Kings of Sorcery

by Robert Ryan

  Brand knew that feeling. But such was always the ebb and flow of battle.

  So it proved. On and on the battle raged, and no quarter was asked nor given. Again and again Brand’s lines buckled, but always some hero stood forth and rallied the morale of the men, bringing them with him to straighten it. Sometimes, though much less often, the defenders pushed forward beyond the earth rampart, opening a gap among the enemy.

  Whether this was a tactic of the enemy to draw them into a trap or not, Brand did not know. But he never gave an order to capitalize on it and try to break the foe. If it were a trap, this was what the enemy wanted. If not, and he thought not, his army was not big enough to rout the enemy in that fashion. If he were to win, it must be by holding and wearing the opponent out. Only when they retreated might they be vulnerable to attack.

  And always, the gods were there. Vague glimpses of them from behind the enemy. Moving. Cajoling. Perhaps threatening. They used no magic that Brand sensed. Their presence alone was a kind of magic that gave purpose to the enemy and offered support.

  But that could not last. The gods would make their own move against him at some point, and even as he watched his men straighten the line once more and stand resolute, Brand knew that moment had at last come.

  The gods acted. A spell was loosed. It drove the Kirsch to a frenzy of attack, and hatred was in their eyes and an absence of fear in their hearts.

  Brand did not wait for the lines to buckle against this new threat.

  “Now!” he cried to his leaders. And the lords of the five tribes and the chieftain of the Norvinor sprang forward with him. Before them all Sighern lifted high their banner.

  “Now!” Brand cried again. “To battle and war and the defeat of the enemy!”

  And some in the ranks of his men heard his great voice above the tumult, and they called out to others to tell them, and his joining of the fray and that of the lords lent strength to weary arms and courage to desperate hearts.

  Brand moved forward, and a way was made for him and those with him to enter the ranks and come up to the battle line itself. Above them Sighern held the banner of the five tribes, but not for long.

  He drove the spear point into the ground and stepped forward into the front rank also. Brand saw him on his left, and he was glad that he was there. The young man had courage, and he wielded the light Raven Axe with skill, using it to stab with its spike like a sword.

  Brand was glad also that Shorty was on his right, and together they fought with sword and shield, firming the line against the frenzy that came against them.

  The Kirsch were maddened. The influence of their gods drove them, and some even threw down their shields to swing their swords two-handed.

  This was an error, and the power of the gods turned against them. For these warriors were swiftly cut down, though they died slowly, clawing forward over the ground even as they perished to try to deliver one last strike against their foe.

  Others of the enemy were not so careless of their lives. They fought with skill and determination, and the power of the gods did not make them reckless, yet still it gave them heart and purpose, driving them forward implacably.

  The line began to buckle once more, despite Brand’s presence. He fought with cool skill, stabbing and blocking, blocking and stabbing. Shorty did likewise beside him, and the dead enemy filled the lower ground before them.

  Had Brand not ordered an earth rampart dug that gave his men an advantage, already they would have been routed. Even so, it would not be long now and Brand knew it. He thought desperately of what he might do, but even as he did so Sighern yelled a battle cry beside him.

  To the lad’s left fought Furthgil, that gray-bearded lord of the Callenor who once had been Brand’s enemy and was now his ally. The man was older, yet he still fought well. But a blade had torn into his thigh from a near-dead warrior on the ground before him.

  Half into the ditch Furthgil had fallen, and about him the enemy gathered for the kill. But Sighern dropped his shield and jumped down among them, swinging the Raven Axe of the Callenor wildly but to deadly effect.

  The foe shrank back from him, and a Duthenor warrior heaved Furthgil up to safety. With a roar Sighern swept in among the enemy, causing them to scatter, for his axe severed arms and cut heads off the enemy in single strokes. Then the young man leaped back up to the line again and picked up his shield once more.

  Brand looked on with pride. The boy had become a man. And a great one, for he had risked his life to save another.

  Furthgil rose to his feet. A moment he held Sighern’s gaze. “You’re worthy of that axe, boy. Thank you.”

  Sighern nodded. There was no time to answer for the enemy came forward again. But a great cheer rose up round about for the courageous deed. And for all that the enemy pressed home their attack once more, thereafter they were wary of the young warrior with the deadly axe and tried to avoid him. Their drive had diminished.

  The battle wore on. Here and there, Brand had an opportunity to glance southward to the woods. What was happening there? Had he miscalculated and the second Kirsch army would attack from another direction? And what of Taingern?

  The gods tried a new tactic now. Or, more accurately, the Trickster did.

  Brand noticed movement among the back ranks of the enemy, as though they made way for something or someone. He had an idea what this would be, and he was proven correct.

  Gormengil pushed his way forward. He was clad in black, and a black-bladed sword was in his hand. He stalked through the Kirsch like a hunting animal, all litheness and deadly force ready to pounce. Yet his face and eyes were visible below his helm. And for all the liveliness and grace of his every move, they remained flat and dead.

  Those eyes fixed Brand, and he felt a chill run through him. Magic was at work, but they gleamed with single-minded determination also. He had come to kill one person, and one alone.

  Like a wolf after prey he came straight toward Brand, and it seemed that the battle raging all around them slipped away into oblivion. There was only the two of them in the world now, and nothing else mattered. The fight that they had not quite finished back in the Duthgar would be ended here.

  But if Gormengil was already dead, how could he be killed and defeated? It was a haunting thought, and one that Brand suppressed. Doubt fed weakness, and here in this fight he must be at his strongest. Nothing else would serve.

  But the thought remained. Even his strongest might not be enough. As a man, Brand knew he had Gormengil’s measure, but as some magic-enhanced warrior it was another matter.

  Gormengil drew up before him, shouldering aside Kirsch warriors, and his voice came cold and clear, a match for his dead eyes.

  “Hail, Brand. Chieftain of the Duthenor and Callenor both. Are you ready to die?”

  “Were you?” Brand answered swiftly. “For I killed you once before and I shall again.”

  Gormengil gazed at him with those dead eyes, and Brand knew this was a man beyond taunting or unbalancing. Perhaps even beyond fear and pain.

  “Words,” the one-time leader of the Callenor said, “are a poor weapon for warriors. Come! Let us put blade to blade and dance the one true dance.”

  Brand nodded. His shield he cast down, for Gormengil had none, and around Brand the men in the line made space. The black-clad warrior leaped nimbly up to the top of the earthwork rampart and there faced him.

  Brand made no move to stop it. Single combat was an honored tradition among all the tribes, even in the midst of battle. Had he tried to stop it, men would have thought him scared and weak. This, he could not afford.

  But single combat was a two-edged sword. Should Gormengil lose, the five tribes would rally all the harder behind Brand and try to emulate his example.

  About the two combatants the battle went on, yet neither side fought with full attention. Every man tried to catch a glimpse, here and there, of the fight between the champion of the gods and the leader of the defenders.

  Gormengil held
forth his black sword, and Brand touched it with his Halathrin blade. A cold note rang out, and the duel commenced as if no battle existed but theirs.

  Brand struck first. His sword swept low, aiming for his opponent’s thigh where he had wounded him before. He had thought to remind him of that blow and perhaps cast over his enemy the shadow of doubt and a memory of pain.

  But Gormengil seemed beyond such things. He stepped casually out of the way, a smile upon his lips for he understood what Brand had tried. But his eyes remained dead and void of all emotion.

  Then the black sword flickered. It swept through the air and cut and stabbed. Gormengil seemed to make no effort, but the blade flashed with speed and power.

  Brand retreated. He blocked and deflected, getting the feel of how his enemy moved. But he blocked and deflected clumsily, or so it seemed to him, for the other man was fast. Too fast for mortal skill. But this thought Brand put from him. He had faced deadly opponents before. Some that were better than him, and they were dead now. Skill was important, but courage was too, and a belief in victory. Not because it was deserved, but because others depended on it. That drove him on, and kept fear from his mind. He would not lose, because others needed him to win.

  Gormengil dropped low and swept his blade out. Brand stepped back from a cut that would have crippled him, but the black-clad warrior was not done.

  From his low position, Gormengil sprung upward into the air like a striking serpent, the tip of his blade flashing before him.

  Brand stumbled back, surprised. It was a move that required incredible strength in the legs to perform. But to perform it so quickly was beyond human ability.

  The blade nicked Brand’s throat as he reeled away, and the fear of death was on him. How could he beat such an opponent?

  But he must.

  Anger coursed through him now, and he regained his footing and turned from defense into attack. His bright sword swept out, flashed and cut in glittering arcs and lines. Cold flame, pale as winter moonlight gleamed along its edges.

  Gormengil merely gazed at him with those dead eyes, and he danced away and out of harm’s way with ease. But Brand did not relent. He pressed forward, and his blade sliced the left arm of his opponent and his right leg also. Not deep, but enough to draw blood.

  There was no change in the black eyes of his enemy. Neither fear nor pain showed. And soon Brand knew something else, also. The wounds did not bleed.

  Was Gormengil dead? Did his heart pump hot blood? Or was he caught on the very cusp of death and held there, even unwillingly? The Kirsch seemed to have some fascination with death, and perhaps their gods shared it.

  Brand feigned, ever so slowly, tiredness. Everything in battle and war was based on deception, and he feigned it well, for like lies the best trap was the closest to the truth, and his arms and legs were weary.

  At the last, he stumbled for just a moment, the tip of his sword drooping lower than it should have. It was a snare. Well set and cunningly deployed. A thousand warriors would have fallen for it and rushed in to try to land a killing blow.

  But not Gormengil. He stepped back instead, that smile on his lips again that was cold as the gaze of a hunting animal. But his eyes were not cold. For the first time they showed some faint glimmer of emotion. And it was contempt.

  “Is that the best you can do? I had thought you a better fighter than that.”

  “Then come kill me, if you can.”

  “I can and I will. You know it. I see it in your eyes.”

  “And I see nothing in yours save what the goddess puts there. You are her puppet. Pulled on her strings. I had thought you a man, but you’re a toy for her instead.”

  The black eyes hardened. Brand had guessed right, for there was chagrin there, and ever so faintly he felt the presence of the Trickster. But there was some other glimmer in those eyes as well. For just a moment he saw hope, and that was no emotion the goddess would be feeling now. Some part of the mind of the man that had once been Gormengil remained.

  What that meant, if anything, Brand had little time to consider. His enemy swung a mighty blow at his head, and though he jumped back, still the edge of the blade glanced off his helm and a line of sparks flew, leaving a glittering trail.

  Once more Gormengil attacked, and once more Brand defended, fighting for his very life and the hopes of five nations and lands unnumbered beyond them.

  Steel rang against steel, and the thrum of the strikes traveled up Brand’s arm and into his body. This was now no duel of finesse and skill, but a fight of hammer blows.

  And Gormengil seemed not to tire. But Brand did. He tried to spare his body, but threatened as he was he must use all his strength and speed just to stay alive a little longer.

  This was not a fight that could continue much longer. Brand knew he was outmatched, and sought now to use his magic to discover why. He could not, or would not, use it as a weapon against a man who did not threaten him with sorcery. Nor did he think that would work. The goddess would have given him protection against such a chance. Yet that did not mean that the means by which Gormengil was kept alive and given strength could not be sought out and considered.

  Even as Brand retreated and the blade in his hand snaked out in defense, so too his magic slipped into the air and probed around his enemy.

  The black blade was of steel, and no magic was in it. So also the armor Gormengil wore. Yet around him was cast a net of power, hugging him like water dripping from a man climbing out of a river.

  And like a river, that power had a source. Fast as light Brand sent his magic probing along that current, seeking its origin to see if he could sever it.

  Brand found it. He sensed at that place the joined minds of the three gods, and one other. This was Char-harash, the spirit that had hunted him in his dreams. He knew it, and recognized it, and anger flared even brighter. He was the root cause of the problems that had beset Brand ever since he returned to the Duthgar.

  But with anger came frustration. The will of these four kept Gormengil alive, if life it could be called. Their magic animated his corpse, and kept his mind within it, trapped. He was like an insect frozen in ice, and the magic required for this was great.

  Brand sensed the combined power of his four enemies, and it was greater by far than his own. The gods brooded behind the army, pressing them on and lending their strength to the Trickster whose will drove Gormengil. Yet also, from a great distance, the spirit of Char-harash strived the hardest. Somewhere in the Duthgar he stood upon a boulder in a forest and joined his will to that of the others.

  The strength of Char-harash seemed to Brand to be greater, and upon him was focused a power of magic beyond Brand’s experience. It was not of the earth as lòhrengai and elùgai were, but born of the cyclic powers of the universe itself.

  Together, the gods were by far too much for him. And the instrument of their will, Gormengil, was thus beyond his skill and strength.

  But he fought on, somehow avoiding the relentless death strokes Gormengil hammered at him. And he remembered the words of the witch. Your enemy may yet be your friend. When despair grips you, hold tight to that thought.

  But none of these enemies were his friend, and all along the line the five tribes were pressed harder than they ever had been before.

  26. Like A Torch

  “Come to me, my child,” the god-king repeated. And Tanata went to him, one slow step at a time, fighting each movement with all his will, but failing.

  Horta watched. Tanata was but a puny thing compared to Char-harash. The one was a god, or a god that could be. The other only a man, and young at that. Nor deeply trained in the sacred mysteries. Not that training would have made much difference. But still he struggled, and valiantly. The instinct to live was strong, and the will of Tanata great.

  Annoyance flickered across the leathery visage of Char-harash’s face. He did not like it that his chosen sacrifice resisted. He did not like it at all.

  From somewhere within the foul burial shro
ud the god-king wore, he withdrew a dagger. Hilt and blade were of gold, but dried blood darkened its luster. Last night Char-harash had caught prey to sustain himself, and now it was the turn of Tanata to lend his power to the gods.

  Horta did not move. The sacrifice might as easily be his own. He did nothing to draw attention to himself, for that would be folly of the greatest kind.

  But it seemed pitiful to him that one who would be a god looked as such. Dead. Dried to a husk. Smelling of corruption overlaid with the oils, resins, wood tar and sacred herbs of preservation. The hand that held the knife was a bony claw, and upon the boulder next to him was the war hammer with which he had broken from the tomb. Dead, but alive. Weak, but powerful. Hungry for power, but insatiable.

  Of the two, Tanata was the nobler figure. The lesser fought the mighty, without hope of victory. But he did not give up, and Horta admired that.

  His heart swelled. Tanata would be worthy to learn the sacred mysteries. But that chance was denied him. All chances were denied him. The god would consume his life to grow stronger, to see the battle that might decide his fate.

  Tanata was close to the god-king now, and somehow he wrenched his head, so very slowly, to face Horta. He could not speak. He could do nothing but walk stiffly toward his own sacrifice, but his gaze silently implored help, and a single tear glistened on his cheek.

  The god gestured impatiently with his knife, and Horta looked away. Some things did not need to be seen.

  The forest was empty around him. No beast nor bird stirred. All was silent, and his heart was empty.

  Had he served the gods for this? Death and destruction? Had he served them so that good men could die? Did he grovel at their feet, hoping to gather the scraps of their power? He did, and the voice of his heart that had long been silenced spoke.

  He was a man. And he would live or die as such. Better to die thus than to live and know shame all the days of his life.