The Hammer of the Sun

by Michael Scott Rohan

  "Behold, I ride upon black wings, over land and sea he has sped me to speak words of fire to you, words of sun's fire that shall shine through the pale Ice and melt it to a mist! I am his emissary!" He heard his words come rolling back like thunder from against the distant barriers of the Ice. "Well? Will you hear what he wills?" Not a boy stirred on the decks below; even the sea seemed hushed.

  "You shall not fight! For the lives Louhi commanded you to cast away are not hers to rule -nor his - but yours alone! You need not surrender, nor bow the knee, nor in any way lessen your honour and your pride! But in the name of your mighty forefathers of old and their allegiance, older than the Ice itself, he asks you to stand aside, to let pass the fleet before you! For they also are a part of the Raven's brood, sprung like you from the common blood of the fathers of men, that first he sheltered beneath his wing! Weigh well; choose freely! That is the Raven's word!"

  Even as he finished, the black birds squawked and shrilled, and rising on their cruel talons they shook their wide wings. The chieftain looked up at them, and beyond to meet Elof s own intense gaze. For a moment they stared at one another, and at the black birds between them; then the chief made a single curt gesture, spoke a short word, and the sharp-edged sweeps splashed into the water, the steersman bore down on his oar. In a swift flurry of wings the two huge ravens flung themselves aloft, almost colliding with Elof and whirling him aside; when he collected himself, he saw that the dark ships were moving forward no longer, but turning away, aside. Numb with excitement, Elof came swooping down past the masthead of the Prince Korentyn as it passed beneath him, and all but collapsed upon the deck.

  The shield split before the spearhead. If signals were exchanged, no man saw any, nor heard any hail; but the line of black ships parted, and peeled back on either side to give the great warship passage. In two long lines they formed up like sullen guards, and rode there, sails furled, silently watching the fleet pass. But as the last ship went by they hoisted sail once more, and the two ranks silently closed in behind it and followed the fleet to land.

  On board the Korentyn confusion had reigned. Elof was bombarded with loud praise of his valour and wild enquiry as to what the savages meant, often in the same voices at the same time, till Kermorvan's dry voice cut through the hubbub and extracted an account of what had passed. "So Raven takes an interest!" mused Kermorvan, tapping the gold-damasked Raven and sun emblem on his breastplate. "He seems to think you did the right thing. And I agree. But I crave to know just what those ships intend now!"

  Later that day he found out. As the day declined they sighted the southern hills, still green and free of snow, and at their feet many small bays without any ice, that might make good anchorages. Kermorvan had the best of them swiftly sounded, then ordered the fleet in. He would waste no time, for, as he told Elof, Louhi's minions were probably herding a huge army of Ekwesh southward across the snow that very minute, or preparing to land one from the sea. But the scouts he sent out, among them Elof aloft, reported both sea and land empty within their sight, and he gave the orders to disembark.

  It was a disciplined force that landed, but confusion and problems were inevitable. The land was cool and windswept under that grim and sunless sky, a country of barren cliffs and grassland only a little less harsh than the north had been; by the sea tough grass and thorny gorse were all that grew, save for the odd stunted tree. Here and there in sheltered vales and hollows some plants of warmer climes struggled on, but to no great effect. There was little to replenish their supplies, and no sign of men; but there was fresh water in plenty, and that they needed most. Their greatest concerns, as Kermorvan detailed them to the council of war he held on the Korentyn's deck, were first, to establish and fortify their place of landing, and second, to seek afield for folk of Kerys and establish a link with them before Louhi's forces could cut across the land between.

  The matter of defences Kermorvan set to Ils and the small group of young duergar she had brought, and even before the main body of the force was ashore they were busy throwing up ditch and earthwork, complaining bitterly of the poor sandstone of the cliffs. Faring afield posed a worse problem. On so long a voyage they had not been able to bring many horses, and of those they had, some had died, and most were weakened by seasickness; even Kermorvan's hardy white warhorses, well used to sea voyages, were looking leaner in the ribs. Seasickness had taken its toll of men also, though they had guarded scrupulously against other disease, and many of the force were still not fit for long riding or heavy labour. Kermorvan's plan, therefore, was this: that while the main body of the force guarded fleet and shore, a swift band of such as were fittest should at once ride inland and seek the southland cities of Kerys; this, he informed them, meeting all protest with a chilly gleam in his eye, he would himself lead. Elof would go with them, as scout and courier. "But none of this we may safely begin," he added grimly, "till our third and most urgent problem is solved; what we do about our obliging escort out there?" He gestured over his shoulder to the gaggle of black ships.

  "Chances are that'll be resolving itself any time now!" remarked Roc cheerfully. "One of the buggers is rowing this way!" There was a general rush to the side, but it was clear the newcomer meant no attack. There was something hesitant in the manner in which it hove to a discreet length from the Korentyn, and hailed for a parley. Elof was there when its boat drew under the warship's lee, and the chieftain of the Ravens climbed on board. He was grim of face, and there was fresh blood, among the many stains on his mantle, but he saluted Kermorvan with respect, and Elof with awe.

  "No man fares best alone," he began, without preamble. "To gladden the eye of Raven we set a spear between us and the other clans of the Aikiya'wahsa, and defied the Woman of the Ice. Now we think we will gladden Raven's eye further if we join those others who follow him."

  Kermorvan's angry gesture silenced the outbursts of disbelief that arose all around, but the chieftain folded his arms and said no more. Kermorvan pushed his long hair back from his forehead, and regarded him steadily awhile before he answered. "You did what was honourable," he answered at last, very calmly, "and we take notice of it; we should have had hard fighting, for all our numbers. What It has cost you, we can guess. But your kin has never shown any love for ours, and there is an ocean of blood between us. When one shieldwall joins with another, each man must trust his neighbour, or the wall is weaker than it was before. I cannot forget that you might be cunning traitors, preferring a sudden strike from within our ranks to an open clash of shieldwalls that must in the end cost all your lives. I do not say you are traitors, but I would be a fool not to think of it." The chieftain gave a contemptuous grunt, but said nothing. Kermorvan leaned back in his heavy chair. "We must know more. We also are honourable; aid for aid we will return as generously as we may - but to have you join us is a longer step, and one we should both test first. How truly do you wish it? Is it not rather fear of Louhi's wrath that urges you on?"

  Kermorvan had taken care, Elof noticed, to speak in simple terms the Ekwesh would understand instantly, and to avoid offending him; and yet he had accused him of fear. The chieftain bristled visibly, but controlled his temper, and allowed himself a frigid nod. "Not to turn face from the Unending is foolishness; and the Ravens of the Aikiya'wahsa are not fools, King-over-sea. Else should we chafe under her rule so long? We thought then, Raven sleeps, or, Raven is weak, because he has no moving mountains, no warriors, no beasts, no sights or sendings, save, some say, himself. So we think, to serve well, we can do no better. Now we see this may not be so, there are other ways, that you serve him and yet are not his slaves, that you have power to wield as he shows you and yet is your own." The black eyes glittered as cold as Kermorvan's own, and the stolid face grinned with sudden savage vitality. "To fight the Hunter as you did, steel-shaman… ayeh! Would I had done that deed! She was wise not to send the Ravens to fight in your land, but keep us to this, whose folk are rotten in their heart and strive among themselves. We saw you, we knew the tim
e had come. So, King-oversea, our wish to join your force is true, not a turning of the face. If he follows you, we shall also. In all you command!"

  Elof felt intensely uncomfortable. "You make too much of me!" he said. "The King-over-sea is a man to follow indeed, a terrible warrior but wise also in the ways of peace. Look rather to him!"

  Kermorvan smiled wryly. "Whatever the truth of this, I begin to understand your wish, and to believe you. But it is not something that can be decided in a moment. For one, are all your clan of the same mind?"

  "There are many yet in our own land. Here, there are many still ashore, some forty ships or more; them also we put in peril. But of those here at sea, all who remain are of the same mind."

  "All who remain?"

  "A few were foolish, or face-turners. But have no concern! No ship is weaker save by a handcount, and the clan is stronger without them." He touched the bloodstain on his mantle. "They served us for luck-offerings."

  "Then hear me!" said Kermorvan into the ensuing silence, as they pictured in their minds what bloody moments had passed upon those still ships. "For now you find it well to join us, and I should be glad to welcome such powerful fighters under the Raven and Sun; but much of what we command might chafe upon you. We do not offer lives, for one thing; and you may not be so glad when the day comes that you must strike against your own kin." He paused, and the chieftain nodded curtly again. "Very well then! Against all this, and treason, we must guard. Our welcome is hard, but the times admit no better. You and yours must live and act only as we direct, till such time as we hold you proven!"

  The chieftain said nothing, made no move; but a strong pulse beat visibly at his jaw, and a stony pride was in his eyes. Abruptly Kermorvan surged to his feet, towering over him and all others on deck, and whipped from his belt his grey-gold sword. "This the Mastersmith Elof Valantor made me in the forges of the mountain folk! Say, will you swear fealty and obedience on it? For else upon its edge you dwell; and it has never yet been blunted! Speak now, or begone; I will have everything, or nothing!"

  For a long moment the old man gazed at him, then with a sigh he seemed to collapse like a punctured bladder. He bowed his head, and fell to his knees and beat his forehead upon the planking. "As you wish it, King-over-the-sea! We are your hounds, and at heel we follow!"

  In truth, as he explained readily enough afterwards, he had expected no less. It was agreed, among lesser precautions, that his ships should moor well apart, his men camp ashore in small groups under guard, in return for which they would both receive and help to gather supplies, chiefly fish; and that in battle by land or sea they would be set in a place where they might prove themselves at once. To this the chieftain assented, adding with a cold twinkle in his eye "But hurry the battle, lord! For we are not mild folk, to sit idle at the doors of our tents! We breathe honour as the air!"

  "Battle and honour you shall have soon enough!" said Kermorvan. "For now nothing hinders the searching party! See that it is made ready, for it departs within this very hour!"

  In his place he left Ils, as was his wont at home; but to aid her he commanded Roc as marshal of the fleet, much to his astonishment and disgust. "For you know the land, and are a man of hard counsel, well suited to such a rank; and," he added in a lower voice, with a wry smile, "that is a thing you have achieved yourself. It is no accident of birth, like smithcraft, or, for that matter, kingship; and that Marja will not forget!" Roc snorted. To his vast chagrin, or so he gave out, Marja, instead of finding someone else, had waited out his nine year's absence quite faithfully, leaving him no honourable alternative but to cleave to her. In truth she obviously suited him much better than he pretended, for the years had settled him; only the matter of standing had rankled between them. Now Kermorvan had more than made that up, and chosen so vital a time that none would claim he favoured Roc from friendship only.

  Certainly Elof was glad that two such solid natures were left in charge, as he and Kermorvan led their few squadrons of horsemen up the steep defiles above the landing site. It would not do to allow the Ekwesh to stage a surprise attack from the sea, and destroy the ships; the landing could be penned in then, and left to starve with no way of escape. As they passed below the crest of the hills, Kermorvan called to Elof, and together they left the column and rode up to the summit. Clinging to his saddle, Elof was too exhausted to speak when they reached the top, but he was able to seize Kermorvan's arm and point; there, barely distinguishable from the hill-crests against that grey horizon, was the distant shape of the Gate-tower. No dragon-coils crowned it now, no great head lifted towards the louring overcast; yet its aura of menace seemed undiminished. "I feel it too!" muttered Kermorvan. "Once so great, yet what has it become?"

  "What has all this land become?" countered Elof harshly. "We linger from finding out, and night comes early; would there were more sun…" The two friends looked at one another, struck by the same thought; then they looked upward at the lowering clouds, already tinged with red by the low sunbeams. "It can't be!" exclaimed Elof. "Not already!"

  But as the sun sank in a riot of hues, scarlet and peach and glaring dark gold, mantled overall in black, Elof took wing once more; when he returned his hair seemed strangely faded, his wings greyed, till he clapped them together and blew a rich dust of pumice about the company. "On every hand the fire-mountains belch smoke and ash!" he reported. "They look like pillars upholding this canopy! As in a sense they are. The Wild Lands are still thick with snow; the Yskianas is well-nigh frozen in its upper reaches, the rest awash with ice. In early summer! The attack has begun!"

  "What of the Ekwesh?" rasped Kermorvan. "Or any force of Louhi's? Did you see anything of them?"

  "I saw something - here on the southern bank, no more than three or four leagues hence. I could not get close enough before the light failed, but it looked to me like a great encampment around a town."

  "A siege? Or a muster?"

  Elof shrugged. "Either. I said I could not see. And there were a few small flickers along the northern shore, fires of picket camps perhaps; Ekwesh, if so. Those lands have been long deserted. Nothing more -and Powers, but it was cold up there! The Ice rides the upper airs now!"

  Kermorvan looked grave, but he helped Elof unbuckle his harness. "Come warm yourself by the ovens, then; we dare not build open fires in this bare place. We must get away from it soon, even if that means pressing on through the night."

  To nobody's surprise, it did. The cold grew fierce enough to discourage even the weariest from thoughts of sleep; the danger of never waking was too great. The earth rang flinty beneath the hooves of their mounts, their breath burned in their nostrils and steamed out in great clouds. Only a few stars glinted through the suffocating cloak of the upper airs, like the spear-points of a night assault; the moon when it rose shone a few pale beams through the ragged cloud, but the frost-bound land glinted enough to give them light to ride by. They cantered on like a column of dark-cloaked ghosts, and made good speed; near dawn they were already on the southern slopes of the hills, encamped beneath a stand of dead corkbark oaks, winter's victims, and were grateful to snatch a few hours sleep beneath the rising sun. Then fire was kindled, and Elof lifted once more into the air, climbing so high that to any casual eye he must be mistaken for a bird. But he knew well that among his foes there were eyes less casual, eyes of freezing blue, eyes of blazing green, and he held Gorthawer ready at his belt, the gauntlet on his arm. Only his heart felt unready to face either.

  The land swept by beneath him as if his wing-beats brushed it away; there was little warmth in the light, but enough to keep him aloft for many leagues yet, and the warm south wind that had brought them ashore contended with the cold flow down from the north; their conflict sped him swiftly eastward towards the town he had glimpsed. He could remember the name of only one fortified town in this region, Torvallen, a holding whose lords had been a particular thorn in Nithaid's side. It did not augur well; like many of their northern cousins they might have sought to compa
ct with the Ekwesh. Again and again he wondered what he had done in slaying Nithaid; the ruthlessness that had dogged him all through his life, that Korentyn in naming him had hung around his neck, had it betrayed him as before, and perhaps the whole world with it? All the bitter self-disgust of old came welling up in his throat, all the old ghosts flew mockingly beside him. What was he, who was he, that he should do such things, bear such burdens? He had never really known. But long before he reached his goal he saw a change that drove the phantoms of the past from his waking mind; that dark smudge in the lands around had changed shape, grown longer to the west, like some amorphous crea-ture stretching out an arm of its substance. And there was something moving among the river-ice… Puzzled, he went gliding down towards it.

  They had agreed that while he was scouting, Kermorvan should not wait, but continue his drive eastward. Time was too short to waste; Elof could find them on the move easily enough, and it would shorten his journey back. So it was that he came upon the column as it was making its way across the southward slopes, and seeing for the first time the Vale of Kerys laid out before it. So intent were they all, even Kermorvan, on the sight of this, their ancestral homeland and the focus of all their legends and tales, that there was near panic as Elof came down among them, with men shouting and horses milling and rearing, ready to bolt. "I might have been another dragon!" grinned Elof breathlessly, as the alarm settled. "Could've settled on your wrist like a falcon!"

  "You could hardly have caused more of a row!" said Kermorvan, irritably; then he grinned ruefully. "Oh, very well, I admit it; I was too struck by the sight to see a proper watch kept. What news, then, with such haste? Do you bring a band of reivers down on us?"

  "Far from it! There'd better be none this side of the Great River, if they value their hides; there's a host of Kerys on the march!" /

  Kermorvan seized him by the arm. "You're sure?"

  "Of course! All straggling out along the high roads, with cogs plying back and forth on the River; they're breaking channels in the Ice as they go. I saw banners and standards I've seen before; on my second pass I stooped low enough to see the very shade of their faces, and nearly caused a riot -"