my blade and drive it through your throat. If you freeze where you are, we will all die. Hear me! Get moving!”

  I was looking at Meth across Cateyrin’s face. Her eyes were closed, tears running silently down her cheeks.

  The
wind hit again. The glow was fading from the towers around us. I knew we had not much time, and I might perish along with Meth if swinging the sword overbalanced me. But I knew I had no choice. By the time night fell, the winds would be fierce, and standing on the narrow stair, we would never be able to withstand them. They, and the cold I suspected would go along with them. We would hang on for a time, but in the end, we would perish, one by one, falling into the dark lake below.

  I readied myself for the stroke.

  Arthur did the things a king did for his people in the Summer Land. It was reflex with him, and he now knew that even in his mother’s womb he had been a king. While dreaming, he knew the burdens of leadership, because that’s what a king was in his world: a man who chooses to confront the difficulties the small, segmented societies faced in their settlement of this corner of the planet.

  There were no people who did not know the forms and the fulfillment of this template as it was applied to reality. The Greeks had kings; they became too overbearing, and so their political authority was withdrawn. The Romans were instructed about kings by the Etruscans, and for the same reasons had also dispensed with them. But when they founded their great city, Rome, it took a king to lay its boundaries.

  The Saxons knew of kings, and law, and the earth queens who were needed to create kings, as had the Gauls and the Germans from beyond the Rhine. They all knew, and however they might flout the ancient code, they understood that in the end, it must prevail.

  A king must be able to do three things: fight, enforce the law, and love to maintain the life of his people. Arthur had not loved, not yet known a woman. Only Dea Arto, who had summoned him to the Bear Society. She had come to him during the week after he woke a man. The pleasure had stolen upon him during that calm, silent interval between sleep and waking, and he spent it among the linen and fur that covered him in the place where he slept with the other boys in a stone chamber at Morgana’s stronghold. He woke with a memory of pleasure so piercingly powerful that it engendered an almost instant guilt.

  And after he came completely to his senses, he was ironically aware that fear and guilt both were the proper reaction, since he could no longer remain among the innocents who shared the chamber with him. He had, as best he could, hidden the evidence of his adulthood, and then rose and went to find his father.