Well of the Unicorn

by Fletcher Pratt

  They were firing balls of stone now, that crashed furiously against the outer battlements, where the dark stone chipped to a tattered aspect. Men were hut and on the lower wall an engine or two smashed when clean hit— even a pair of Os Erigu people dashed down to lie like twisted dolls from where they labored on the demilune within by a deadly crack that came from high. The Earl would have ceased the task; but never a whit for that did Pleiander relax urging men to walls and engines; or the castle armorers to hammering in the court, at work on long steel shafts. With Airar's sharp sight and acquaintancy of bowshot to guide, these were flung by catapult at all that moved on the growing causeway, sometimes through the ports of the tower; and not unwounded went the sons of Lacia. Once as those enemies changed a guard a lance was driven through two together to leave them like larks skewered for roasting, and there was a shout of triumph. Even the magician Meliboe came to the wall, as drawn by the wave of spirit that welled from the Carrhoene captain; he had a handful of little wooden images made with long spindles thrust through their guts, to be flung over beyond the Vulking tower to their causeway. Count Vulk's men might have protections (said he) but the laborers not so, and in this war of walls a working man's as worthy as a fighter.

  There were blue balefires in and round his hut the night he made the enchantments for these toys. The sun had quenched beneath the sea and Airar was abroad with witless Poe, only coming from the wall, weary as though they had marched ten leagues, and a stout of wine desiring. Poe made the sign of the true faith and his voice was unstrung as "Master Airar," he said, "let us bear rightward here and mend our pace, if you'll accept; for I am not so poor a man of war as must fail admitting when I'm gripped with cold grue."

  To change route so was no joy for Airar, who had taken this way that it might carry him once again nearby the door of the Empire's daughter; but he was at the edge of consent when from the shadow came her laugh and she was beside them: "The physic for that, master free companion, is to drink at the Well where all enchantments fail."

  "Not I," said Poe shortly. "Under leave, I will begone," with a glance at Airar, who hardly heard or remarked him, eyes only for Argyra.

  "I'd have a word," said he; and "I am here; say your word," she. But now he fell tongue-tied, the speech he had all planned to make driven quite from mind by delight and tremor of her presence, with Meliboe's witch-fires playing from distance on her face.

  "What, no word? Then I'll have one for you: Hark, Master Airar—d'you know the little tower that overlooks ^the sea-face, the one with the balcony round it? And its purpose?"

  "Aye," said he, and flushed under the dark at how lightly this girl could take such things which himself hardly bore to think on, for this was that Black Tower where Mikalegon took his sweethearts male.

  "Well, then, and for your needs I tell you that the Earl led your young man Visto there last night; but Pleiander of Carrhoene is now betaken with Prince Aurareus."

  Airar felt a surge of anger; high love brought low. Was this bit of gossip all—? "Am I to weep?" he asked. "I'll have no part in such a game."

  " Nay . . . I do but warn you, and at some cost to myself from my sister." She laid a hand upon his arm. "If I have made you wroth, I'm sad; but men will still do and say strange things for what they call love."

  "You do not believe, then, that when I say I love, thelove is true? I'd pull the stars from heaven to make a wreath for your hair—"

  She laughed to stop him. "I am not sure I'd want so many. Nay, you must let me go. My sister—"

  "What can she do to hurt you here? Ah, if you'd thought on her at first, you'd not have come at all—for this small matter."

  He had gripped her hands. Now they went sudden unresistant and she leaned soft toward him: "This is no less than true, master logic-chopper. But for tonight no more— we'll speak again when you have daunted down the Seven Powers—for oh, I'm of the Well, and you're a clerk."

  She tried to twist away, quickly, but he held one hand and was about to lift it to his lips, when she grew close again, he staggered with the quick kiss, and her last word as she fled—"A token. Till then."

  What did she mean? Down Meliboe the enchanter and his works? But that was long ago done—nay, I'll have no magic more. It could not be that; Meliboe himself is for the good cause. How shall we damn him who serves as well as he may, even if that well were less than good by some thinking of the sons of the Well? The Well, the Well, which she herself denied on—and nothing one can say for sure.

  How daunt the Seven Powers? Too deep; his mind slid off on the thought of give all up, go to Dzik and wind a turban round his head to have some sweet submissive girl like them of that land, and never care a care. Trangsted's heir lay wakeful, thinking so, and how useless is life and sore the effort—for what? To rise a-mornings and make another effort more. Futile; life's a round without an end . . . Yet somehow at the back of his mind a hope and joy that did deny the thought he formed—a hate, too, for how ordinary these were around him, with wood-block face, and might not he, Airar, be somehow better than they? Visto to the Black Tower! There's your free companions who escape one control to fall on another and worse.

  Now came the wave of gloom again; how his high thought were vanity only, and he'd naught to give a king's daughter. Even her token might be no more than a clever girl's escape from insistence. So it was, after all, Briella or Carrhoene, and his thought whirled round to Dzik and beat its wings against the cage till the hope and joy of the kiss filled him again, and (knowing he would not keep it) promised fiercely to himself to down all common moral, and another night bridge the gape between them by having her body whether she would or no, for the mind would come after. So Airar drifted into tumultuous sleep, all tinged with sudden pain over this new thought—that but for his father's magic and Meliboe's (an accident) he'd have kept pure and there would be more to offer Argyra than the leavings of Gython of Gentebbi and of a lawless union a Salmonessan might make. So now there swept over him the old sense of anguish and irreparable loss for the lost one, though he had already found a sweeter. . . .

  No more of that now. With the first dawn of day came a ship from Bear Fjord with materials needful, and it was all bustle while at the battlements the war went on. The ship Nolbarn was chosen, with long booms lashed to her yards and baskets as Pleiander prescribed. Earl Mikalegon himself would have commanded her, but gave it to one of his captains when 'twas represented that one must keep general direction of the battle from where all could be seen. Pleiander to command the rush along the stump of broken bridge; Airar and his to come against the causeway from the north, the harbor side.

  The day of enterprise came bright and clear, as was fo be hoped for, therefore a good augury. All were afoot with the sun, but the dawn breeze was onshore, so the tall ships must beat against it round Erigu's castellated cape. Earl Mikalegon, rather splendid than other in his rusty armor with the sea-eagle surcoat, did swear and stamp the deck. Up along the causeway the Vulkings relaxed their shooting when they saw sails rise, and Airar could make out how heads were thrust forth the shot-holes of their tower, doubtless in wonderment at what this move naval might betoken. They tried one shot harborward from their high catapult, but it fell short; men hooted and the Earl broke out his banner. Airar and his hundred or more—for he led Evimenes with many Carrhoenes the day, and some of Os Erigu, whatever the boats would hold—lay at watch under the shadow of the pier, waiting till the sails should show southward through the arches of the broken bridge, which was to be their sign.

  A long wait, and not an easy one; all had the discomfort of approaching battle. The free companions growled and grumbled how Erigu's Earl entangled them in wars of no profit, when he might easily have reached composition on some term that would send them forth to raid Uravedu in the Count's name.

  "What if they did call us their allies? The profit would be ours, with swords to keep it? All that's a-need is a little grease in the knees of that fine Earl of ours. Too stiff to see beyond his own be
lly-pot, is he."

  Airar would have replied, but tall Erb's Adam's apple began its up-and-down and he spoke first: "Aye, that be just what a want you for to do—make all they hard wars and earn profit so a can take it away with a bailiff and a piece of parchment."

  The man growled unconvinced, there was this and that babble on it, somewhat wearisome, till one shouted from the castle flank of the pier that the ships were coming. So they were in truth, sails bellying little in the light air, but coming along well since the wind was full fair for this part of their approach. Os Erigu's Earl did handle ships like a craftsman, with Nolbarti in the forefront, to be known by the singular cant they had given her through weighting aft. Airar looked to the causeway; there was hurry there, the catapults against the castle had ceased, the sound of a Vulking marching flute was faintly borne along the air, and he saw a red triangle dance.

  "Boats all!" he cried, and Nene of Busk held aloft thestandard of the wildcat's skull. There was a briefer wait while beyond the brdge-arch a splash of water went sparkling into diamond sunshine as Carina's men loosed a stone at the onrushing ships. Then Nolbarn was driving in, a great tear in one of her crown-sails; he, crying to strike out, looked back and saw a small figure that waved a hand and he knew it for the Princess Argyra wishing luck to his blade. When he tried to recall her face there was only a flash of light in his mind and he could not.

  Ahead, the view of the hasty craft was cut off by tower and end of causeway. A lance from the castle catapults stood quivering in the Vulking structure; the Carrhoene trumpet called as Pleiander led his sally. Eyes went forward; with a crash and splash a big stone dropped in the water before the boats to say they had been marked and were opposed. The craft rocked.

  "Pull harder!" Airar, for she seemed not to move at all, the next descending missile drenched half his crew and there was a shriek as the next again struck in one of the shallops near Airar's own and a man was hit, all bloodily. He was not the only or the worst, for thrower after thrower took up the tale against them, the curst stones came storming round, one of the boats was hit fully and burst, with men in the water trying to aid comrades who ran red.

  The pace slowed. "They are too strong for us!" shouted someone, and Airar, fear dreadful in his heart, shouted discordant as he tried to stand in the swaying craft to urge them on, as stones from handslings began to fall among the larger weapons. But before he was up a sound burst from all lips, the rain of missiles round them began to relax, and one looked aloft to see just past the tower's edge a long boom with blazing fire-basket held and spilling, while those within the structure tried to fend it free and around them rained the sharp steel lances from the castle.

  Among boulders the boat grounded and careened. Lank Erb cried "Ladders, ho!" Ahead a man stumbled across an obstructing rock and a thrown stone from above cracked his helmet like a nut. But now a passion of fighting fell on those men of Erigu and Carrhoene and Dalarna as they saw flame catch the Vulking tower from one and another boom, with men giving back from it. The ladders were set, they went up and up, nor was the slope so steep but that a few could climb by hand, reaching the crest to cast spear or strike with sword against the backs of those who still strove to work engines against the oppositious ships on the other side of the causeway, or to deal with the mounting flames. The tower burned in three stages; men leaped from it screaming to fall by spear or arrow or merely amid rocks; quarter-boats were putting out from Mikalegon's fleet to aid the attack; and there were those who threw down shield, holding arms aloft in surrender.

  Airar turned. At the shoreward end of the causeway he could see how a few of the Vulkings were rallying to line, led by a man with gold badges on his armor that named him a high officer, his morion up. At the line of engines on the cliff a few had not fled, but were slowly loosing missiles on the ships. "This way!" cried Trangsted's son, at the height of his voice. "Before they come again."

  Nene of Busk heard him for one and bore the banner round. The free-fishers followed it and, as the word spread, so did the wise Carrhoene men-at-arms, but few of the free companions. Airar led toward the rallying foe-men, a Vulking spear-cast whirring past his ear and another fixing in his shield-edge to be shaken loose. A terciary went down; someone had made a good cast. Their line was but forming, forming, and a trumpet brayed. The officer turned, and next moment it was cut-and-thrust all along the break of the causeway, spear and sword against shield and shield, and Airar caught a flash of dark hating eyes out of the face inside the helmet as he found himself engaged.

  The officer was as good a master swordsman as Alvar's son would ever meet; with difficulty Airar held his blade from being beaten down, gave back a step, another, thought now without fear but only an intense curiosity that this man was too strong for him. There was a shout in his very left ear as he half spun to the force of a blow, feeling it would be the last time ever; a giant arm with a starry mace at the end of it swung past, and down went the Vulking leader, wallowing in blood. Before them the foemen hung a minute, then broke again in dismay as they saw their captain fall, one with a spear in his back.

  Airar turned; Mikalegon of Os Erigu was beside him, with a booming laugh in his helmet that ended in a cough as a tongue of stinking smoke rolled past them down the breeze.

  "I thank you," said Airar. "I am now half quit of my vow," he, snapping up the visor for breath. "That was the Baron Carina, but Vulk survives!" Down the smoke rolled thicker, but these Vulkings never give up, and back among the trees someone was seen trying to rally them once more, as Airar faced westward, lifting both hands:

  "Back to the boats!" he shouted. "We have won!"

  29 Os Erigu: Treason

  ENTER ROGAI OF MARIOLA, all radiant and with a batchet of news. He wore a leather coat, like the Iron Mountain miners. The command ashore there was by name with another baron, he said—Viyar of the 8th Tercia, but Count Vulk himself was in transit from Briella, where he had sworn a great oath in the temple to take Os Erigu, though it hung by chains from the starry sphere and could be approached only with wings. Their loss was a full quarter of a tercia, six hundreds of men besides all the work undone. Vulk had called the 3rd Tercia and the 7th out from the home countries: the Lacias, Bregonde, and Acquileme.

  Korosh was all aflame and the Iron Ring holding its own courts by night in Norby, setting Vulking judges at defiance; the barbarous Mictons in their skin caps were raiding West Lacia, surprised at having Dalecarle allies. Bordvin Windfang? In the south, 'twas said; had been in the Isles of Gentebbi, where his procedures were wild, making more disorders than they cured and the Count furiously dissatisfied with him. Some whispered he had been fingered of a sea-demon at Vagai, and in spite of all protections was no little witch-struck thereby, so he had flung a shot-spear through one of his own pages.

  They were drinking as Rogai told his tale, and greetings cried along the table; a few with bloody clouts, but the great Earl in huge good-humored laughter over his own lewd jests as he shared his sup with Visto. Airar caught a glance that might be hatred or a tear from the young cup-bearer toward that latter and thought for a moment of what Argyra had said; but this was swiftly driven out by the sight of the four Star-Captains with their white-streaked dark heads together and the speech of one, to wit, Alsander.

  For their parts (he said) the Captains of Carrhoene failed understanding of how men who'd win a war could be so neglectful of the means. Here was a week passed in little but silly roisterings and now another banquet for the coming of Rogai. Those enemies labor, toil; whereas but yesterday, when Pleiander would have had some of the free company to the upper wall for work on the trebuchet, not one would go, no, nor let their castle servants neither. "In Carrhoene, we'd hurl down from spadarion a leader that could not make his will obeyed, or that saw so little to the future."

  "Aye, and there's why you are not in Carrhoene at this hour!" cried the Earl; "instead of beggars on the charity of freedom's hold. Go rule your southern slaves and see if they fight for you as these brisk lads
have done for themselves."

  He was drunk enough to be shouting-disputatious, so there was a great deal more, but in so good a mood over his victory and his Visto that Airar could see nothing would come of it but windy words, no danger; and rose to slip away to the night rendezvous his darling had given him. Yet as he did so caught the flash of Evadne's eye and the sneer of her lip fixed toward him, and in a moment, as though they had communicated thought to thought, knew this was not for his going, but to cry that here was the old difference. Briella or Carrhoene! For surely Earl Mikalegon's way was wrong as merely war, however it might maintain piracy; the thing had been to follow their enemies hard, strike them while reeling from the one defeat. Yet the Earl had flat refused a plan to raid by ship Naaros of the Gentebbi Isles to draw off the assembling foes.

  This was still uppermost in his mind as he met her, and he gave it voice: "Tell me, you that have been taught to rule, is there no weapon to make men work together but the lash?"

  She laughed. "What, are you now turned politic?" When he had explained (without saying it was Evadne's dilemma he presented, for a reason he could not have told): "Nay, I'll humor you thus far," she said. "At Stassia in the High House, they say there's no solution but the Well alone; and sure, naught but the Well and the treaty, of the Well has held the peace between our Empire and the heathen of Dzik, that would make most horrible wars. Briella or Carrhoene? I do not know; but sure there must be other means of reconciling man to man than their two alone. Our Empire is one such; I have heard even that you Dalecarles have another, with your masters, as the Forest Masters in Skogalang and Master Fishers of the isles."

  "Aye, but—Doctor Meliboe, that is a philosopher, says that it comes to the same thing in the long, Briella or Carrhoene."

  "It may be he is right, Yet I can say what is wrong with the rule of Briella."