The Anvil of Ice (49 page)
Then he was convulsed again by agony as the sword was jerked free of him, with a cruel twist to it that seemed to tear him asunder. Yet he laughed, laughed aloud as he clutched his hand against the wound, feeling the blood run warm across the gauntlet. There came the sound of many running feet, and cries of fear cut short, and the noise of more who fell and, toppling their fellows, went tumbling away into the depths, a panic, or rout.
"The biter is bitten!" he gasped, and staggered back against the wall. "The thief is robbed, and by his own hand! Do you hear, Mylio, do you hear? Something more was needed, he told me, and now I know what, indeed! You, master that you are, must needs be greater yet, and steal a power that you did not understand! You would have a sword to cleave the mind, to set a man's own fears against himself and drown his reason in its own black depths! But the edge that would cut the spirit is blunted by grosser things, a sword of the mind may not also strike the body! Yet you have made it do so—
and what is it now
?"
The Mastersmith leveled the sword at him, and Elof laughed only the louder. The gray man turned, ran to the stairs, recoiled and pointed it into the dark gap, jabbing desperately at the air as if to drive something back from the opening. But out of it, step by measured step, inexorable as fate, rose the terrible figure of Kermorvan. No longer did that fearsome warrior falter or fall. He had lost his helm, he was wounded in face and leg, but the blood that sprayed in gouts across his mail, that steeped his sword and sword arm scarlet from point to shoulder, was not his own, nor did it shine brighter than the wrath that sprang glittering uselessly with the sword, and Elof wept weakly with the pain of his mirth. "Where are your guards, Mylio? Call them back, bid them slay your foes for you now. Why do they flee? What is it that has gone out of them?"
Then the Mastersmith whirled, and with the speed of madness he hurled himself upon Elof, the sword that was now no more than a sword upraised to strike him down in a last hopeless vengeance. But Elof swept up his own sword, as the hand in his vision had done. Then, with the arm of a smith who had proved mightier, half falling forward, he hammered it down to meet the thing he had made. With a cry like an eagle, black blade stooped clashing upon patterned metal, struck through unstaying and past, down through the painted wood of the Thunderbird mask, through the blue-steel death's head within, through the softer skull beneath and on, on, down, to cleave the Mastersmith Mylio nearly in two.
A husk, a spilled thing, was dashed to the grimy stone of the floor. The halves of the patterned sword dropping spattering among the blood, and as Kermorvan ran up, horrified, they twisted and flexed there like some unclean beast severed, till little by little the cords of metal sprung, split, separated, unwound and writhed apart.
Up the stairs now, yelling exultantly, came Ils, one arm black with blood, bearing up Roc who was gashed badly in the leg and shoulder. But she fell silent as she saw the body of the Mastersmith, though she looked on it unmoved and snorted, "Surprised the thing still bleeds red."
Then they saw Elof, and stumbled toward him, forgetting their own ills. But he waved them back, hugging his own pain to himself. Kermorvan stooped, seized the shattered body and swiftly dragged it out onto the balcony. He looked out, and saw below him on the riven wall black-clad men mustering, slow and reluctant, tall chiefs and shamans in patterned robes screaming at them in furious exhortation. Then Kermorvan laughed aloud, a bitter laugh and cold, and blew a great blast on the horn he bore, and it went out and echoed across the rooftops, among the towers. Other horns answered it, horns that sounded many different tones, silver and gold, brass and steel, the dour blaring of steerhorns. For the alarm had spread, and many waited and watched. And he raised up in his arms, high over his head, the grim thing that had been their chiefest enemy, and the bloodrun seemed to stain the very sky red with dawning.
Many cries arose then from the wall below, but from beyond the untaken walls a solemn fanfare sounded, and the first faint light glinted back a thousandfold from moving files and blades bright-burnished. And atop the golden crown of the highest tower a small bundle rose up the mast, broke and fluttered wide. It was a battle pennant all of sable, with upon it a sunburst in gold and a raven rising to seize it. Kermorvan cried out in a voice that echoed about the walls of the city, that leaped across the scaled roofs and quivered in the very windows of the crowned towers, "
Morvan morlanhal
! Morvan shall arise! Up, Bry-haine, and strike them down! For see you, see!
They fall
!"
And with a heave he hurled the body of the Mastersmith out over the balcony, to plummet limply down upon the broken wall below, and at the very feet of his driven chieftains, held by the power he had long usurped, to be dashed there into shapelessness. Awesome it seemed to them, and terrible beyond words, that what they had deemed so powerful should be so suddenly cast down. They fell back, and their clansmen with them, scraping frantically at the blood that bespattered their robes lest it carry with it some taint of that fearful reverse.
"Kathel has kept his word!" said Kermorvan. "And now, Elof, we must get you—" But where Elof had stood there lay only the black sword, sadly wrung and twisted in a pool of bright blood, and from it a trail that led them to the stairs.
Down that last flight Elof stumbled, sick with agony, coughing down the blood that bubbled in his throat. From the streets below came the first clash of arms as the men of the city, heartened anew, cast off the night and swarmed out to engage their oppressors. And from the Ekwesh camps came stuttering drums, urgent now and uncertain. But Elof paid them little heed, for they and all else seemed to reach him now from behind a thick, a stifling gray curtain, and he yearned to cast it off, to be free. Only there was Kara, still Kara, he saw her all the more clearly when all else had faded, and he knew he must reach her room. He found it by staggering along the walls, almost falling against the door he had left ajar. But even as he plunged through he saw the bed empty and the high windows crashing open in the wind, and he dragged himself across to them. Below him the Ekwesh, neither a driven force nor a coherent army any longer, were streaming away through the streets they had lately taken. Under the fluttering ensign of Raven and Sun the men of the city fell upon them without let or restraint. Even women and children snatched up the weapons of their fallen enemies and harried them as they ran, hewing without mercy any who fell or were cornered. The few who stood to fight were overborne and trampled before their weapons could bite, shieldwalls broken before they could form. No longer driven to attack, no longer held in concord with their ancient rivals, riven of the will that had led them so far into this venture, of the sorcery that had smashed the walls before them, and witness to its last fearful fall, the reiver chieftains broke, panicked and turned to run. Under banner after banner sounded the call to retreat, to regain the ships and the freedom of the sea where they might yet be secure. Rout and riot overtook them amid the rattle of the drums, and those who were yet within the city saw their own ships being pushed half-manned from the beaches, being cut from their anchors and sails frantically unfurled. So it was that at last none sought anything but the harbor and the escape, rather than face the wrath of the folk of Kerbryhaine. And to their own lands they carried a fearful rumor of that wrath, but also of shame unshriven, dishonor unavenged, a smart and fester worse than the wounds they bore.
But Elof did not look upon what he had brought about, for he was staring eastward, into the golden light that poured now across the distant hilltops, bathing the land as if to cleanse it of the stain of war. Circling there, vanishing into it with great slow wingbeats, flew two huge swans, one white, one black. And about the feet of the black one there shone a gleam of silver.
Then Elof's weakness overwhelmed him at last, and he sank down, away, onto the seat where the mantle had rested. His hand, now black and stiff with blood, sank away from his chest. And there stood Ils, and Roc, and Kermorvan, staring at him in pity and horror, but also in a strange dismay. He looked down, and tore suddenly at the ragged edges of his jerkin, laying bare his flesh beneath. No more than a faint line marked it, and it faded even as they watched. His wound had closed.
Thus it was that Elof came to the true end of his apprenticeship, and the warrior-servants of the Ice were for a time driven back from the Southland. So concludes the volume of the Winter Chronicles named the Book of the Sword. But it records that Elof was to lie ill, despite his strange healing, for many long months, till spring was come again, and the beat of swan wings across the sky. Only then, as the Book of the Helm recounts, did he set off on his journeyman's travels, that were to bring him in the end great understanding, great suffering, great love and the name of Elof Valantor, Elof of the Skilled Hand, mightiest of all magesmiths amid the dark days of the ancient Winter of the World.
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Of the land of Brasayhal, its form, nature and climate, and of its peoples and their several histories, such as are set forth in that volume of the Winter Chronicles called the Book of the Sword.
The authors of the Winter Chronicles were writing, as men must, for their own times; they left much unexplained that we no longer know, and less often explained at length matters we would today take for granted. Also, they were quite rightly concerned with setting down living experience, and not merely telling a coherent tale. In reducing the Book of the Sword to the fashion of such a tale, therefore, much detail has had to be added—often by guesswork, however informed—and much omitted. This account cannot replace what is lost, but may at least round out the picture. Only what is most relevant to the immediate tale is included; other matters, such as the nature of the Ekwesh society, must wait until more appropriate points in the narrative.
The Land:
In the years of the Long Winter the extent of the land of Brasayhal was very great, a vast continent that stretched at its widest some thousand leagues from ocean to ocean across the northern world, and from the margins of the Ice to the all but impassable southern deserts some six or seven hundred leagues. Within this expanse were many realms, and those of the men the least. The events of the Book of the Sword here recounted took place wholly along its western seaboard, in the relatively narrow strip of country—some hundred and thirty leagues at its widest— between Meneth Scahas, the Shield-Range, and the sea. This was then the furthest-flung settlement of the peoples of Kerys, and the newest, being little over one thousand years old. A natural division to this western strip was the delta of a once great river, now fenland so flat that the sea's influence was felt many leagues inland; while outflowing streams remained fresh, stagnant or pooled water soon became brackish, turning the area into a vast salt-marsh. To the south of it stretched out country that was for the most part open and low-lying, much of it fertile grassland with only one main hilly region along the coast, and few large areas of woodland save around the foothills of the Shield-Range. Warm and well-watered, it was ideal land for both grain and livestock, and in the drier, hotter country further south grew many kinds of fruit in profusion. The sea was fished little, and served chiefly for travel. With this the first settlers, as described by Kermorvan in Chapter 5, were well content, since it made possible the city-centered culture they had known in the east; the lands north of the marshes seemed too wild to suit them. These were not only colder but higher and more hilly, sloping up more steeply to join the mountains, and broke up with thick woodland disturbingly like Tapiau'la-an-Aithen, the Great Forest of evil memory; save in the valleys, the soil was much poorer than in the Southlands. Much of the tree and plant life was different, seeming smaller and less rich, and there were many more wild and ferocious animals. For the time being, therefore, it was left little settled and explored, save by solitaries and outlaws. But when the later refugees were hounded from the south, they found the Northlands more to their taste, the people being chiefly of a northern strain in their homeland and less fond of large cities. The weather, though cooler, was milder and moister in summer, and if the grainland was less, there were rich hill pastures for livestock and as much game as their hunters could wish. Also the seas were as rich or richer than in the south, and small fishing communities sprang up along the coast. Less fruit was grown, save in the southernmost valleys around Thuneborg, but gradual clearing of the forests provided valuable wood and more farming land, without ever becoming widespread enough to disrupt the natural balance. In general the northern settlers, both the first-comers and the later brown-skinned peoples from across the Ice, adapted to the land rather than mastered it, as in the south. Their population remained therefore smaller and more scattered, and the country between their towns and villages much wilder, even along the High roads.
In both north and south, settlement was at its thinnest in the country directly against the mountain slopes, though this was once good land enough and well wooded. In the south the first settlers had disputed this land with the duer-gar, often bloodily, and driven them out. But few who won it prospered, and many a townlet sank into gradual depopulation and decay. In the north there was less dispute, for the settlers were not so hungry for land and the duergar now wary of confronting them, but the spreading influence of the Ice across the Nordenberg ranges had the same effect.