The Hammer of the Sun

by Michael Scott Rohan

  So time passed - a year, autumn to autumn, and another year after that. Scant detail is given those years of captivity in the chronicles; they are recorded in the terse and cursory fashion common in matters which the chroniclers must have thought unimportant, or of which Elof was not proud. Often they are like pages read beneath the gloom of gathering stormclouds; yet from time to time a bright light illumines some event, and it stands out in stark relief against the rest. So, perhaps, these must have seemed to Elof and Roc in their thrall-dom, rare blazes of levin-light against the oppressing skies.

  If the chronicles recount them in such detail, while ignoring or merely glancing over so much else, that is only to be expected. All through the years of his thrall-dom a fierce strife was raging throughout the land of Kerys. In small bands at first, and sometimes, unpredictably, in substantial armies, the Ekwesh were striking more and more often into the lands of Kerys itself. They never sought to hold territory, or even linger any longer than they had to in one place; they came to destroy and pillage, and when they had done they moved on. Fighting them was like chasing quicksilver; yet fought they had to be. The border lords who bore the brunt of their incursions grew more and more restive under Nithaid's hand; what were they paying his levies for, they demanded, if not protection? But that protection he simply could not give to each and every one. He had to guess as best he could where the next strike would come, and gather his forces there, or risk losing them piecemeal. Often, too often, he was wrong: because, he suspected, hostile eyes were watching him and his movements. So did Elof, though whose he never said; and only because of this is it mentioned.

  Those great events the chroniclers choose to treat remotely and from afar, as Elof himself saw them, and not without reason; for in the end it was he who mattered. To those of Kerys who lived through that time, who saw their fields laid waste, their homes burnt, their kinsfolk slain and at last, perhaps, their own blood freezing even as it spilled across the uncaring snow, it was the breaking of a world; yet in small things, the fall of a feather, the opening of a long-closed door, lay the roots of other events against which that strife was to seem almost insignificant. Not even the Powers who from their strange heights watched the wintry slaughters, or the no less bloody counters that followed, when Nithaid the Bull with the black blade would hunt the reivers back to the very snow lines and set heads upon every burned tree in gruesome mockery of spring - not even they could weigh events with the certainty of the chronicles. For theirs in all its stark irony is the judgement of time, and time ruled those many lives and deaths to be ultimately of small account. Perhaps there was a purpose in each; but if so, even from the Powers it is hidden. For they also dwell within time, and it is mightier than they.

  Elof and Roc, for their part, eagerly followed Nithaid's campaigns, when they could come by any news of them, and were grateful even for such scraps and rumours as the guards who brought provisions could tell. The sergeant, when he came, was most forthcoming of all. The first news he brought set the pattern; that Nithaid had won his most telling victory against the reivers for many a year, decimating and driving off a powerful war band in a series of pitched battles over the northern grasslands, himself leading the charges of horse as was his custom, clad in a fearsome new armour that no weapon could mark and doing great slaughter with a black sword, whispered among the common soldiers to be the gifts of a dark sorcerer. By the next spring it was being said the armour transformed its wearer into a raging beast-man with the strength of ten, and the Ekwesh had come to fear their enemy as a warrior of the Powers, many fleeing at mere sight of the bronzed bull's crest advancing. Elof knew that word of this, and of the many like victories in the years that followed, must inevitably come to the ears of Louhi, and even as the thought of Gorthawer in Nithaid's ham hand galled him, it filled him with a grim satisfaction, and a desire to thwart her still further.

  So it was that he and Roc were anything but idle. There are clues both in the words of the chronicles, and from marginalia and drawings copied in the earliest texts, as to their many works and achievements in these first years of their captivity; and if these were not spectacular in themselves, they were undoubtedly of vast value to Nithaid in the defence of his realm. In addition to the fine weaponry they crafted for the noblemen, the two smiths shaped many templates and pattern pieces that lesser smiths could copy in large numbers and at low cost, setting upon them simple virtues by fixed formulae, so that the common soldier also could be better armed and shielded. And it is said that many lives were saved so, and Nithaid grew greatly in the regard of his men.

  When, in that second winter, a town fell bloodily to the Ekwesh through poor fortification, its walls shattered by frosts and the weight of snow, Elof grew interested in the art, and applied to it some of the techniques of smithcraft, among them principles of flow and of fracture. He produced many designs, and under Nithaid's command and the spur of fear, thrall and soldier were pressed into feverish labour to give them form. Walls were strengthened with subtly formed buttressing, and gates reached by ramps cunningly shaped so that the press of an attack would spend itself against its own numbers, catching them in tight curves or forcing them off sides that narrowed suddenly and imperceptibly, or across bridges that seemed rock-firm, yet could be collapsed in a second; the gates themselves often led into lanes or corridors that were worse traps, bringing the attackers under the defenders' fire from unexpected angles and penning them against another and stronger gate. And the following summer an ambitious barrier began to be built across the northwest of the land, linking the various fortresses and walled towns into a defence to replace the Gate fortress. It was not to be a plain wall but an intricate, meandering tangle of corner and curve, sometimes linked by bridge or tunnel and filled with hidden traps and barriers as before. This, like the rest, was born of Elof s restless mind, but he took no part in its building, did not so much as set eyes upon the site; for Nithaid forbade him still to leave the island. It became ever more clear, though, that at the least the builders had to keep in direct touch with him, and so, grudgingly, the king allowed Roc to go to the sites and report the problems. At first he was heavily guarded and restrained, but by their third autumn of captivity this was proving too cumbersome, and he was free to travel with only a pair of guards, and to go more or less where he willed. He enjoyed these excursions for many reasons, and often returned looking smug and well cared for, but Elof grudged him none of the diversions he found. Had he missed the company of women, Nithaid would have lavished them on him as he did all other good things, but he shrivelled at the idea, as the maimed wreck he saw himself. He had little stomach, too, for bedding thrall-girls who would not dare refuse him; and always Kara was a flutter of wings across his heart.

  He had, in any event, always more work than he could manage, and when that palled he had a strong interest of his own, almost an obsession, to eat up any spare time he could find. This was the search for some greater source of heat than his forge. So many of the texts he had surrounded himself with half hinted at great secrets of his craft that high heat might unveil -or unleash. And nested within one such, like a pearl within a pearl, might lie the secret of his release. When the fourth winter of his captivity came it added urgency to his quest, for it grew bitterly cold even before the year's ending; blasting snowstorms swept land and river, and though they settled only lightly upon the island, they cut it off from the city for days on end, and though the smithy seemed to remain warm the supply of fuel for his forge was often very near its end. The trees of the island tempted him, but still he could not bring himself to cut them down.

  So he set himself to study all that he could set down upon the nature of heat, and went in his reading from the minuteness of nature to the heights of the sky, yet remained, it seemed, little the wiser. Into the strange affinity of the sun with glass he delved; he gazed at it through smoked glass, shattered thick glass into slivers so sharp they split its very light into streaks of gorgeous colour, he concentrated its rays throu
gh fine-ground globes and sections of globes until it grew to a firing heat. But even gathering that within his gauntlet could not bring him the fierce radiance he needed; and the sun was anything but constant. He considered the gauntlet itself, and sought to shape new crystals that would drink in all forms of heat and direct them as that one within the gauntlet did, but with greater duration and intensity. He failed, achieving only such weaker crystals as the duergar used in their undying lamps; and from then on the steady glow of the forge became a new mark for mariners on the river, but one at which they shook their heads and spat. And searching through the other skills taught him by old Ansker and Ils, he began to inquire into the strange properties manifested by certain of the metals ordinarily less useful to smiths, being too heavy and soft even for jewellery. But some of the old texts confirmed what the duergar had hinted at, the uncanny dangers encountered in the refining and storage of such stuff. He grew excited at that, for it seemed to hold the promise of great power, but at the same time he furthered his researches very slowly and carefully.

  He grew more interested in the stuff called stones-blood, which was a pitchy seepage that issued from the ground in some southern regions of the land, as it did more rarely in his own. It was little thought of; since it burned poorly in lamps and smelt terrible, only the poorest used it, but an early smith whose accounts he read, in seeking to purify it had arrived at some strange substances, some very combustible. Even though he improved greatly upon the processes of purification, however, they remained cumbersome, and the results were disappointing. The essences of the stonesblood proved incredibly dangerous and volatile to store, and more than once the smithy was almost burnt to the ground. But that impelled him to turn them to other uses, and through blending them with a variety of other substances he was able, in the fifth summer of his thrall-dom, to place into Nithaid's hands a weapon of devastating effect.

  At first he used a thick form of the tar, mixed to a sticky paste with sulphur, wax, and powders of rare metals, that was formed into a bolus and shot flaming from a catapult. Where it struck, it clung and burned, and could not easily be dislodged or put out; against wooden walls or roofs it had fearsome effects, and landing among close-packed troops or horsemen the bolus could cause panic. By its aid the siege of an outland tower was raised, and the town of a lordling who had in desperation sought to ally himself with the reivers was bloodily taken. But the Ekwesh had by now reached the main rivers, and were seizing enough boats to make them a serious threat to traffic; Elof distilled a thinner essence that floated when it was poured upon water, and could be fired there to form a barrier of flame before pursuing ships. This, though effective at first, had many disadvantages, chiefly that the flames were liable to blow back in the wind before it could bear the boat free of them; also, once the Ekwesh came to recognise the tactic, they could steer clear in time. When poured from a battlement its flames often exploded about the wall, enveloping defender as well as attacker. When word of this was brought to Elof he laboured long and hard, drawing again upon his memories of his time among the duergar and the mysterious weapons they could wield, and produced yet another essence of the stonesblood, this time a thin jelly that could be passed through a pump. Even the crude syringe used to clear the bilges of little fishing boats could jet it through the air to spatter an opponent's sail, where an arrow with the merest spark of tinder would fire it. From larger ships special pumps could spray it in a dense cloud that would soak into sail, clothes and deck alike, or, with great daring, could be enflamed by a heated wire at the pump's mouth, engulfing whatever it touched in a searing cloud that rivalled dragon-breath. After a while the mere sight of pump and fire-arrows caused all but the hardiest of the reivers to hang back and delay their attack, if not turn aside altogether. On land also it was effective, able to spit its venom beyond a besieged wall or into the rearward ranks of an assault, and so split its force. This magesmiths fire, as it came to be called, was not a conclusive weapon; it was perilous to produce, perilous to store, most perilous of all to wield in the panic of a battle, where more than once it claimed those who used it uncautiously. In the chill of that fifth winter, when the malice of the Ice was strongest and the hardened Ekwesh had the vantage, its flame burned feebler and less certain. But still, Elof had armed his captor with the most terrible weapon of war that ancient land had seen, and one of enduring effect.

  Such were the concerns in which Elof lost himself during the first five years of his captivity. He did not, however, cut himself off from the world; on the contrary, he still took an almost fanatical interest in the progress of Nithaid's campaigns, when he could get any news of them. But as his sorcerous repute grew, so this was becoming harder. Even the guards were loath now to stay and talk, save a few who remembered him from the first; the sergeant alone would linger for a stoup of wine and a few words, and let slip once over some strong wine that his men held him in great awe for his daring. Few others ever appeared. The king had commanded that none should set foot upon the island without his express permission, and most were glad enough to leave it so. When a fisherman was wrecked there during a winter storm Elof and Roc would have sheltered him gladly enough, but the wretched man would not come near the 'sorcerers' tower', stayed out all night in the howling rain and seemed vastly relieved to be summarily arrested by a guard-boat he contrived to signal next morning.

  The nearest they had to an intruder was one morning, when they were awakened near dawn by a sudden crashing from the forge. Rising in haste with weapons, they found that one of the little mammuts had strayed in, lured by some leftover fruit; it led them on a wild and shattering chase between the benches, trunk and tail held aloft, squealing and trumpeting wildly, before they at last ejected it. Beyond that, they were hardly disturbed from one month's end to the next.

  So it was that Elof had another reason to be glad of Roc's frequent excursions. So, also, he even came to welcome Nithaid's occasional visits to demand some new labour, when he would bombard the king with barbed questions about the state of the wars, and the advance of the Ice. Nithaid was curt in his answers at first, but as the years passed he would appear more and more frequently at the forge, sometimes for no very important purpose. Once or twice, in the earliest days, he would bring one or, other of his sons to be outfitted with some gift he had commanded, armour or weaponry fit for a young prince; but he would often linger to talk long after the work was done, though the boys, their greed assuaged, grew bored and clamorous to return. Eventually it dawned on Elof that the king also had come to enjoy these visits to men with whom he could speak straightly, and be answered as straightly, without thought of fear or favour. He would spend long evenings sitting by the forge, drinking mulled wine with the man who had sworn to kill him, and bandying hard words about the state of his realm. They were strange evenings, for between king and captive there was no slightest mellowing of feeling; at times the air seemed sulphurous with their rancour. Yet equally there was a kind of fellowship between them, a sense of bearing swords in a common struggle, and of satisfying a common need; Elof was desperate to know all that was passing, and sometimes it seemed almost as if Nithaid were seeking counsel. "Without having to ask for it, either!" Roc pointed out cynically. "Saves him lowering himself! He knows you're all too ready to bend his ear." This was the truth; for though he might approve Nithaid's valour on the battlefield, Elof never masked his contempt for his way of rule. This was not only to suit his whim; by provoking Nithaid he often learned more.

  "The poor folk of this land?" Nithaid jeered at some such sally of Elof s, one dark night in the middle of the sixth winter. "Where's your own fine concern for them, then, be you so eager to see me dead? Where'd they be without me? Rags rent between the teeth of the battling barons, that's all! And easy prey for the Ice, after that! Who d'you think'd take my place? You, eh? Is it that you had in mind? Think they'd follow a limping tinker, do you?" He buried his blunt nose noisily in his wine-mug, and blew a deep rumbling sigh. The lines in his face seemed to d
eepen, and Elof noticed with a quirk of surprise how much greyer his hair had grown since their first encounter. "No, Valant, if you truly wish to help the drudges you'll swink as you're doing, and forget all your foolish fancies. They're born to burdens and blows, it's in their blood; they've not the mind to feel the pain of them like higher-born folk. Or even mastersmiths! A strong lord over a quiet kingdom, that's when they fare best; they know it, too, all save a few malcontents, and it's what I'll give 'em. The throne's no chair of ease, but I've no mind to quit it yet, for you or anyone. At least, till my lads are of age…"

  When he had gone, Roc grimaced at Elof. "I didn't like the sound of that!"

  "Nor I," mused Elof, remembering the flushed faces of the youths who had watched his torture, and the bright greedy eyes. "You've heard something of them, these lads of his, I remember. Are they like their father?"