The Hammer of the Sun (38 page)

Such were the concerns in which Elof lost himself during the first five years of his captivity. He did not, however, cut himself off from the world; on the contrary, he still took an almost fanatical interest in the progress of Nithaid's campaigns, when he could get any news
of
them. But as his sorcerous repute grew,
so
this was becoming harder. Even the guards were loath now to stay and talk, save a few who remembered him from the first; the sergeant alone would linger for a stoup of wine and a few words, and let slip once over some strong wine that his men held him in great awe for his daring. Few others ever appeared. The king had commanded that none should set foot upon the island without his express permission, and most were glad enough to leave it so. When a fisherman was wrecked there during a winter storm Elof and Roc would have sheltered him gladly enough, but the wretched man would not come near the 'sorcerers' tower', stayed out all night in the howling rain and seemed vastly relieved to be summarily arrested by a guard-boat he contrived to signal next morning.

The nearest they had to an intruder was one morning, when they were awakened near dawn by a sudden crashing from the forge. Rising in haste with weapons, they found that one of the little mammuts had strayed in, lured by some leftover fruit; it led them on a wild and shattering chase between the benches, trunk and tail held aloft, squealing and trumpeting wildly, before they at last ejected it. Beyond that, they were hardly disturbed from one month's end to the next.

So it was that Elof had another reason to be glad of Roc's frequent excursions. So, also, he even came to welcome Nithaid's occasional visits to demand some new labour, when he would bombard the king with barbed questions about the state of the wars, and the advance of the Ice. Nithaid was curt in his answers at first, but as the years passed he would appear more and more frequently at the forge, sometimes for no very important purpose. Once or twice, in the earliest days, he would bring one or, other of his sons to be outfitted with some gift he had commanded, armour or weaponry fit for a young prince; but he would often linger to talk long after the work was done, though the boys, their greed assuaged, grew bored and clamorous to return. Eventually
it
dawned on Elof that the king also had come to enjoy these visits to men with whom he could speak straightly, and be answered as straightly, without thought of fear or favour. He would spend long evenings sitting by the forge, drinking mulled wine with the man who had sworn to kill him, and bandying hard words about the state of his realm. They were strange evenings, for between king and captive there was no slightest mellowing of feeling; at times the air seemed sulphurous with their rancour. Yet equally there was a kind of fellowship between them, a sense of bearing swords in a common struggle, and of satisfying a common need; Elof was desperate to know all that was passing, and sometimes it seemed almost as if Nithaid were seeking counsel. "Without having to ask for it, either!" Roc pointed out cynically. "Saves him lowering himself! He knows you're all too ready to bend his ear." This was the truth; for though he might approve Nithaid's valour on the battlefield, Elof never masked his contempt for his way of rule. This was not only to suit his whim; by provoking Nithaid he often learned more.

"The poor folk of this land?" Nithaid jeered at some such sally of Elof s, one dark night in the middle of the sixth winter. "Where's your own fine concern for them, then, be you so eager to see me dead? Where'd they be without me? Rags rent between the teeth of the battling barons, that's all! And easy prey for the Ice, after that! Who d'you think'd take my place? You, eh? Is it that you had in mind? Think they'd follow a limping tinker, do you?" He buried his blunt nose noisily in his wine-mug, and blew a deep rumbling sigh. The lines in his face seemed to deepen, and Elof noticed with a quirk of surprise how much greyer his hair had grown since their first encounter. "No, Valant, if you truly wish to help the drudges you'll swink as you're doing, and forget all your foolish fancies. They're born to burdens and blows, it's in their blood; they've not the mind to feel the pain of them like higher-born folk. Or even mastersmiths! A strong lord over a quiet kingdom, that's when they fare best; they know it, too, all save a few malcontents, and it's what I'll give 'em. The throne's no chair of ease, but I've no mind to quit it yet, for you or anyone. At least, till my lads are of age…"

When he had gone, Roc grimaced at Elof. "I didn't like the sound of
that
!"

"Nor I," mused Elof, remembering the flushed faces of the youths who had watched his torture, and the bright greedy eyes. "You've heard something of them, these lads of his, I remember. Are they like their father?"

"I have, and more," Roc rumbled disdainfully. "There's chatter enough about them round the court. Aye, it's said that they're like him, but I think not. There's two of them, Geraidh and Kenarech, and all too close, in years not the least."

"Jealous, then?"

"Aye, so I've heard, for all they're so alike. Of each other, but more of him, for all he dotes on them and spoils them rotten. Not that they show it, though; they're careful to play the devoted sons and brothers before him, and the merry swaggerers before the common folk - but less so of letting their tongues wag before servants, or bragging to the thrall lasses they bed. So I get all the gossip, for the girls don't like 'em a bit; cocky young bastards and nasty-minded with it, that's the word. A lot of the troops favour them, though, and so also a lot of the folk; Nithaid's too hard a taskmaster for some, and they blame him, would you credit, for not seeing off the Ekwesh sooner. Seems to me the lads are taking pains to foster that…" He paused significantly.

"You mean, they've already got their eye on the succession? Before they're even of age?"

"Wouldn't surprise me a bit. No less did Nithaid, at their age; but he worked hard to inherit the kingdom, and fought hard and brutal for his father, putting down rebel lords and Ekwesh reivers. These two don't seem of the same mettle; they want everything the easy way, and now. There's been talk of compounding with some of the more troublesome lords, giving them local independence for the sake of quiet -"

"Or support," mused Elof. "But don't the young fools see there's no end to that, save with the Ekwesh? All Nithaid's vicious ambition, but without his vision, or his driving will. Ready to sell the morrow to buy the moment… I'm glad I made that armour as well as I did, Roc. I'd as soon nothing happened to Nithaid; not yet."

That thought brought him some greater consolation for the loss of Gorthawer; for it was borne into battle as he no longer could, and he heard of Nithaid doing greater deeds than ever with the black blade in his hand. That sixth long winter of his captivity was the first time in Nithaid's reign that not even one Ekwesh raid penetrated the heartland successfully; most were met and driven back among the wild lands to the north, and the few who slipped through broke harmlessly against the new fortifications. But neither blade nor walls could turn the weather, and where the Ekwesh failed to go the stormwinds came. Sieges they laid with floods and drifting snow, and after them, quieter and deadlier, the frosts, to crack stone in the still night and lay deadly fingers upon the hearts of those who lacked shelter and fire enough. Nor was that the only terror of the night; the weather drove wolves down in hungry packs from the wild lands, and the huge forest bears, with many other beasts, some among them of an unheard-of strength and ferocity. From byre or pen a terrible screaming would be heard as of beasts fear-maddened, so terrible that many feared to go out to them even though all their wealth and livelihood were threatened; the more so, as many who did never returned, and were found in the first light butchered among their flocks. The beast responsible was never caught, or even seen clearly, and
so
wildly did accounts vary that it seemed there must be many; yet the manner of attack was always the same, the skull crushed and the brain devoured. Often wayfarers were attacked thus on overgrown paths, by some thing that lay along a stout branch above and struck downwards with a vast paw; yet this also was never clearly seen. And through storm and blizzard still stranger shapes stalked, and men abroad were missed till the thaw uncovered their gnawed bones; on the clear nights shadows thin and spider-limbed lurked in thickets for the unwary traveller, or beneath the haloed moon climbed through unbarred windows to suck the lifeblood from sleepers within.

"This is how it must have been at the fall of Morvan, Roc," said Elof on one such clear night towards the winter's end, as they opened their door before sleep to gaze upon the Yskianas sparkling in starlight. The distant shore shone white with snow, but upon the island it lay lightly among the grass. "Do you remember how Korentyn spoke of
it
?"

"Aye, do I. But Kerys is far from falling yet. The glaciers are a long way from even its outermost walls."

"Yet they can travel fast, at need. And Louhi spoke of only having to tip the balance a little, make the world a trace colder… but how? To overrun this great land is scarcely a small work, even for the Ice."

Roc grew thoughtful. "If it froze the Yskianas as it did the Great Waters of Morvan… no, that couldn't work…"

"No; sea-lakes are one thing, a river well-nigh the width of a sea another. The most Louhi and her kind might do is freeze the Gate falls and dam the main inflow, and I guess they would be hard put to it to do that till the Sea-Ice itself came south -"

His words faltered; he choked, caught his breath, and suddenly, with a great thrust of his crutches, he hurled himself out of the door into the darkness. Roc, plunging after him in astonishment, saw him raise a hand to the sky as if to claw down the very moon or stars. But then he also saw the shadow sweeping over the snow, the shape that cast it, blacker still against the shimmering sky as it glided down towards them. Low it came, and lower, long-necked and graceful, shivering the moonbeams with its speed and the still air with the slow pulse of its wingbeats; nigh over Elof s head it swept, so close that the wind of its outstretched wings uplifted his tangled hair, yet not quite close enough to touch. Despairingly he lunged upward, arms out-thrust in a wild embrace, and shouted out in his great voice a name like a cry of agony. "
Kara! Stay, Kara! Only stay awhile
!" A wild embrace, but futile; for even as he gave voice the dark wings lifted over the rooftree and vanished over the snow-hung crowns of the oaks. He fell headlong among the frosty grass, and screamed aloud in frustrated fury. "
Damn these corpse-legs… Kara! Ach, Kara
!"

He called after her again and again, but the great swan did not reappear. Out into the icy silence of the night his strong voice rang, across the River at the Heart of the World, and it seemed that the waters trembled in answer, and the mirrored stars shook. But it was no more than a breath of wind, coming to stir the leafless trees above, and rustle the grass about their feet. Elof, scrabbling for his crutches, looked dimly down at it.

"Roc," he inquired in a wholly different tone, vague and distracted. "I've hardly looked at this grass of late. There's scarcely any snow here…"

Roc shrugged, and helped him back to his feet. That sudden vision had left him almost as shaken as Elof; he was glad of anything else to talk about. "There never is, not much. Same every winter…"

"Yes… Hella's fires! Idiot that I've been, never to think of it! And the smithy, so warm and comfortable… Roc, whoever built it as it first was, he was a great smith, building a forge to suit him, a worthy forge. I should have seen that at once!"

Roc looked hard at him. He seemed almost to have forgotten what he had seen. "You
did
. We both
did
. So?"

"So would not he also have needed great heat?"

"He might; aye, he might, at that. But whatever he got
it
from,
it's
gone now."

"Is it? Come inside - come!" He hobbled towards the bench laden with his present studies, bent beneath the weight of books and notes. "So many forms of heat I've studied!" He picked up sheaves of parchment scraps, tablets, wooden slips, tossing them aside one after another. "The sun! Crystals! Stonesblood! Strange metals! All this time and I forgot what was most obvious to me!" He seized a map from among the clutter, brushed a table clear of tools with a single sweep of a crutch and in a crackle of crisp linen unrolled the map across it.

"Roc, you've travelled widely enough in the land by now, you can tell me - those
loskveneth
, those fire-mountains like the ones we saw, whereabouts exactly do they lie? No, don't show me - mark them in with the charcoal here…"

"Well…" began Roc slowly, and then with growing irritation, "Does it have to be now? I need my bed, I'm too sleep-ridden to remember! I don't know where every single one is - there's too many, large and small, it seems they've been spreading lately, and in some places there's a whole lot close together -"

"Just the major ones - and mark regions where they're grouped - yes, so…"

Yawning, Roc cudgelled his weary brain, and made his charcoal circles, here and there as they came to mind, in no particular order. But after a moment he stopped, blinked down at the map a moment and swore.