Elof stood gasping, staring. How many attackers had there been? Then they saw the man whose sword and hand he had shattered run for the door, holding old Ferhas off with a knife. He had all but reached the stairs when there came a clatter of arms beyond; he sought to spring back, but a robed silhouette blocked the opening. With horrific suddenness a bright sword leaped out between the man's shoulder blades. Then a mass of guards poured through, and set about subduing the rioters and herding them toward the stairs.
Elof looked at the dead attacker, and at the red-robed man who had run him through, now stooping to wipe his sword on his victim's jerkin. The newcomer glanced up, and raised an eyebrow. "Brawling again, sir smith? And in the Syndicacy, too; no tiles here! Be warned by the fate of this one! But it appears that you took some small hurt; we shall call that lesson enough."
Elof looked down; only when he saw the bloodstain in his side did he remember the sting, and feel it anew. "A scratch, no more. And glad as I am to see you quelling disorder for once, Bryhon, you were not quite timely enough. As before, we had to do most of the work ourselves."
Red flame burned in the dark man's cheeks. "Fitting enough," he shrugged, and kicked at the copper-hued arm. "Northerner, slay northerner. Your friend put paid to another two brace on the chamber floor. Perhaps he is learning wisdom. Guards, remove this carrion."
"Northerners?" muttered Elof, following the guards who were dragging the corpses away down the stairs. "I wonder—I grew up among them, remember? These have brown skins, yes, but look at the hard faces of them, and the scarring! Do they not sooner resemble—"
"Amicac's guts, yes!" roared Kathel, stumping over to the door with Kermorvan at his heels. "Ekwesh! And the ones down here also! Where in Hella's name did they spring from?"
"Stragglers from their foraging bands, perhaps," said Kermorvan thoughtfully, "left behind in the rout, slipping into the city in the guise of refugees to seek revenge. Seeing their chance in the disorder caused by Lord Bryhon's unruly followers. But there is another, darker chance. They could be spies, assassins deliberately sent among the refugees from the Ekwesh settlements in the north. In which case…"
"We cannot afford to admit any of them?" broke in Bryhon. "It seems you learn wisdom indeed!"
"You mistake me, Bryhon. It proves my point, not yours."
"And what point is that?"
"You will hear when the session begins anew. And the sooner you call your mob to heel, the sooner that will be. I suggest you set about it."
A mirthless grin gleamed in Bryhon's thick beard. "I have not yet had my full say. But better, perhaps, that you stand convicted out of your own mouth. Speak on, then."
"Well, you make progress," croaked Ils to Elof as they climbed wearily back up to the gallery. "Bryhon speaks to you instead of at you. Wonders will never cease! Speaking of which, a wonder you dealt with that one behind you. I strove to help, but I was already half throttled."
"But you did help!" said Elof, gathering up his trampled tools from the gallery floor. "He was pulled away—"
She shook her head firmly. "Not by me. He only turned to me after you threw him off."
"Who, then?"
But Ils only shrugged. "Perhaps he slipped." She avoided the bloodied end of the bench as she sat.
Elof shook his head. "I cannot explain it. But they were certainly assassins; they knew their targets. What will Kermorvan have to say about that?"
The chamber and the crowd alike were hushed as Kermorvan stepped out to speak. He looked at them a moment, and then at Bryhon, and his gaze grew very cold. His words rang clear against the marble of the chamber. "Syndics and people of Kerbryhaine! This day you have heard my lord of Bryheren lay many grave charges against me. Or have you? I know this man of old, and I took care to listen to his actual words, not the dark things he implied. For the most part he simply struck a spark with subtly worded questions, and led your minds to blow them to a blaze. For well he knows that such cloudy and insubstantial matters are harder to dispel with solid truth! But truth is the best I have to offer you, and I warn you now, it will not be the truth you wish to hear! Yet it will avail nothing to riot or shout me down. For truth is truth, and if you stopped my voice forever it would not alter by one jot the forces I see at work. Save perhaps to hasten them." He looked at Bryhon scornfully. "I have ample answers for the trifling charges this man made, but I will content myself with an example or two only for now. Take the matter of the corsairs. I joined them only because they were willing to fight the Ekwesh, when all others in this land laughed at the idea that they could be a threat, or chose to believe Lord Bryhon's insinuations at that time, which were that I sought to win military power for myself by building up a false menace. Those corsairs are in this city now, having won pardon, and we have testimony enough that they fought the Ekwesh, and valiantly."
Bryhon inclined his head mockingly. "I bow to your authority. They fought, aye—for booty already riven from our folk." Elof bit his lip; that was sadly true, though not as it was put. But Kermorvan was undaunted.
" Did I say it was not so? Yet I thought that better, much better, than nothing, for even such small opposition might discourage the reivers from the Southlands long enough for this city to see its peril. And I could at least put the wealth gained thereby to building up a fleet. A small hope, and as I eventually realized, a false one. When I heard of a matter more urgent, the mysterious mindsword, I turned to that instead. For another example, take the manner of my return. How in the world could I have returned openly, as Bryhon suggests, to a city besieged and partly taken? What other way was there but quietly and in darkness, when it could not be said for certain who held which part of the wall? The suggestion is absurd, as Bryhon must know. Yet see how he used it to color the gravest charge of all he dares to bring against me."
Trouble passed over Kermorvan's lean features like a cloud, and his voice was stern and bleak as a cold wind from the north. "He has deftly avoided making that charge openly. But through his words I stand accused, in sum, of having sought by some means or another to use the events of the siege to seize power within this city. To set myself up as ruler, as tyrant over you all. As your king."
Elof's first instinct was to laugh, but the deadly stillness quelled it; the crowd hardly seemed to be breathing. This was something they took with deadly seriousness. And looking at Kermorvan, he saw that his friend did also. A great hush filled chamber and gallery alike, and the silence seemed itself a clarion, calling from the deeps of time. Kermorvan lifted his head, and there was a fierce smile on his lips, a grim pride in his voice. "But why should you believe this? The child of kings I acknowledge myself. But this was never their kingdom."
Elof blinked as if he had been struck, hardly aware of the uproar that washed over him. "I saw before Andvar that he must be some great noble," he murmured to Ils, "but a king? Of where?"
"But did you not know?" hissed Ferhas in his ear, detachment forgotten in the excitement. "His name, don't the glory shine out of that, all alive? You in the north, sir, have you quite forgot them, the Lost Lands and their great city of olden times, greatest there's ever been in this land?"
"Y-yes—the Strandenburg he called it, the City by the Waters—but his name? He called himself plain Kermorvan then!"
"Ah," breathed Ferhas, "and he stuck to your northern tongue? That'd be when he wasn't right sure of you—if you'll pardon me saying, sir!" he added hastily, with a furtive superstitious gesture. "But you've the Sothran well enough, sir, can't you see now? Kaher, or ker, that's a walled city like this; mor, a great lake or sea, and mor ouhen, that's the waterstrand. So Kaher-mor-ouhen—"
"Kermorvan?"
"That was the city's name, sir, and so of its kingly line— what remains of it. The name alone's not uncommon, for there are younger branches that bear it. But Keryn, now, that's one of the kingly names, for first-born of the true line only. Put the two together, and he'd have been telling you who he was at once. It was among the corsairs you met him,
wasn't it, sir, and them sothrans? He'd not risk naming himself clear in that company! T'wasn't you he distrusted, sir, t'was them."
Ils was nodding slowly to herself, as if at a suspicion now confirmed. But Elof stared down at his friend as if he had never truly seen him before. Kings were hardly human to him, benign or frightening figures in childhood tales, remote figures of worship and majesty or wicked tyranny. This lean young fighter he had first met barefoot upon a beach, rubbing shoulders with a hard-bitten corsair crew, hardly seemed to fit either image. Yet even as Elof formed the thought, that mantle of infinite age seemed to settle about the tall young warrior once again, as it had in the courts of the duergar before Andvar their lord and had diminished even his grim presence. Kermorvan, his face mild and calm once more, advanced to the center of the floor, and the light from the windows gleamed in his thick bronze hair, so that he looked in truth a king already crowned.
"It may be, though, that you will not believe what I say. Or, more subtly, you fear that the enmity of Lord Bryhon and his friends will force me to fight for the dominion of Kerbryhaine, whether I will or no, and so plunge the state into civil war. That indeed might come to pass…" He raised a hand to quell the swelling protests, and repeated more loudly."… might come to pass, if— - if Bryhon forced me to it, and if I thought such dominion worth the winning. But I do not! Never for good or ill would I seize their rule! Why? Because though I dearly love this realm, these lands in which I was born, I believe that the days of their greatness are ended, that even the time of their enduring draws to a close. As well seize a sandhill around which the tide is washing! For I truly believe that this city is doomed. I believe that the downfall of Kerbryhaine is at hand!"
The sense of shocked disbelief was so tangible in the chamber, Elof almost expected laughter. But it was a cry of fear, as much as anger, that arose from the crowd outside and wiped any laughter from the faces of the syndics. Then Bryhon sprang up and rounded upon the crowd. "Pay no heed to the man! Is not his purpose clear? He seeks to fright you like children with shadows! To scare you, that you may come clinging to his skirts!" Now indeed cries of anger arose, as rumor of Kermorvan's words and Bryhon's were tossed and bandied about, no doubt with ex-
aggerations, among those too far back to hear. Again the growl of the beast awakened, but even as it did so Kermorvan strode to the door, and his commanding cry echoed across the square.
"Be still! Be still, and hear!" And astonishingly, the crowd indeed fell silent.
Kermorvan rounded on the syndics and pressed home his words as a fighter feeling his enemy's guard falter. "The Ekwesh, they are our doom! They have seen our walls breached, our strength falter before theirs! They have tasted blood, they have tasted wealth, and worst, they have tasted defeat and flight! That at least will unite them, now that fell sword cannot! They will return, and soon—before the eldest who fled is too old to fight, and redeem his honor in his clan! And before our scars can heal. At best, in ten years—at worst, in one! And how then shall we sustain such another siege? In ten years, if we have them, the city may build new walls, new ships, new houses— but how can it regain its sons?" The weariness in his voice now was more moving than any trick of oratory. "We were unprepared. The blame for that… is not our present matter. But, as well as fighting men, to the tally of our slain it added women and children. Within these walls more than a fifth of both perished. And the country folk, being first set upon, fared worse. Let us ponder on that, we confident syndics! As our folk grow old and die in their turn, who shall replace them? What does it mean for our numbers?" The assembly stirred in deep disquiet, but no word was spoken, not even by Bryhon. The dark man looked baffled a moment, then sat up sharply, as if seeing Kermorvan's intent, and looked as worried as the rest. Kermorvan nodded.
"You see? Our wound festers and worsens; our numbers will dwindle further. For my part, as Warden of the Northern Marches I would be fortunate in years to come to raise half the levies the last Marchwarden had. And he and they were slaughtered out of hand." He rounded furiously upon his audience. "By Kerys' Gate! Need you wonder now why I welcome the fugitives from Nordeney? I would do so even without the demands of mercy and the bonds of kinship! But those bonds exist! Look!" He gestured up at the gallery. Elof glanced round to see who was meant, and realized it was himself. "Elof, my northern friend, to whom the true glory of the siege's ending belongs!" Elof, feeling his face redden, smiled sheepishly. "But he is also a reminder, if you must have it, that northerners are our kin, as they have been since the founding of great Kerys itself. What if they are chiefly brown-skinned now? What may the skin tell against the man beneath it? They at least had the sense to welcome and succor fugitives when they themselves were weak. Shall we be less wise?" The rumble from the crowd had little enthusiasm in it, but less anger. Kermorvan nodded. "The northerners will fight beside us, and hardily, if we have the wit to accept them." The chamber was silent still, but Elof could feel the change of mood. He became aware that his neighbors were looking at him hesitantly, unsure, almost shamefacedly. But Kermorvan did not seem heartened; his voice was if anything more sad. "Think on it, my friends! And be as honest as I have known you. And yet I fear even that may not be enough."
"What will, then!" burst out Bryhon. "The placing of a king over us? As our ancestors of old so wisely shunned? Never!" Other voices echoed him in angry refusal, many syndics among them. Even Kathel and Ourhens, the other leader of the merchants, looked anxiously at Kermorvan, as they might at a customer who carried the haggling too far. But Kermorvan appeared not to notice them; he was staring into the many-colored windows as if into an infinite distance, a gulf of years as well as leagues.
"I mean, Bryhon, that we need more folk, and a greater vision. We must reunite northerners and sothrans, Run-duathya and Penruthya, Svarhath and Arauthar that should never have been sundered. But we must not stop there! We must unite all our scattered kin. All!"
The syndics looked at each other in puzzlement. "But who d'you mean?" demanded Kathel. "There is only us! Those that fled here from the Lost Lands, us first and northerners after! Who else is there?"
"That you have forgotten is small blame to you," said Kermorvan, with a thin smile. "Few in Kerbryhaine would remember, for their ancestors fled westward long before the victory of the Ice. But others endured longer, until the glaciers were at the very gates of the ancient city itself. Then the king sent many more westward, his queen and his infant heir among them, from whom I am descended. Then as now there was strife, and many fled northward to settle Nordeney. But they recorded that the king had sent others east, to the small ports they had on the coast, as we do on ours. These were not so far from the Ice, and very small, but shielded to some degree by mountains. So perhaps their descendants also have survived."
The chamber rumbled with excited comment, and among it some incredulous laughter. "A few, perhaps," chuckled the elder Marshal. "But what are they to us? We cannot send them word, let alone summon them…"
Kermorvan's gray eyes glittered. "Why not?"
Now indeed there was laughter, and it spilled over into the crowd as Kermorvan's words were repeated. "Why, man," demanded the other Marshal, "have you lost your learning, or your wits? Have you forgotten what lies between? The whole span of the land of Brasayhal, nigh on a thousand leagues!"
"Aye!" shouted Ourhens the merchant. "And most of the way through the Great Forest, by all accounts. Such a place that claimed half of those who set out westward!"
"Yet half were not!" Kermorvan threw back at him with a snap. "Half, many a thousand, came through, for all they set out ill prepared and in haste, burdened with families and great store of possessions. And more than half of the northerners came through, though they were even less ready."
"So indeed," nodded an arid old man in plain gray robes. "But they drew no maps. They were so crazed with fear they would scarce talk of it again."
"All the more reason that some be drawn," said Ker-
morvan grimly. "We may b
e wanderers again, if the Ekwesh return too soon!"
"But there's nobody mad enough to set foot in the Forest nowadays!"
Kermorvan smiled. "I have, though it scared me, and my friends…" He paused to catch a shout from the crowd, that other voices took up. "What's this? Another?"
"Try Kasse the Hunter!" bellowed a rough voice from the foreground. "He's always boasting about it!"
"Then let him come forward!" For a moment it seemed he would not be taken up. Then a dark-haired man of middle height was more or less bundled through the throng and up the steps, and stood there sullenly, seemingly ill pleased at finding himself the center of attention. "Well, man? What know you of the Forest, of Tapiau'la-an-Aithen?"
Kasse scowled. "That you'd best keep that name to yourself beneath the trees, for one. Yes. I've been in it, and often. My master's estate stretched to its very shadow ere the Ekwesh torched it and him, and my father and grandfather before me's hunted there. You learn, there are things to do, things not to do. You watch your step, keep your nerve and you're well, and the hunting's good."
The Forge in the Forest Page 5
