by Paula Guran
As they stumbled for the secret door, Mavrsal ripped the emerald-set collar from Dessylyn’s neck and flung it at Kane’s slumping figure. “Keep your slave collar!” he growled. “It’s enough that you leave her with your scars about her throat!”
“You fool,” said Kane in a low voice.
“How far are we from Carsultyal?” whispered Dessylyn.
“Several leagues—we’ve barely gotten underway,” Mavrsal told the shivering girl beside him.
“I’m frightened.”
“Hush. You’re done with Kane and all his sorcery. Soon it will be dawn, and soon we’ll be far beyond Carsultyal and all the evil you’ve known there.”
“Hold me tighter then, my love. I feel so cold.”
“The sea wind is cold, but it’s clean,” he told her. “It’s carrying us together to a new life.”
“I’m frightened.”
“Hold me closer, then.”
“I seem to remember now . . . ”
But the exhausted sea captain had fallen asleep. A deep sleep—the last unblighted slumber he would ever know.
For at dawn he awoke in the embrace of a corpse—the moldering corpse of a long-dead girl, who had hanged herself in despair over the death of her barbarian lover.
Katherine Kurtz’s debut novel, Deryni Rising, was published in 1970 by Ballantine Books—the first book to be published under their Adult Fantasy imprint that was not a reissue of an older work. There was nothing like it at the time: a “historical” fantasy based on medieval politics and a strong faith similar to Catholicism, featuring a race of psychics—the Deryni—who practice magic. This type of non-Tolkien secondary-world historical fantasy is common now, but Kurtz seems to be the first to write it. Ursula R. Le Guin disparaged the novel’s prose in her essay “From Elfland to Poughkeepsie,” but from 1970 until sometime in the nineties, Kurtz’s fiction was popular and widely read. As Kari Sperring has written:
Modern accounts of historical fantasy focus on the men who followed her, notably [Guy Gavriel] Kay and [George R. R.] Martin . . . Her books are entertaining and well-paced and convey a very strong sense of a realistic world . . . Her characters are memorable. She remains one of the best writers on faith and magic within fantasy. And she changed the shape of our genre. She was the first, and, as such, she deserves to be more widely recognized and studied.
The Deryni series consists of five trilogies, one stand-alone novel, various short stories (and one collection of them), and two reference books. The most recent Deryni novel is The King’s Deryni (2014).
“Swords Against the Marluk” (1977) was the first Deryni short story and was published in Lin Carter’s Flashing Swords #4: Barbarians and Black Magicians.
Swords Against the Marluk
Katherine Kurtz
They had not anticipated trouble from the Marluk that summer. In those days, the name of Hogan Gwernach was little more than legend, a vague menace in far-off Tolan who might or might not ever materialize as a threat to Brion’s throne. Though rumored to be a descendant of the last Deryni sorcerer-king of Gwynedd, Gwemach’s line had not set foot in Gwynedd for nearly three generations—not since Duchad Mor’s ill-fated invasion in the reign of Jasher Haldane. Most people who knew of his existence at all believed that he had abandoned his claim to Gwynedd’s crown.
And so, late spring found King Brion in Eastmarch to put down the rebellion of one of his own earls, with a young, half-Deryni squire named Alaric Morgan riding at his side. Rorik, the Earl of Eastmarch, had defied royal writ and begun to overrun neighboring Marley—a move he had been threatening for years—aided by his brash son-in-law, Rhydon, who was then only suspected of being Deryni. Arban Howell, one of the local barons whose lands lay along the line of Rorik’s march, sent frantic word to the king of what was happening, then called up his own feudal levies to make a stand until help could arrive.
Only, by the time the royal armies did arrive, Brion’s from the capital and an auxiliary force from Claibourne in the north, there was little left to do but assist Arban’s knights in the mop-up operation. Miraculously, Arban had managed to defeat and capture Earl Rorik, scattering the remnants of the rebel forces and putting the impetuous Rhydon to flight. Only the formalities remained to be done by the time the king himself rode into Arban’s camp.
Trial was held, the accused condemned, the royal sentence carried out. The traitorous Rorik, his lands and titles attainted, was hanged, drawn, and quartered before the officers of the combined armies, his head destined to be returned to his old capital and displayed as a deterrent to those contemplating similar indiscretions in the future. Rhydon, who had assisted his father-in-law’s treason, was condemned in absentia and banished. Loyal Arhan Howell became the new Earl of Eastmarch for his trouble, swearing fealty to King Brion before the same armies which had witnessed the execution of his predecessor only minutes before.
And so the rebellion ended in Eastmarch. Brion dismissed the Claibourne levies with thanks, wished his new earl godspeed, then turned over command of the royal army to his brother Nigel. Nigel and their uncle, Duke Richard, would see the royal levies back to Rhemuth. Brion, impatient with the blood and killing of the past week, set out for home along a different route, taking only his squire with him.
It was late afternoon when Brion and Alaric found a suitable campsite. Since their predawn rising, there had been little opportunity for rest; and accordingly, riders and horses both were tired and travel-worn when at last they stopped. The horses smelled the water up ahead and tugged at their bits as the riders drew rein.
“God’s wounds, but I’m tired, Alaric!” the king sighed, kicking clear of his stirrups and sliding gratefully from the saddle. “I sometimes think the aftermath is almost worse than the battle. I must be getting old.”
As Alaric grabbed at the royal reins to secure the horses, Brion pulled off helmet and coif and let them fall as he made his way to the edge of the nearby stream. Letting himself fall facedown, he buried his head in the cooling water. The long black hair floated on the current, streaming down the royal back just past his shoulders as he rolled over and sat up, obviously the better for wear. Alaric, the horses tethered nearby, picked up his master’s helm and coif and laid them beside the horses, then walked lightly toward the king.
“Your mail will rust if you insist upon bathing in it, Sire,” the boy smiled, kneeling beside the older man and reaching to unbuckle the heavy swordbelt.
Brion leaned back on both elbows to facilitate the disarming, shaking his head in appreciation as the boy began removing vambraces and gauntlets.
“I don’t think I shall ever understand how I came to deserve you, Alaric.” He raised a foot so the boy could unbuckle greaves and spurs and dusty boots. “You must think me benighted, to ride off alone like this, without even an armed escort other than yourself, just to be away from my army.”
“My liege is a man of war and a leader of men,” the boy grinned, “but he is also a man unto himself, and must have time away from the pursuits of kings. The need for solitude is a familiar one to me.”
“You understand, don’t you?”
Alaric shrugged. “Who better than a Deryni, Sire? Like Your Grace, we are also solitary men on most occasions—though our solitude is not always by choice.”
Brion smiled agreement, trying to imagine what it must be like to be Deryni like Alaric, a member of that persecuted race so feared still by so many. He allowed the boy to pull the lion surcoat off over his head while he thought about it, then stood and shrugged out of his mail hauberk. Discarding padding and singlet as well, he stepped into the water and submerged himself with a sigh, letting the water melt away the grime and soothe the galls of combat and ill-fitting harness and too many hours in the saddle. Alaric joined him after a while, gliding eel-like in the dappled shadows. When the light began to fail, the boy was on the bank without a reminder and pulling on clean clothes, packing away the battle-stained armor, laying out fresh garb for his master. Reluctantly, B
rion came to ground on the sandy bottom and climbed to his feet, slicked back the long, black hair.
There was a small wood fire waiting when he had dressed, and wild rabbit spitted above the flames, and mulled wine in sturdy leather traveling cups. Wrapped in their cloaks against the growing night chill, king and squire feasted on rabbit and ripe cheese and biscuits only a little gone to mold after a week in the pack. The meal was finished and the camp secured by the time it was fully dark, and Brion fell asleep almost immediately, his head pillowed on his saddle by the banked fire. After a final check of the horses, Alaric slept, too.
It was sometime after moonrise when they were awakened by the sound of hoofbeats approaching from the way they had come. It was a lone horseman—that much Brion could determine, even through the fog of sleep he was shaking off as he sat and reached for his sword. But there was something else, too, and the boy Alaric sensed it. The lad was already on his feet, sword in hand, ready to defend his master if need be. But now he was frozen in the shadow of a tree, sword at rest, his head cocked in an attitude of more than listening.
“Prince Nigel,” the boy murmured confidently, returning his sword to its sheath. Brion, used by now to relying on the boy’s extraordinary powers, straightened and peered toward the moonlit road, throwing his cloak around him and groping for his boots in the darkness.
“A Haldane!” a young voice cried.
“Haldane, ho!” Brion shouted in response, stepping into the moonlight to hail the newcomer. The rider reined his lathered horse back on its haunches and half fell from the saddle, tossing the reins in Alaric’s general direction as the boy came running to meet him.
“Brion, thank God I’ve found you!” Nigel cried, stumbling to embrace his older brother. “I feared you might have taken another route!”
The prince was foam-flecked and grimy from his breakneck ride, and his breath came in ragged gasps as he allowed Brion to help him to a seat by the fire. Collapsing against a tree trunk, he gulped the wine that Brion offered and tried to still his trembling hands. After a few minutes, and without attempting to speak, he pulled off one gauntlet with his teeth and reached into a fold of his surcoat. He took a deep breath as he withdrew a folded piece of parchment and gave it over to his brother.
“This was delivered several hours after you and Alaric left us. It’s from Hogan Gwernach.”
“The Marluk?” Brion murmured. His face went still and strange, the gray Haldane eyes flashing like polished agate, as he held the missive toward the firelight.
There was no seal on the outside of the letter—only a name, written in a fine, educated hand: Brion Haldane, Pretender of Gwynedd. Slowly, deliberately, Brion unfolded the parchment, let his eyes scan it as his brother plucked a brand from the fire and held it close for light. The boy Alaric listened silently as the king read.
“To Brion Haldane, Pretender of Gwynedd, from the Lord Hogan Gwernach of Tolan, Festillic Heir to the Thrones and Crowns of the Eleven Kingdoms. Know that We, Hogan, have determined to exercise that prerogative of birth which is the right of Our Festillic Ancestors, to reclaim the Thrones which are rightfully Ours. We therefore give notice to you, Brion Haldane, that your stewardship and usurpation of Gwynedd is at an end, your lands and Crown forfeit to the House of Festil. We charge you to present yourself and all members of your Haldane Line before Our Royal Presence at Cardosa, no later than the Feast of Saint Asaph, there to surrender yourself and the symbols of your sovereignty into Our Royal Hands. Sic dicto, Hoganus Rex Regnorum Undecim.”
“King of the Eleven Kingdoms?” Alaric snorted, then remembered who and where he was. “Pardon, Sire, but he must be joking!”
Nigel shook his head. “I fear not, Alaric. This was delivered by Rhydon of Eastmarch under a flag of truce.”
“The treasonous dog!” Brion whispered.
“Aye.” Nigel nodded. “He said to tell you that if you wished to contest this,” he tapped the parchment lightly with his fingernail, “the Marluk would meet you in combat tomorrow near the Rustan Cliffs. If you do not appear, he will sack and burn the town of Rustan, putting every man, woman, and child to the sword. If we leave by dawn, we can just make it.”
“Our strength?” Brion asked.
“I have my vanguard of eighty. I sent sixty of them ahead to rendezvous with us at Rustan and the rest are probably a few hours behind me. I also sent a messenger ahead to Uncle Richard with the main army. With any luck at all, he’ll receive word in time to turn back the Haldane levies to assist. Earl Ewan was too far north to call back, though I sent a rider anyway.”
“Thank you. You’ve done well.”
With a distracted nod, Brion laid a hand on his brother’s shoulder and got slowly to his feet. As he stood gazing sightlessly into the fire, the light gleamed on a great ruby in his ear, on a wide bracelet of silver clasped to his right wrist. He folded his arms across his chest against the chill, bowing his head in thought. The boy Alaric, with a glance at Prince Nigel, moved to pull the king’s cloak more closely around him, to fasten the lion brooch beneath his chin as the king spoke.
“The Marluk does not mean to fight a physical battle. You know that, Nigel,” he said in a low voice. “Oh, there may be battle among our various troops in the beginning. But all of that is but prelude. Armed combat is not what Hogan Gwernach desires of me.”
“Aye. He is Deryni,” Nigel breathed. He watched Brion’s slow nod in the firelight.
“But, Brion,” Nigel began, after a long pause. “It’s been two generations since a Haldane king has had to stand against Deryni magic. Can you do it?”
“I—don’t know.” Brion, his cloak drawn close about him, sank down beside his brother once again, his manner grave and thoughtful. “I’m sorry if I appear preoccupied, but I keep having this vague recollection that there is something I’m supposed to do now. I seem to remember that Father made some provision, some preparation against this possibility, but—”
He ran a hand through sable hair, the firelight winking again on the silver at his wrist, and the boy Alaric froze, head cocked in a strained listening attitude, eyes slightly glazed. As Nigel nudged his brother lightly in the ribs, the boy sank slowly to his knees. Both pairs of royal eyes stared at him fixedly.
“There is that which must be done,” the boy whispered, “which was ordained many years ago, when I was but a babe and you were not yet king, Sire.”
“My father?”
“Aye. The key is—the bracelet you wear upon your arm.” Brion’s eyes darted instinctively to the silver. “May I see it, Sire?”
Without a word, Brion removed the bracelet and laid it in the boy’s left hand. Alaric stared at it for a long moment, his pupils dilating until they were pools of inky blackness. Then, taking a deep breath to steel himself for the rush of memories he knew must follow, he bowed his head and laid his right hand over the design incised in the silver. Abruptly he remembered the first time he had seen the bracelet He had been just four when it happened, and it was mid-autumn. He had been snuggled down in his bed, dreaming of some childhood fantasy which he would never remember now, when he became aware of someone standing by his couch—and that was not a dream.
He opened his eyes to see his mother staring down at him intently, golden hair spilling bright around her shoulders, a loose-fitting gown of green disguising the thickening of her body from the child she carried. There was a candle in her hand, and by its light he could see his father standing gravely at her side. He had never seen such a look of stern concentration upon his father’s face before, and that almost frightened him.
He made an inquisitive noise in his throat and started to ask what was wrong, but his mother laid a finger against her lips and shook her head. Then his father was reaching down to pull the blankets back, gathering him sleepily into his arms. He watched as his mother followed them out of the room and across the great hall, toward his father’s library. The hall was empty even of the hounds his father loved, and outside he could hear the sounds of ho
rses stamping in the yard—perhaps as many as a score of them—and the low-voiced murmur of the soldiers talking their soldier-talk.
At first, he thought the library was empty. But then he noticed an old, gray-haired man sitting in the shadows of his father’s favorite armchair by the fireplace, an ornately carved staff cradled in the crook of his arm. The man’s garments were rich and costly, but stained with mud at the hem. Jewels winked dimly in the crown of his leather cap, and a great red stone gleamed in his right earlobe. His cloak of red leather was clasped with a massive enameled brooch bearing the figure of a golden lion.
“Good evening, Alaric,” the old man said quietly, as the boy’s father knelt before the man and turned his son to face the visitor.
His mother made a slight curtsy, awkward in her condition, then moved to stand at the man’s right hand, leaning heavily against the side of his chair. Alaric thought it strange, even at that young age, that the man did not invite his mother to sit down—but perhaps the man was sick; he was certainly very old. Curiously, and still blinking the sleep from his eyes, he looked up at his mother. To his surprise, it was his father who spoke.
“Alaric, this is the king,” his father said in a low voice. “Do you remember your duty to His Majesty?”
Alaric turned to regard his father gravely, then nodded and disengaged himself from his father’s embrace, stood to attention, made a deep, correct bow from the waist. The king, who had watched the preceding without comment, smiled and held out his right hand to the child. A silver bracelet flashed in the firelight as the boy put his small hand into the king’s great, scarred one.
“Come and sit beside me, boy,” the king said, lifting Alaric to a position half in his lap and half supported by the carven chair-arms. “I want to show you something.”
Alaric squirmed a little as he settled down, for the royal lap was thin and bony, and the royal belt bristled with pouches and daggers and other grown-up accouterments fascinating to a small child. He started to touch one careful, stubby finger to the jewel at the end of the king’s great dagger, but before he could do it, his mother reached across and touched his forehead lightly with her hand. Instantly, the room took on a new brightness and clarity, became more silent, almost reverberated with expectation. He did not know what was going to happen, but his mother’s signal warned him that it was in that realm of special things of which he was never to speak, and to which he must give his undivided attention. In awed expectation, he turned his wide child-eyes upon the king, watched attentively as the old man reached around him and removed the silver bracelet from his wrist.
