The Queen of Swords (13 page)

The babble of the Chaos pack seemed to grow louder and louder in his ears. Their chariots kept appearing out of the mist until several hundred of the things surrounded the boulder.

Then it came clear to Corum that the pack did not intend, at this stage, to kill them. If they had wished to they could have slain him and his companions by now. Doubtless they planned to torture them in some way—or perhaps turn them into the same kind of creatures that they had become.

Corum remembered the Mabden tortures with horror and he fought all the harder, hoping to drive some member of the Chaos pack to kill him.

But slowly the fearsome tide rolled in until so many corpses pressed about the base of the boulder that Corum’s three friends were unable to move their arms and were trapped. Only Corum fought on, hacking at all who sought to take him, and then something clambered over the rocks behind him and seized his legs, dragging him down to where Rhalina, Jhary and the King Without a Country stood, disarmed and bound.

* * *

A creature with the lopsided face of a horse swaggered through the ranks of the Chaos pack and curled its lips to reveal huge brown teeth. It gave a whinnying laugh and set its helmet jauntily on its head, its hairy thumbs hooked in the belt around its belly.

“Should we save you for ourselves,” it said, “or take you to our mistress? Queen Xiombarg might be interested in you…”

“Why should she be interested in four mortal travelers?” Corum asked.

The horse-thing grinned at him. “Perhaps you are more than that? Perhaps you are agents of Law?”

“You know that Law no longer rules here!”

“But Law may
wish
to rule again—you may have been sent here from another realm.”

“Do you not recognize me!” cried King Noreg-Dan.

The horse-thing scratched at its forelock and peered stupidly at the King Without a Country. “Why should I recognize you?”

“Because I recognize you. I see the traces of your original features…”

“Be silent! I do not know what you mean!” The horse-thing half drew its dagger from its belt. “Be silent!”

“Because you cannot bear to remember!” shouted the King Without a Country. “You were Polib-Bav, Count of Tern! You threw in your lot with Chaos even before my country fell…”

A look of fear came into the horse-thing’s eyes. It shook its head and snorted. “No!”

“You are Polib-Bav and you were betrothed to my daughter—the girl whom your Chaos pack—aaagh! I cannot bear to remember that horror!”

“You remember nothing,” said Polib-Bav thickly. “I say I am just what I am.”

“What is your name?” Noreg-Dan said. “What is your name, if it is not Polib-Bav, Count of Tern?”

The horse-thing struck out at the king’s face with its clumsy hand. “What if I am? My loyalty is to Queen Xiombarg, not to you.”

“I would not have you serve me,” sneered the king as blood welled on his upper lip. “Oh, look what has become of you, Polib-Bav.”

The horse-thing turned away. “I live,” it said. “I command this legion.”

“A legion of pathetic monsters!” Jhary laughed.

A cow-thing kicked at Jhary’s groin with its hoof and the companion to champions groaned. But he lifted his head and laughed again. “This degeneration is only the beginning. I have seen what mortals who serve Chaos become—foulness, nothingness—shapeless horrors!”

Polib-Bav scratched its head and said more softly, “What of that? The decision was made. It cannot be revoked. Queen Xiombarg promises us eternal life.”

“It will be eternal,” Jhary said. “But it will not be life. I have travelled to many planes during many ages and I have seen what Chaos comes to—barrenness. That alone is eternal, unless Law can save it.”

“Faugh!” said the horse-thing. “Put them in the chariot—in my chariot—and we shall carry them to Queen Xiombarg.”

King Noreg-Dan tried to appeal again to Polib-Bav. “You were once handsome, Count of Tern. My daughter loved you and you loved her. You were loyal to me in those days.”

Polib-Bav turned away. “And now I am loyal to Queen Xiombarg. This is her realm now. Lord Shalod of Law has fled and shall never rule here again. His armies and his allies were destroyed, as you well know, on the Plain of Blood…” Polib-Bav pointed upwards. He accepted the four swords which a frog-thing handed him and tucked them under his arm. “Into the chariot with them. We ride for Queen Xiombarg’s palace.”

As he was forced to enter Polib-Bav’s chariot with the others Corum was in despair. His hands were tied behind his back with strong cords, he could see no way of escape. Once he was taken before Queen Xiombarg she would recognize him. She would destroy him as she would destroy the rest and all hope of saving Lywm-an-Esh would be gone. With King Lyr victorious, the forces of Chaos would begin to gather strength. Another Sword Ruler would be summoned and the Fifteen Planes would be wholly in the control of the Lords of Entropy.

He lay at Polib-Bav’s feet now, side by side with his friends, as the Chariots of Chaos began to move along the floor of the abyss, wheels creaking and groaning, bumping over the loose rocks. And soon Corum had lost consciousness.

* * *

He awoke blinking in stronger light. The mist was gone. He lifted his head and saw that a great cliff towered behind them. He guessed that they had left the abyss. They seemed to be moving through a sparse forest of sickly, leprous trees which had caught some blight. He moved his bruised head and stared into the face of Rhalina. She had been weeping but now she attempted to smile at him.

“We left the abyss through a tunnel some hours back,” she told him. “It must be a long way to Queen Xiombarg’s palace. I wonder why they do not use swifter, more sorcerous means to go there?”

“Chaos is whimsical,” said a voice behind her. It was Jhary-a-Conel’s. “And in a timeless world there is no need for swiftness in such matters.”

“What has become of your little cat?” Corum murmured.

“It was wiser than I: it flew off. I did not see—”

“Silence!” bellowed the voice of the horse-thing driving the chariot. “Your babbling annoys me.”

“Perhaps it disturbs you,” Jhary ventured. “Perhaps it reminds you that you could once think coherently, speak well…”

Polib-Bav kicked him in the face and he spluttered as the blood gushed from his nose.

Corum growled and vainly tried to free himself. Polib-Bav’s horse face looked down at him and laughed. “You’re grotesque enough, yourself, friend—with that eye and that hand grafted onto you. If I had not known better, I’d have said you served Chaos.”

“Perhaps I do,” Corum said. “You did not ask. You merely assumed that I served Law.”

Polib-Bav frowned, but then his stupid face cleared. “You are trying to trick me. I will do nothing until Queen Xiombarg has seen you…” He shook the reins and the reptilian beasts began to move faster, “… after all, it is almost certain that it was you and your friends who killed the strongest member of our legion. We saw it attacked and we saw it vanish.”

“You speak of the Ghanh?” Corum asked, his spirits beginning to lift. “Of the Ghanh!”

And, at that moment, the Hand of Kwll moved once more of its own volition and snapped the cords binding Corum’s wrists.

“You see!” said Polib-Bav in triumph. “It was I who tricked you. You knew the Ghanh was slain. Therefore it could only have been… What! You are free!” He hauled on the reins. “Stop!” He drew his sword, but Corum had rolled over the floor of the chariot and leapt to the ground. He pushed back his eye-patch and at once saw the netherworld cave from which his allies had issued in the past. There, with its head a ruin of congealed blood, lay the Ghanh.

The Hand of Kwll moved into the netherworld as Polib-Bav’s creatures advanced on Corum. It beckoned to the Ghanh which moved its dead head very reluctantly.

“You must do my bidding,” Corum said. “And then you will be free. You must take many prizes to pay for your release.”

The Ghanh did not speak, but it gave a scream from its fanged jaws as if to acknowledge that it had heard.

“Come!” Corum cried. “Come—take your prizes.”

And the Ghanh’s crimson wings began to beat as it flapped slowly from the cave, leaving the netherworld behind it and coming back, once again, into the world from which the birds had but lately banished it.

“The Ghanh has come back!” Polib-Bav shouted in triumph. “Oh, lovely Ghanh, thou hast returned to us!”

The Chaos pack had seized Corum again, but now he was smiling as, with a tortured screech, the Ghanh’s great body engulfed a nearby chariot and its strange wings wrapped themselves around the whole thing and began to crush the occupants to death.

So astonished were the Chaos beasts holding Corum that he was able to tug himself free. They came after him but he turned and the Hand of Kwll smashed into the face of one, cracked another’s collarbone. He raced for Polib-Bav’s chariot. The leader of the beasts had left his chariot and stood beside it, his huge, horse’s eyes fixed on what was happening to his companions. Before he had really noticed Corum, the Prince in the Scarlet Robe had grabbed his sword from the pile on the floor of the chariot and aimed a blow at Polib-Bav. The horse-thing jumped back, drawing his own sword. But his movements were dazed and clumsy. He parried, tried to stab, missed as Corum dodged aside, and received the Vadhagh metal in his throat. Choking, he died.

Quickly Corum cut the bonds of his friends and they, too, retrieved their swords, ready to fight the Chaos creatures. But the pack, recovering from its initial horror, was fleeing. Its chariots raced hither and yon through the pale, sickly trees as the Ghanh left its first victims and pursued some more. Corum bent and stripped the corpse of Polib-Bav, taking his water bottle and the pouch of coarse bread at his belt. Soon the Chaos pack had disappeared and they were left alone on the road through the forest.

Corum inspected the chariot. The reptiles seemed passive enough.

“Could we drive this, do you think, King Noreg-Dan?” he asked.

The King Without a Country shook his head dubiously. “I am not sure. Perhaps…”

“I think I could drive it,” Jhary told them. “I’ve had a little experience of such chariots and the creatures which pull them.” His sack bouncing at his belt, the wide brim of his hat waving, he jumped into the chariot, taking up the reins. He turned and grinned at them. “Where would you go? Still to Xiombarg’s palace?”

Corum laughed. “Not yet, I think. She’ll send for us when she learns what became of her pack. We’ll take that direction, I think.” He pointed away through the trees. He helped Rhalina into the chariot, then waited while King Noreg-Dan climbed aboard. Finally, he got in himself. Jhary shook the reins, turned the chariot and soon it had bounced through the leprous forest and was rolling down a hill towards a valley full of what seemed to be upright, slender stones.

5

T
HEY WERE NOT
stones.

They were men.

Each man a warrior—each warrior frozen like a statue, his weapons in his hands.

“This,” said Noreg-Dan in quiet awe, “is the Frozen Army. The last army to take arms against Chaos…”

“Was this its punishment?” Corum asked.

“Aye.”

Jhary, gripping the reins, said, “They live? Is that so? They know that we pass through their ranks?”

“Aye. I heard that Queen Xiombarg said that since they supported Law so wholeheartedly they should have a taste of what Law aimed for—they should know the ultimate in tranquility,” Noreg-Dan said.

Rhalina shivered. “Is this really what Law comes to?”

“So Chaos would have us believe,” Jhary said. “But it matters not, for the Cosmic Balance requires equilibrium—something of Chaos, something of Law—so that each stabilizes the other. The difference is that Law acknowledges the authority of the Balance, while Chaos would deny it. But Chaos cannot deny that authority completely for its adherents know that to disobey some things is to be destroyed. Thus Queen Xiombarg dare not enter the realm of another Great Old God and, as in the case of your realm, must work through others. She, like the rest, must also watch her dealings with mortals, for they cannot be destroyed by her willy-nilly—there are rules…”