It seemed to Elof that something actually snapped inside his head. He struggled furiously to spring up, to cry out, to howl in horror and outrage; but the splintered gag filled his mouth, and such a bolt of agony lanced through him when he tried to move his legs that he almost vomited against the gag. He forced himself to be still; his legs had refused to obey him, had scrabbled and scraped limply against the stone, as he had seen in dying things, beasts and men. The pain faded, and he lay there gasping, breaking out in a cold sweat. But as the agony faded there was a sudden sickening sense of release in his lower legs that was almost worse. Fear caught at his throat. As through a fog he heard Nithaid crooning "There, that's better, isn't it? And you can wear them as two for now, and then when you're older… no, don't go bothering Master Amylhes, he'll be too busy. Run along now and show them to your nurse!"
Elof was fighting a frantic battle with the jagged panic in his mind; he could not face what had been done to him. Slowly, choking down his rising gorge, he forced himself to rise a little on one elbow, and look at one outflung leg. One glimpse was enough; he slumped down so limply that his head rang dizzyingly on the flagstones. It had not been hewn off, as something in him had whispered. But behind his knee there were deep wounds, still bleeding, and he knew they meant something almost as terrible. Amylhes had simply severed the great tendon behind each knee, and so destroyed the leverage of the limbs. They had hamstrung him beyond healing, and made a lifelong cripple of him.
He would never be able to walk again.
Nithaid and the Court Smith were looking at him. There was open gloating in the older man's eye, but not in Nithaid's; he bore the satisfied look of one who has seen a disagreeable matter of business done with. Fury went shuddering through Elof like the winds through a forest and sent his fears whirling away on the blast. To the forest he thought back, to the pine floor. What had he achieved there? What had he unleashed, to heal himself? With that fury for a spur he delved deep into his mind, searched for the same source he had tapped, the same inner strength he poured into his work. He imagined it like some precious pure metal spilling white-hot from the furnace, flooding through his veins till they shone hotly bright, spreading, searching, seeking the flaw in his flesh that it might flow into, heal and restore.
Almost at once, though he had scarcely managed to believe it, the pain grew less, that sickening limpness began to fade. If he could keep this up… Then from behind him came a gruffly alarmed shout. "My lords! He has stopped bleeding!"
"What?" he heard Amylhes exclaim. "Impossible! let me see! Unless he's dying -"
"No, noble lord! Even as I watched the bleeding slowed suddenly and stopped - just stopped, formed no clot, nothing! And the wound, the sides of it, see!"
"What is this creature?" he heard Nithaid mutter, and his wrist was seized. "He said he healed fast, and by the Powers it was no lie; would it had been! Is it safe to hold him, Amylhes? Had we better not simply slay him out of hand, and scatter his ashes?"
Amylhes snorted furiously. "I've a better remedy than that. And he himself has supplied the means!"
Quick footsteps sounded, and from across the floor he heard Roc's warning shout. Looking up, he saw the Mastersmith Amylhes bearing down on him; but it was what he held in his hands that chilled Elof's heart. "No!" screamed Elof through the gag, and forgetting the agony he struggled somehow to rise, fought like a madman to find something he could spring himself up on, to roll away. But at the smith's curt order more hands seized him; he snarled like a wolf and bit, but a spear-shaft pinned him to the floor. Then, for the second time, two brands of pain unimaginable thrust into his legs.
Terrible as the first pains were, he had not yet screamed. But now he did, and shattered the gag with the force of it. The pains were no worse; but the torment of heart and spirit was a horror he could not endure. He clutched at death even as he had clutched at life, willing his heart to shatter, his mind to blow out like a candle in a cold wind, and the shadows around him to rush in. Horrifying as what they had done to him already was, this was worse. He howled his sorrow like a beast, for indeed it defied words. Yet somewhere, some part of him in a strange mad isolation, he could think with frightening clarity. Had Kara felt that last agony even as he had, wherever she was, far or near? Had she too felt bars of metal shut about her soaring spirit, the measure of her days caught in? Did she curse him then, knowing it was his doing? For Amylhes had spoken truer than he guessed. He himself had forged the fetters that henceforth must bind him to the end of his days, that he would never dare force open. He had sought to bind Kara; far more terribly, he had bound himself. For he had shaped those silver anklets which Amylhes had thrust through the wounds in his legs, between the very bones, and snapped firmly shut.
The clasps were cunning; who knew that better than he? Since they were meant to bind Kara, he had shaped them never to be opened again, once shut. As Amylhes must have seen, he had also made the anklets strong, almost impossible to break. Kara might have done it, in her power; but caught up in them, she would not wish to. Elof might manage it; but he would not, for with them he would break Kara. As they closed, a circle closed that should never have taken shape anywhere save where it was intended, around Kara's own flesh; for into the anklets, with a hair, a feather, no more, he had woven a part of the fate of that flesh. Closed around her, that would not have mattered; if they were somehow broken there, what was taken could return to her. Only the virtue would be dispelled. But if they broke now, that vital shred of her existence would dissipate; the effect upon her could only be guessed. She might not die, as a mortal might, but that change she had foreseen would surely come, in ways he could not imagine; and surely she would be lost to him. That was the risk he had chosen to run; that was what Kara had hurled in his face. And never more clearly than now was his own confident and ruthless folly brought home to him. Unless those bonds were broken, he could never ever be healed.
He screamed, or he wept like a child; he did not know. He hardly noticed that hands were smearing numbing salves upon him, tying rough bandages about the wounds. Not until the face of Amylhes swam into the emptiness of the world before him did he take notice. Then all in an instant the fit passed, and he raised himself upon one elbow; he saw the King's sons, staring at him with amused, gloating looks on their faces; evidently they had enjoyed what they saw. He saw Roc sitting up beside him, clutching his head and staring in wordless horror at what had been done to Elof. To neither did he pay any heed, any more than to the fire between his bones. For a moment another face seemed to swim before his eyes, seamed and grim. A clear cool wind of hatred and wrath blew through him, and brought him sudden strength. On one arm he raised himself and looked clear-eyed at the Court Smith. Then he spoke, and the man took an involuntary step back.
"Amylhes!" The name grated from his throat. "Liar and fool I name you, and false to your lord. You knew me for what I am from the first moment you saw me; a smith of craft and skill far greater then you could ever command. You feared me, lest I show the world how feeble you truly are; and you hated me, because I could not help showing it to you. So you lied to your lord, and you sought me as a thrall, to pass off my work as your own, or at least keep me from others, and in time be quietly rid of me. All this, to stop me supplanting you!" He felt light-headed; he seemed to have no body, as if the fire had burnt it to ashes and the wind dispersed them. He existed only as feelings, and the words they spawned. "Yet you had nothing to fear from me, Amylhes. Not then. But you do now. For your mean ends you crippled me; yet that is not a tenth part of the greater wrong you have done. You are a flawed casting, Amylhes; and I shall shatter you."
The voice he spoke in had stilled the babble of the court; his words echoed with sombre certainty between the stone walls. The Court Smith flushed red, then white, so choked with his wrath that he could not get out his answer. But it was the king that Elof looked to, Nithaid to whom his words had truly been addressed, slumped reflectively in the great chair; and it was Nithaid who answer
ed him, with not a trace of the anger that had gripped him a shorter time since. "It fits a thrall to guard his tongue better, Master Valant'," he said soberly. He gestured out into the shadows of the hall, towards a pillar upon which something hung, gleaming red in the deceptive flicker of the light. It looked horribly like a dismembered body for a moment, till Elof realised it was a suit of armour, with a bronze-hued breastplate. "Amylhes is no mean smith. He's made for me some fine things, the latest that armour, better than any king of Kerys has had since the old days and the lost arts of our ancestors."
"Are they lost?" asked Elof softly, though a sudden shiver of weakness gripped him. "That sword of mine that this nithing turned against me, take it from him and look! Be wary - aye, it cuts, does it not? And is it not fair? A thousand years could not blunt that edge; I know, because it is older than that. But when it was ruined and bent I was able to reforge it; could he? Craft and skills I have that have never been lost, king; and others that I have found anew for myself. But do not think me an idle boaster, king; put us to the proof. Set my sword against his armour!"
The court erupted. Nithaid looked at him wide-eyed a moment, then let out his barking laugh. "By Verya's sweet apples, at least you promise good sport! What say you to that, Court Smith?"
Amylhes elaborately did not look at Elof. "My lord, even a broken-backed serpent may be dangerous. By my counsel you will not risk yourself even slightly -"
"Risk?" inquired Nithaid quietly, but with a flash of his frightening eyes. "What's this of a sudden about risk? After all you've told me of that armour -"
"My lord," said Amylhes, treading confidently but delicately as does a man used to avoiding traps. "You yourself called my armour the best and strongest since the elder days. Yet kings were slain even then, clad in their mightiest armour - not least by the sly hands of traitors. I would not have you expose yourself to such perils lightly. Test it at need, my lord, in battle, but not for so petty a matter!"
"In battle!" repeated Nithaid, and suddenly his blue eyes were very like Kermorvan's. "In battle. Aye, that would be more appropriate, would it not? In battle, where if it fails, I fail, and am in no case to take the matter further. Interesting!" His voice had a mildness in it that made Elof squirm. "However, as usual you are right, I cannot risk it. Not out of fear, lest it should have crossed anyone's mind; but because I will not put my land in jeopardy lightly, not with my sons still young, the Icewitch sniffing about our doors and now this outlander princeling." He shook his head over the many iniquities of life, then looked up. "Therefore, Mastersmith Amylhes, I think that you shall don the armour, and meet the challenge in my stead."
Someone at the back of the court gave a snort that sounded like sudden laughter, instantly stifled. Amylhes' hooded eyes were unreadable, but he bowed. "A worthy idea, lord; but I crafted it most painstakingly to fit only your frame-"
"Oh, come, Amylhes!" Nithaid rumbled. "No need for such tact! We're much of a height, and you can pad yourself out all you like to match my belly and the rest; you'll have a few days to prepare, till this one's fit to face you. So that's settled, eh? Good. Very good. Guards! Take 'em off, these two; see they have healing and all else they require, but keep 'em secure. Your heads answer for theirs! And while you're about it, see their food is tasted. A shame if they met some ill fortune before the appointed day, eh? Off with you, then!"
The appointed day dawned earlier than any of them had expected. "Nithaid seems to be impatient for his sport!" remarked Elof.
"Sport?" growled Roc, as he helped Elof step by painful dragging step to a bench. "This is plain murder! Tell him you're not healed yet, refuse! You can hardly stay upright on your crutches, let alone put any weight on those legs of yours, splints or no - "
"Roc, I'm aware of that! And so is he! Do you think he'd care? Was I strong enough to strike a blow, that was all he wanted to know!" They turned to look at Nithaid, sprawled across his chair; he waved a jovial hand at them, and turned to bandy some remarks with his sons who stood beside him. Elof was glad that the little girl, at least, had been spared this. Courtiers came out as they neared the bench, and helped them in. They seemed cruelly amused, some of them, but not unkindly; Elof guessed that the Court Smith had made himself no great favourite, and they would be glad to see him fail. But from the wagers he could hear bandied about, few favoured Elof s chances.
A murmur parted the crowd, and from out of the shadows strode a figure it was hard to recognise as Amylhes. From head to toe he was carapaced in metal of a shimmering bronze hue, shaped to Nithaid's bulky frame; upon the breastplate, from midriff to throat, it bore in traceries of gold the sign of the bull's horns holding the sun, in a coiling, cluttered, florid style. The same gaudy decoration wound across every surface, spreading out along the limbs, for instead of mail they were encased in metal shells, with discs bearing the sun design to shield the joints and hinges, and at the brow and sides of the visored helm. In one hand he bore a heavy mace of matching hue, with many narrow ribs, and a sun-disc at its head. "Plate armour!" hissed Roc. "A whole suit of plate! And solid, by the ring of it!"
Elof glared and said nothing, but there was a sickness in him greater than any pain. He had bargained on some plate armour; but this was a whole suit of it. It was far easier to fashion, but crude compared to the subtle shapings of mail that the best smiths could accomplish. Few active men sought to encase them-selves in so heavy and cumbersome a guard, preferring ring mail with added body plates. Knights of the warrior order of ancient Morvan, with their fast, fluid craft of fighting, preferred less plate; Kermorvan used only light plates at shoulder, elbow and knee, and sometimes the breastplate that bore the crest of his line. Plate might shield the wearer from some blows, but hindered him in avoiding others. Here, avoidance was not at issue; if Elof could not make good his boast at one stroke, he could not move to avoid its counter. That mace would dash out his smithcraft forever, and all the hopes and fears and follies that went with it.
"Let me do it!" hissed Roc fiercely. "I've the strength, I'll have the bastard's head off before a man can move - "
"And yours would follow! No Roc, you've got yourself a bad rap on the head already by trying to help me; look to yourself, rather, don't worsen my fall by sharing it!"
"'Twasn't much. I gambled a dunt on the head against the chance of wringing that scrawny neck. Had the same idea as you now, I guess; only I might have saved your legs, and… and worse. Those anklets…" He groaned under his breath. "Oh Powers, what's the point? What can we ever hope to do now?"
Elof s heart sank like an ember; if even Roc was despairing… But Nithaid was speaking. "You there, give the man his sword! And you, his friend, get him to his feet! be you his prop for now!" He left unsaid what was obvious; that if Elof failed Anylhes would soon see he needed no support ever again.
"Listen, Roc!" said Elof suddenly as they shuffled into a circle lit by many lamps, summer eve though it was outside. "When I give the word, let me go! Yes, let go! Only for a moment! You'll see why…" But then Nithaid raised a peremptory hand, and Amylhes clanked forward to face him, only two strides away. Irouac put the cool hilt of Gorthawer into his hands, and with it the memories of that last shattering stroke against another and greater evil, of the lightning that had bathed it and driven it deep into solid iron. Elof drew a deep shuddering breath, and Nithaid let fall his hand.
Amylhes stepped forward with a clatter of metal, and raised the mace high. "Now!" cried Elof, and swinging up Gorthawer he flung his arm free from Roc; both hands met on the hilt, and with that singing snarl the black blade flew high above his head. Amylhes looked up, he could not help it, and for all his own wiry strength the weight of mace and armour told on his arm. He lost the moment of his swing; and in that instant, swaying on legs that were already collapsing under him, Elof brought Gorthawer hissing down.
Weakened as he was, his arms still held a strength few even among smiths could equal. The black blade struck like the lightning that had forged it anew. It met the ma
ce, reaped the head from it like a cornstalk and fell upon the helm beneath, smashing away the visor; the breastplate rang like a bell as it passed and leaped up in baffled fury against the flagstones. The rebound tore it from Elof s fingers, and he toppled; Roc caught at him, but he crashed down onto the stones, and agony convulsed his half-healed legs. The black sword skittered away across the floor to Nithaid's feet. Amylhes' face, revealed in the broken visor, wore a look of startled relief.
But only for a moment. A flicker of vast surprise crossed it, he opened his mouth to speak or cry out, choked, coughed and staggered in a jangle of metal, fighting with the collar of the suit. Blood gushed out of his mouth, and bloodstained tow erupted from the riven breastplate, slashed like soft tin from breast to waist. He hit the flagstones with a jingling crash; plate squealed and scraped as his legs kicked along the flagstones a moment, and fell gradually still.
In the hushed silence that followed Nithaid rose ponderously from his throne, bent down with a breathy grunt to pick up Gorthawer, and gingerly thumbed the edge that had struck. "Not in the least blunted," he announced, as if not in the least surprised. Elof, fighting to breathe against the shock of pain, could not answer. Nithaid prodded the corpse with the toe of his boot. "So there you lie, Amylhes," he said dryly, "for all your craft and cunning. Fool! Did you think me so blind I could not tell for myself the better man? But you were ever a schemer, and wont to force matters. Guards? Take this trash away. Armour and all."
Elof found his voice, though his head was swimming. "You knew? You knew? Then why did you force me to this?"
Nithaid shrugged. "As I said: good sport. Though as it turns out I am rid of a mediocre smith and accomplished intriguer, in a way that his powerful kindred cannot lay at my door. I could not be absolutely sure, after all, could I?" He hefted Gorthawer and clucked at it delightedly. "And I have a new Court Smith who is related to nobody and ill-placed to interfere, or even go where I do not want him. Your first task, by the way, will be to make me a new armour. And I have a most remarkable sword."
The Hammer of the Sun Page 25
