Fallowblade

by Cecilia Dart-Thornton

  ‘A bizarre manoeuvre,’ muttered Warwick, grimacing at the riders who approached so leisurely. ‘What are they at?’

  ‘It is to unnerve us,’ said the Knight-Commander of the Cup during this enforced interlude. ‘They mean to show they need no advantage of impetus to destroy us, and that they may do so when they please.’ Ever the tactician, he added, ‘But it baffles me how their leader signals his commands to such a mighty throng. They have no flagmen, no trumpeters.’

  ‘It may be that they speak the language of those uncanny birds that follow them,’ said the king. ‘Perhaps the birds relay messages.’

  William, at Asrăthiel’s side, scrutinised the shadowy winged shapes gliding above the goblin cavalry. ‘Those are carrion crows that attend upon their masters.’

  ‘Look more closely. They are owls,’ said Asrăthiel. ‘Horned eagle owls, sooty-feathered.’

  ‘The goblins clothe themselves in black,’ murmured the prince, ‘symbolic of their wickedness.’

  And of their power and beauty, thought the damsel, although the notion was unwelcome, and she refrained from saying it aloud.

  The spectacle of the unseelie warriors moved her to a disquieting degree. She resented the effect of their incredible comeliness upon her senses, for it thrilled her as nothing she had ever known before. Such excitement was inappropriate, and she did her utmost to banish it. This reaction of hers irked her, for she had always considered it unfair that people had a tendency to favour the beautiful. Beauty was too often forgiven for deeds for which plainness would have been condemned. Beauty was accorded privilege, attention, advantage. Beauty was invested with traits of virtue, wisdom, authority and even goodness. Asrăthiel had prided herself on esteeming others for their personal worth without being influenced by their looks, and now here she was, falling into the common trap like some simpleton. Goblins were everything she despised—cruel, ruthless and immoral. Whether ugly or fair, they ought only to be hated and reviled.

  But as the invaders approached in leisurely fashion, she spied the rider presumed to be the leader of the goblin hordes; he who last night had been positioned a little forward of all the rest, the especially well-favoured, dissolute one.

  Then she turned her gaze slightly to the left and saw someone else . . .

  . . . a stranger, a supernatural knight whose unbound hair, falling to his waist, was like the evening wind. Strands of that torn-shadow hair were blowing across a lean and handsome countenance. When she saw that face she gasped, gasped at his beauty.

  He was so beautiful it was like pain to look at him.

  The damsel stared, her eyes fixed, her mouth open. In answer, the eyes of the marvellous stranger stared back. He rode near, and his daemon horse was the colour of despair. This new knight outshone the libertine leader of yester-eve as the moon compares to a silver shilling, or a star-blazing sky to a strewing of pins.

  No mortal ever possessed that aspect; everything about this stranger was elemental, consummate and magnetic; extreme and maleficent. Watching him, Asrăthiel felt the strength of her sinews melt and drain away, as if the mere sight had the power to paralyse. And the thought struck her—might she have glimpsed that face somewhere once before?

  ‘That one is the mightiest of them all,’ said one of the Companions of the Cup. ‘There is something in the look of him.’ His brothers-in-arms murmured in agreement.

  ‘I’d say that is their leader, and not the other,’ said King Warwick.

  ‘On my word, there can be no doubt of it,’ William said in a low voice.

  ‘By the flames of bloody war!’ shouted Avalloc, ‘How could this come to pass? I’ll wager that is none other than Zaravaz, King of the Silver Goblins!’

  5

  COVENANT

  To forge the mighty Fallowblade upon the peak of bitter snows

  The Storm Lord laboured long and hard. The heights rang with his hammer blows,

  Hot sparks flew up like meteors. A lord of fire was Alfardēne;

  With power terrible he filled the sword. And all along the keen

  And dreadful blade he wrote the words in flowing script for all to find:

  Mé maraigh bo diabhlaíocht—‘I am the Bane of Goblinkind’.

  Upon a dark time long ago.

  A VERSE FROM THE SONG ‘FALLOWBLADE’

  With no signal or forewarning, the unseelie knights attacked.

  Clearly, the goblin king was the most wicked and lethal of them all. He fought skilfully, competently, as if revelling in bloodshed. It was dreadful to watch him; a hewer of limbs was he, a striker of sparks from weapon edge, his swordplay neat and efficient, economical, ruthless. Though many of his brethren voiced their spine-chilling battle-song, or jeeringly yelled, ‘Paag dty uillin!’ he fought in silence. He could always be found where the fighting was fiercest—if fighting it could be called—it was more akin to a massacre, being so one-sided; mortal men could not stand against goblins, and if any lived awhile out there on the moors it was only at the pleasure of the cruel wights, for their sport. Force of steel delayed the goblin knights but never threatened them. Only the deluge of gold affected them, for it scathed them severely. Behind the lines Avalloc and the prentice weathermasters kept up the gold-laden breezes as best they could.

  As the battle intensified, Asrăthiel shook off her initial curious lethargy. Hard-pressed were the armies of Tir. The bodyguard surrounding King Warwick, Prince William and herself had dwindled, for the king had ordered his knights to join the action. The weathermage felt the burden of her duty intensely. All of Tir now looked to her. Fallowblade’s renown had increased a thousandfold as the history of the Goblin Wars spread throughout the populace; Sioctíne, the Singing Blade, the Great Golden Beacon of Tir. And only one had been trained to wield it.

  Mortal soldiers shouted Asrăthiel’s name; they clashed swords against shields and brandished spears on high. ‘Asrăthiel! Asrăthiel! All hail the Lady of the Sword! Asrăthiel for fair Narngalis!’ they yelled. ‘Tir salutes you!’ and ‘Fallowblade! Fallowblade! Ádh for Narngalis and the king!’ Everyone looked to her. She had become the symbol of their hope.

  William, however, placed a hand on the damsel’s elbow and made a last-ditch attempt to dissuade her from going into battle. His efforts were in vain, for she would not heed his entreaties.

  ‘Would you have me sacrifice our people?’ she asked. ‘Besides, if I lose you all, what will become of me?’ The prince acquiesced, but she could see it went ill with him to do so. He was plainly devastated; his face looked ashen and haggard beneath his golden helm.

  The bodyguards stepped aside for Asrăthiel, forming an impromptu avenue of honour. She gathered her strength and courage; then, with William by her side, leaped down from the rampart and launched herself into the thick of the fray. Fallowblade glittered like the heart of a newborn sun as a goblin knight who had leaped from his trollhäst’s back sprang forward to challenge the one who brandished it.

  From that moment onwards it was thrust, cut, punch-block; fall back and check for imminent danger; then whale, parry, wrapcut, fall back and seek a new contender; swing, hack, chop, fall back. Asrăthiel’s focus closed down to a narrow sphere that was all motion and impact, the clash of weapons, the jarring of a blocked blow, the song of the sword, the liquid pressure of a thrust driven home. She sweated, gasping for breath. It was hard work, but there was some virtue about Fallowblade that made the sword seem to lift itself, to fling itself through the air, to guide and sustain her limbs, instead of weighing them down.

  The goblin knights were taller than Asrăthiel, and well muscled as opposed to her slightness. She, however, possessed a weapon that could injure them with the slightest touch and destroy them utterly with a well-placed stroke. She was naturally fast and flexible, and she fought them within their own accelerated time scale. Moreover, nothing could wound her flesh. Even so it was always uppermost in her mind never to allow her opponents to close with her. They were so much larger than her; as Desmond Brooks had wa
rned, they would merely knock Fallowblade out of the way with their own weapons, and mow her down.

  Even though she had learned well from her swordmaster, she had never tried imitating his style. She was neither big nor heavy enough to carry off the techniques used by men. Instead, she adapted her techniques to suit her stature and abilities, relying on speed, skill and accuracy rather than strength and force. Using this strategy she was often able to slip past her adversaries’ guard. It was a lot easier, faster and less tiring to dodge and avoid than it was to try to batter their weapons out of the way to create an opening. The goblins’ black and silver armour was lightweight. She suspected it served less as a weapon-deflective covering and more as a display of rakish elegance, a show of contempt rather than protection. They wore it flamboyantly, with no regard for systematic body coverage; a gauntlet, perhaps, on the left hand but not the right; a cuirass here, a greave or vambrace there, asymmetrically but stylishly placed amongst the scales and fur, the feathers and claws, the silver and moonstones. Some wore nothing on one arm but a decorative band, while the other was encased in leather or armour from shoulder to wrist. Asrăthiel’s blade of gold and iridium sliced through most of the goblin plate easily enough; she did not even have to look for chinks at the joints.

  Fallowblade seemed to be the only weapon that could penetrate the flesh of the foe; all others could only hinder, by their impetus. Goblin flesh smoked at the edges of the hewn limbs, where the golden sword had carved through. The unseelie knights fell, and when they touched the ground their swarthy armour rolled like empty shells on the heathery sward, but huge black beetles flew away.

  At whiles, a mounted knight rode against the weathermage. On the first occasion she hewed half-heartedly at the rider’s thigh, hesitant to engage with him because she abhorred the idea of hurting the daemon horses. Accidentally she slashed the hide of the trollhäst and it lunged at her, swivelling its long neck like a serpent, its eyes bright with fury, pointed fangs snapping. The daemon steed managed to catch a hank of her hair in its teeth. It flung its head from side to side, trying to throw her off balance. She struggled to stay upright while the creature pulled on her tresses, hampering her efforts to smite the rider. At last, with a nimble twist she broke free, threw herself to the ground and rolled away, but the creature came after her, razored hooves stamping, trying to pound her into the ground, and she knew she was dealing with no gentle herbivore broken by a trainer and forced into battle against its nature. Patently, this savage steed revelled in the slaughter as thoroughly as its rider. After that the damsel knew she must equally treat with trollhäst and goblin, or be vanquished.

  To force herself to harm living entities, Asrăthiel deliberately maintained her rage, quashing her instinct to protect the living. Again, in her mind, she shaped pictures of the frightened children in the streets of King’s Winterbourne. She must brace herself and defy the menace, or the weak and the innocent would suffer. Her task of killing was made substantially more difficult by constant confrontation with her foes’ physical perfection. It was impossible not to tremble with exhilaration at the close proximity of the goblin knights, and had it not been for Fallowblade’s almost sentient motivation the damsel might spontaneously have allowed her weapon to fall from nerveless fingers and submitted to defeat. She supposed this was some eldritch spell of fascination on the part of the artful wights, to disarm their opponents.

  Ultimately, when it came home to her that the combat was in earnest and the foe was attacking her with sincere intent to overcome her, some primeval instinct took hold—for she was, after all, born of a mortal race—and she began to fight without qualm, as if for her life.

  Positioning the golden blade at a precise angle, she parried an overhand blow from an unseelie warrior. The unexpected deflection of the stroke hurled the weight of her opponent’s sword back at him, throwing him off balance. His weapon missed her body by a hair’s breadth; contact would not have injured her, but it might have knocked her sideways and sent her sprawling. The frightening memory of her nightmare washed over her and briefly she shuddered at the thought of being taken captive by goblins. Death would indubitably be preferable to that fate—yet death was no option for her.

  She ducked, smote, and fell back. Detachedly, as if she viewed the battle from a distance, she wondered why no stain of gore besmirched her. It was as if the eldritch knights did not bleed, or their blood was a colourless fluid that instantly vaporised. Remotely, too, as she wielded the enchanted blade she was aware that the mortal armies seemed to move with a curious, graceful slowness, as if they were struggling underwater. The goblin knights had ample opportunity to toy with the soldiers of Tir before ending their lives.

  Like red-hot brands the cries of dying men seared into the flesh of the night. The battle was going badly for the defenders; many hundreds had fallen, and the mortal battalions were being driven back. Asrăthiel heard a clarion blast; the signal for the troops of Slievmordhu to rally to their captains. Shortly thereafter the horns of Ashqalêth blared a retreat, followed by the bass-voiced conches of Grïmnørsland, and the sweet-throated trumpets of Narngalis. Then she was flooded with dread, knowing for certain that all was lost.

  The last battle for humankind was being waged on pathless moors beneath a glittering sky. Without the aid of the Councillors of Ellenhall, who might have slammed the foe with lightning and pelted them with ceaseless barrages of golden hail, the human race was doomed. The unseelie horde was fully capable of genocide, and seemed bent on it. In the hearts of leaders and troops alike, frustration and fury fused with despair. Loudly they railed against the Fates, cursing Lord Doom and his axe, Lord Luck and his vain talismans, Destiny’s sharp shears, Ill-Fortune’s malice. Knowing they must soon perish even if they surrendered, even if they fled, even if they tried to hide, men vowed anew that they would bid for glory and die fighting. Now remained only the postponement of the inevitable, the final hours between living and dying.

  Refusing to surrender to her sense of futility, Asrăthiel struggled back to the embankment where King Warwick and his chivalric bodyguard were making their last stand. She had not glimpsed William since the battle began, and did not know whether he still lived, and burned passionately to have news of him, there at the doorstep of humanity’s end. When at length she spied him in the midst of a company of Narngalish knights, blood-spattered but hale, a fleeting gladness shot through her; but her eyes continued to rove the moors, for it was another that she was seeking, without comprehending her own desires.

  Until her gaze rested upon her unconscious objective, and she knew.

  A terrible excitement gripped her when she looked again upon the goblin king. With effortless grace he rode the daemon horse that was the colour of despair, and he was utterly breathtaking. Blacker than wickedness, his hair swirled about his shoulders like a cloak of shadow. Presently he seemed to glance in the direction of King Warwick, whereupon he held up his pale, long-fingered hand, commanding his legions to desist. The unseelie knights left off the assault. They drew back. The hubbub of battle waned, and a rift opened between mortal and immortal armies.

  Into that gap rode the handsome goblin king, with a kobold striding at his knee and the licentious knight advancing alongside him like his second-in-command. The latter was clad in closefitting garments of interlocking scales, like lizard skin; a jewelled codpiece, and a horned helmet of strange design adorned with fantastic winglike patterns. His fur-lined demi-cloak, worn over one shoulder only, was tied with a heavy cord, and the cuffs of his gloves flared like the spathes of black arum lilies.

  The garments of the goblin king, on the other hand, were the plainest, the most austere, of all his kin. A sleeveless thigh-length doublet of black suede or leather clothed him, the pliable material being embossed with intricate designs, black on black. This was overlaid by a loose-knit asymmetrical hauberk of silvery chain mail that resembled several webs of filigree haphazardly knotted together by demented spiders.

  The doublet was c
inched around the middle by a belt of thicker leather, also embossed, and clasped with a buckle that was cast in the shape of a pair of unfurled wings, upswept at a narrow angle; silver-white metal plumage inlaid with palest blue vanes and swirls. His trousers were leather, the colour of midnight. About his neck hung a fine silver chain that dipped beneath the high collar of his black linen undershirt. Full and generous were the shirt sleeves, leaving plenty of room for movement when fencing or sparring. He rode with grace and dexterity. His daemon horse pranced proudly, exhibiting its points and paces like a mortal steed directed by the skill of a superb equestrian.

  Some of the soldiers muttered, ‘Mayhap that Prince of Death is going to challenge one of our champions to single combat to decide the outcome of this contest!’

  Others shook their heads. ‘That one has no reason to parley or make covenants with us. He has the advantage. We are doomed for sure. In any case, what champion of Tir could stand against the likes of the Lord of Wickedness? Not even Two-Swords Gearnach would be a match.’

  They did not for a moment consider mentioning Asrăthiel: to send a girl unaided against such a foe was contrary to their every instinct, despite the fact that they had witnessed her prowess amongst them in the field.

  Two hundred yards distant the pair of unseelie riders stopped short. The goblin king remained silent, while his deputy commenced to speak. The voice of the second-in-command rang out with amazing clarity, although his accent was foreign and his tone corrosive.