The Hammer of the Sun

by Michael Scott Rohan

  Such musings were a useful distraction from the monotonies and hardships of the voyage, and those were many; but there was nothing idle about them, and they were only one strand among his tangled thoughts. Their passage was swifter than it had been outward, for they met no greater perils than wind and rough weather and made no detours, but sliced a smooth arc over the curve of the world, tacking across the chilly airs that flowed off the Ice. With a crew able to stand two watches the sailing was far easier, and though many of the young men had never before seen the ocean, they were Northerners bred to it over thousands of years, and took to it at once. The black ship, though crude and simple in its building, proved steadfast and strong, sliding through stormwaves like a serpent, shipping surprisingly little water over its low gunwales and between its planking. Their living space was uncomfortable, for the Ekwesh made a fetish of hardihood, and scorned the least of civilised comforts. To the surprise of many it was also scrupulously clean, for they had learned the need of this in conditions so cramped that disease could race like a forest fire. If there were pursuing ships, they never saw them, nor did they encounter any patrols; it seemed that Louhi had withdrawn them, perhaps to provide more manpower for her campaigns, perhaps also because of the ice-islands that were gathering in such numbers now.

  "They'll freeze together come winter," remarked Roc.

  Elof nodded, and leant a little on the steering oar, swinging the black ship that much wider of the clustered floes. "And maybe next spring, or ten springs hence, they won't thaw apart again, and though they're blocked on the land the glaciers will creep a bit further down across the sea."

  Roc eyed him dryly. "By any chance would that be this plan of Louhi's you suspect?"

  Elof frowned. "A part, probably," he admitted unwillingly. "But still not the core of it. I - I think I see it; but not clearly enough. Not yet." He tipped the helm back as the floes slipped by, watching a shadow creep back along a curiously carven disk of wood and bronze till it fell straight along the course he had marked. Roc looked at him a moment, then shrugged.

  As the weeks wore on the ocean grew colder about them, so that even in high summer rime formed upon rigging and spar by night, and by day was slow to disperse. In the northern skies the Iceglow burned baleful above the horizon like an unending banner of spiderweb, dimming the stars as they arose, a silent presence that preyed upon men's minds. Many of the crew grew anxious at their northward drift, and began to eye their fast dwindling supplies with great concern. They could not understand, though Elof sought often to explain to them, the necessities of navigating across the curve of the world; their minds, bounded all their lives by the walls of Kerys Vale, could scarcely comprehend distances so vast, and in confusion they grew distrustful. Even Tryg-kar, who had looked upon the ocean as a child, remembered only that there was some special art, and not what it involved; no man of his time had known it. He trusted Elof, however, and that kept his crew in check.

  At last, one chill morning, Elof took careful sight on the sun as it shone red through the swirls of freezing mist, and shouted to Trygkar to bring the ship about onto a new heading, west by west-south-west. "For this is the mid-point of our voyage; we need go north no longer! Now for the South, and home!"

  From that day on the climes grew warmer again, and though there was still rough weather enough to occupy them, their main concern was whether the food would last. "We always knew it would be hard!" Elof told the crew, when they must needs reduce their daily portions still further. "We could not have carried more and still seized the ship so swiftly! But be steadfast, and I will make you all amends yet!"

  Trygkar chuckled. "We'll hold you to that, Mastersmith! We've water still, though it's piss-poor drinking, and water's the main thing; for the rest, a feast was never made the worse by a few day's fasting first!"

  But the water was down to the scummy dregs of the casks, and the fast had endured many days, before the sunset came that brought their lookout's hail. The sinking sun flooded the skies with still flame, reddening the grey clouds till they turned to glowing embers crusted with black; fire ran among the steely waves till the black ship seemed to ride a path of metal half-molten. But at the apex of that path, hard to look at as the sun descended upon it, a dark streak showed at the waves' ending that seemed more solid than any cloud. The sun was almost down before those on deck glimpsed it, and then only for a moment ere the dark came. They were not sure; hope stuck painfully in a parched throat. But the lookout was sure, as he came sliding merrily down the mast, and bade them hold their course and await the dawn. That night no man slept.

  So it was that when the first feeble light dimmed the sinking stars the whole crew crowded the deck. They had seen little by night, moonless and cloudy, and now they quivered like hounds at the slip, thirsting and hungering for more than mere sustenance. When the clearing greyness showed them that shadow grown more solid still, the whole ship went wild; they laughed, they danced, they pounded Elof and Roc upon the back with bruising force. Both men scarcely noticed, for a deeper hunger yet burned within them; for hours it held them at the gunwale, their eyes fixed on the changing silhouette ahead. They were approaching the coast at a shallow angle, passing further southward the closer they drew, and they were torn between the urge to turn straight towards land, and the more sensible course of waiting till they were nearer. "We've got to be close to home!" asserted Roc for the twentieth time, twisting his fists about the gunwale till the layers of encrusted salt crackled and crumbled. "We can't be far north or we'd still have seen the Iceglow -"

  Elof writhed uneasily on the crutches he had whittled from ship's timber. "It was hard to set our southward course exactly. Too far south, and we come upon empty country - wild land, forest. Desert even, or the salt flats of Daveth Holan…"

  Roc squinted up into the afternoon sky, shading his eyes against the declining light. "You couldn't be that far out in your reckoning! Mad you may be, but not daft…" He tensed at a sudden hail from the masthead.

  "What d'you see?" shouted Elof. "Whither away, man?"

  "Dead ahead - beyond the bows! Look…oh look/"

  On a ship of their own land they would have been able to scramble up the stern-post, but the reiver ship lacked one. They could only wait long minutes, while the ship sailed on and the world seemed to hold its breath - all save the lookout, for he had become totally incoherent with excitement. But as what he had seen appeared above the horizon, a great shout went up of wonder and joy, from all save Elof and Roc; for astonishment held them mute.

  This was not the land they had left, not far short of nine years past. And yet beyond doubt it was the city once named Morvannec, renamed Morvanhal; but now it seemed in truth that the ancestral seed of Morvan, a thousand years crushed beneath the Ice, had risen and flowered into triumphant strength once again.

  Roc gulped. "Is it real?"

  "Could all this have been shaped in a mere nine years?" breathed Elof in wonder. "Or have we been wanderers in time, as we have upon the oceans?"

  "Lesser than Kerys!" growled Trygkar softly. "That you told me - but not that it was like this! And you have brought us straight here!"

  So entangled in wonders were they that this further one seemed scarcely to matter, then; it was only later that it came home to them all. For dead ahead of them lay the promontory of Morvanhal, and across all the trackless wastes of the seas Elof had set their bows straight towards it.

  But as they drew ever closer they had few thoughts save for the majesty of the sight; they forgot empty bellies and parched throats, for their minds and their hearts were filled. All that Elof and Roc had looked to see was there, the smooth solidity of the outer walls with their rotund towers, cone-capped in grey, the streets and terraces rising up the flanks of the ness, and at its crown the lordly tower of the palace. They were still too distant to make out much detail, even in this clear afternoon light; but memories touched in what their eyes did not see. Yet those memories they began to doubt, for so much was overlaid up
on them; they saw familiar pictures in new and splendid settings, but so contrived that their splendour only enhanced and dignified the older work. From behind the old walls new walls arose, their stone vividly red-gold in the clear light, and they spread out to embrace the land around and beyond the promontory, and the hills that overlooked it. On the slopes behind the ness, where tangled forest had encroached upon overgrown field, new streets wound their way up from the old; but they were tall, spacious and widely separated. Between them both forest and field were maintained, each within their proper limits, save where they gave way to the familiar patterns of vineyard and orchard. It was an image of harmony, a contained balance of man and nature such as Elof had never looked to see within a city wall. And as the palace crowned the promontory, so on each hill a tall tower rose out of the trees; yet though they far overtopped it, they did not overwhelm it, but were set about it like standing sentinels to an enthroned lord, like flourishing youth about venerable age. Of ivory stone were their walls, their roofs of bronze capped with gold, and many a brave banner flew above them against the white clouds.

  "Those are the towers of Kerbryhaine!" Roc burst out. "What magecraft translates them here, right across the land? Copies, maybe - but Where'd they get the stone? There's none like that here!"

  Elof shook his head in sheer wonder. "Surely the duergar have had a hand in this! Only they could achieve so much in so short a time."

  "The duergar?" whispered a young crewman nearby. "Is this a magical place, then?" Nobody laughed.

  "It's a peaceful one, anyhow!" said Trygkar contentedly. "That shows! We'd never get even this near to any city of Kerys in a ship like this…"

  Elof and Roc exchanged shocked glances; they had both forgotten what manner of ship they were coming home in. Then they turned as one to look up at the black sail. "One wins you ten," said Roc carefully, "that they're warming up our welcome this very minute!"

  Elof swallowed, remembering the lethal rams he had fitted to Kermorvan's great warships. "And they would use them at full speed! By the time they got within hailing range it would be too late!"

  "Even if they heeded any hails!" grunted Roc. "Or they'd use catapults - one volley from the Prince Korentyn would turn this hull into pickteeth! If we lowered the sail -"

  "The reivers do that before the attack, often enough!"

  "One ship against a city?" demanded Trygkar.

  "A city the Ekwesh have held within living memory!" said Elof quietly. "Not an experience you forget! They might think us daft, but they'd still strike first and hard…"

  "In the harbour!" cried the lookout. "A ship, a huge ship, warping about, readying sail!"

  "That's it!" said Elof decisively. "Head for the harbour-mouth and they'll smash us to flinders. We can't anchor outside; it's too deep. Sweeps or sail, we'll have to risk coming alongside the sea-wall, where they can't use the ram; can we do it, shipmaster?"

  Trygkar grinned. "We can have a stab, Mastersmith! But we'll be taking a slow pounding between waves and wall -"

  "Better that than the ram!" said Roc fervently. "And I've few soft feelings about this ship - have you?"

  "Well… she bore us no small way; and a skipper hates to lose any ship. But better that, as you say - to your places, the pack of you! We're going about!"

  The city was confident of peace, that was evident, for it had no war-craft in readiness; but by the time the black ship reached the sea-wall the longship Saldenborg, next in size to the Korentyn, was sweeping out of the mouth. "She'll have to tack ere she can come back at us!" shouted Elof, helping Trygkar with the unwieldy steering oar. "If you can get us alongside at once -"

  "Any moment now, Mastersmith!" said Trygkar intently. "Down helm a little - a wee bit more - let her go, there! Stand by to fend off, you others!" The old shipman took a deep breath, and bellowed "Now!"

  The two of them leaned hard on the oar. The black ship swung sharply around, spilling wind from its sail, the waves caught it broadside and lifted it with a sickening lurch; a dark bulk loomed suddenly over the gunwale, there was a jarring impact, another and still another that rattled their teeth in their heads. Then, as the ship lost way, the beating slowed down to a juddering scrape. "Get that sail down!" Trygkar ordered, and then, as the spar slithered down the mast, he breathed deeply again. "That's it, Mastersmith!" he said. "You're home." Elof bent over the oar, and closed his eyes.

  There were stone steps set at intervals in the outer face of the wall, and to one of these they made fast, bow and stern. But even before the knots were tied Elof was at the gunwales, and Roc helping him over. He hung on the steps a moment and looked back; out to sea the Saldenborg was coming about. By main force he hauled himself up the steps, and collapsed over the top onto the flinty top of the wall. He felt it drum beneath him, and looked up; the low sun dazzled him, but he saw a column of men come thundering down the narrow crest of the wall, a knot of horsemen at their head. He hauled himself up on his knees, waved and shouted, and to his infinite relief the horsemen reined in, the foremost so swiftly that his huge white mount reared in the narrow way, its hooves thrashing the air over Elof's head. He looked up, shading his eyes; and the world seemed to stand still in a moment of infinite silence.

  "By the High Gate!" He still knew that clear voice at once. "It's Elof!" The tone of utter amazement was unmistakable. "And Roc!"

  Elof felt a sudden inane, breathless laughter bubble up within him. "All hail - m-my lord!" he managed to say, and lifted his hand in a limp parody of a formal salute. Then Roc was beside him, helping him up onto his crutches, and he was able to grin up into Kermorvan's face, slack with astonishment as he had seldom seen it. But as he took in Elof's condition it set instantly in shock, and his grey eyes grew bleak and hard. "Who has done this to you?" he demanded, and swung down from his saddle to seize Elof's hand in his own iron grip. "Who has done this?" he repeated, and glared at the black prow beneath.

  Elof shook his, and forced himself to find words. "No! These are friends, none better, and I ask you to welcome them; they are men of Kerys - aye, Kerys," he repeated, seeing shock flicker across Kermorvan's face. "As to who did this, don't concern yourself; that score is settled forever."

  Kermorvan raised an eyebrow, then nodded. "And Kara?" he asked softly.

  Elof shook his head. Kermorvan looked down. "Truly I am sorry…"

  "And Ils?" Elof asked hastily, but he had hardly got the words out when the gaggle of men around them burst apart as a short figure bounded through, and slammed into Elof with a force that would have knocked him over into the harbour had the arms embracing him been less strong. He swayed, breathless, all too aware of the body pressed against him, sturdy and square and thoroughly female, of the pert face laughing up at him though it was streaming with tears.

  "The lady," said Kermorvan carefully, "appears to be very well."

  "Elof!" she gasped. "They were yelling about reivers… so I thought I'd not leave all the fun to him - but you… what… where -"

  Elof rumpled her curls affectionately, unable to find the right words. "As fair as ever!" he said lightly, though his own eyes prickled. "You haven't changed by a hair. As if it's only been a few months - which I guess it has, in your terms…"

  "It hasn't seemed so!" Ils whispered. "We thought you were dead … you imbecile, idiot, you… you human!"

  "You note, of course," remarked Kermorvan in an elaborate aside to Roc, "that no such compliments came to us…"

  Roc, equally straight-faced, spread his hands helplessly. "Nor that sort of greeting my way, my lord. Seems we're just hangers-on…"

  "Bystanders," amplified Kermorvan. "Forgotten men…"

  Ils tore loose and whirled round on Roc with her clenched fist darting at his middle. "I'll give you greeting, you tub of lard!" she snapped, then flung her arms around his neck and kissed him with a force that lifted his bulky frame from the ground, leaving him scarlet-faced and staggering. Kermorvan's reserve shattered; he gave one of his rare shouts of laughter, and spr
ead his arms wide to embrace them all. "Peace, you madmen all! By the sign of the sun, it's good beyond measure to have you both back!"

  Then he pulled free, gesturing up at the town. "I must countermand the alert!" he said. "Before too much panic spreads!"

  Trygkar, who had scrambled up onto the wall, coughed. "And the warship, my lord? May we bring our prize in before the waves break her?"

  "And without some fool unleashing a volley!" nodded Kermorvan. "Yes, you may!" He turned to one of the horsemen. "See they are signalled at once, Athayn, and the guards stood down!" The young aide saluted and cantered away. Trygkar bowed, and was about to return to the ship when Kermorvan laid a hand on his arm. "You are of Kerys? A shipmaster, by the cut of you, who has helped my friends voyage back across this vast ocean?"