The Legends of Camber of Culdi Trilogy

by Katherine Kurtz

  The young man approached as Camber turned in the saddle, a squire walking beside his horse and carrying Camber’s shield. A Michaeline brother had brought Joram’s shield, and the priest took it up as Guaire fell into place at Camber’s left.

  “Lord Jebediah sends ready to advance, m’lord,” Guaire said.

  Camber took up his own shield—gules and azure impaled by a sword and coronet—and settled it into place over gauntlet and vambrace, then stood in his stirrups and raised his arm in acknowledgement to Jebediah, watching them from a quarter-mile farther south on the ridge. He glanced back at his men as he drew his sword, but they had already seen his hand signal and knew what it meant. Reins of anxious chargers were gathered more closely, feet set more squarely in stirrups, lances more firmly seated in stirrup rests, shields shifted on steel-clad arms.

  Camber studied them for an instant, appraising that all were ready, then signaled advance and started down the slope with Joram and Guaire. The foot levies before him were already moving, banners stirring bright and graceful against the gray of morning.

  Cinhil, too, rode down that slope, secure in helm and mail, the royal Lion shield of Gwynedd on his arm, a sword buckled fast at his side. But a battle mace was clutched in one mailed hand, resting lightly across his saddlebow—a weapon requiring far less skill on his part than a sword, should an enemy actually break through his bodyguard. A Michaeline knight bore the royal standard beside him, and the Michaeline grand master rode a little ahead with the best of his men. At Cinhil’s back followed a dozen human knights of noble family, swords and lances gleaming in the wan morning light.

  Silken banners moved sluggishly across the plain. Silken surcoats glowed like rich jewels in the subdued light, glittering against the damp green of spring-flooded foliage. There was little sound besides the muted drum of hooves and the jingle of harness and equipment as the troops advanced. The horses’ hooves and the men’s feet flattened the spring wheat of the Gwynedd plain and ground the good grain into ruin. The mud rose higher on the horses’ legs, spattering their noble riders and dulling weapons’ shine.

  They seemed to ride forever at the walk and then at the trot, foot soldiers hanging on to the stirrups of their accompanying knights as the pace increased. But then, as the distance closed, the silence was shattered by war cries, and men and horses began to run, and the order and beauty of the morning turned to carnage as the first hail of arrows just preceded the initial clash.

  The first engagement lasted nearly two hours; the second, more than four. After each initial shock, the fighting settled down to close-fighting melees, strategies and tactics all but abandoned in the chaos of hand-to-hand encounter. The plain turned to a sea of mud and blood and trampled bodies of men and animals as the two armies waged their battle.

  The enemy which Gwynedd faced was of a mixed lot. Most were the warriors of Ariella’s Torenthi allies, kin and vassals of her mother’s family in the east, strangely alien in their rune-carved breastplates and fine-wrought mail and conical helmets embellished with silks and furs. Such men fought hard and grim, neither asking nor giving quarter, with no hint of mercy in their dark, narrow eyes.

  Worse than these, though, in many respects, were the Gwynedd men who fought for Ariella: once-mighty landholders of the former Festillic overlords who had fled into exile for the promise of unearned lands and riches when their unthroned mistress should regain her crown. These had far more to lose than their Torenthi allies, for capture or defeat would bring certain retribution from the Haldane king now on the throne of Gwynedd. Such men battled wildly and took many chances. Better the quick death of the battlefield than what a just Haldane would deal to captured traitors.

  The fighting went hard, on both sides. By mid-morning Camber had lost fully a quarter of his knights and nearly threescore men afoot, and by afternoon those losses had nearly doubled. He himself had two horses cut from under him, only to be remounted from riderless beasts of the enemy slain. Once, it was Guaire who came to his rescue, snagging the reins of a squealing bay mare even as he struck her rider down and trampled him under the hooves of his own gray, the while keeping Camber’s banner aloft. He shielded Camber and kept the trembling animal steady until Camber could scramble out of the mud and swing into the saddle. Another time, an anonymous archer in the livery of the royal guard helped him capture a loose sorrel stallion, when his valiant little mare had sunk beneath him with her throat thrust through by an enemy spear.

  Camber even saw Ariella once, though he was never able to win close enough to threaten her. Surrounded by an escort of twenty heavily armored knights, she rode among the rear lines of her army in armoring befitting any male war leader, her slender body encased in leather and mail, dark hair coiled tight beneath a crowned steel cap. Several times she attempted to bring magic into play, but it was too risky in such close combat, and her tentative ventures were either too destructive to her own men or could be easily countered by the Deryni among Cinhil’s men. After a time, she abandoned arcane assaults altogether, instead attempting to inspire courage and enthusiasm among her men by her mere presence in the rear of the lines. She wore no weapon, and the fighting never really approached her person.

  The full heat of battle never really touched Cinhil, either, though he did manage to bloody his mace a few times, when occasional foot soldiers would break through his guards and threaten his person. But Joram and his men, early separated from Camber, fought hard and with heavy losses, as did young James Drummond and Jebediah and the bulk of the Michaeline knights.

  Alister Cullen, too, sustained heavy losses among his Michaelines, though he held his own well enough. When, by late afternoon, the tide of battle had finally shifted in favor of Cinhil, Ariella’s forces appeared to be in ragged retreat. The Torenthi troops, with little personal stake in the battle other than lives, abandoned the field to Ariella’s exiles and beat for home, leaving the Gwynedd men to fend for themselves. Cullen and his faithful Jasper Miller and a handful of other Michaelines had harried a smaller troop of stragglers into the edge of a wood and there cut them to pieces, taking no prisoners. They were wheeling to rejoin the main mop-up parties on the plain, a few of them nursing minor wounds, when Jasper suddenly gasped and pointed toward the trees.

  “Is that Ariella?”

  Cullen turned in his saddle, shading his eyes to see more clearly in the murky wood, then set spurs to his mount with a hoarse cry. His men turned to follow at a gallop, soon crashing through dense underbrush to confront a cornered quarry.

  Ariella’s handful of knights, a flash of Healer’s green among them, turned and formed a solid line to shield their mistress in this last, desperate encounter. Ariella had shed her armor in favor of lessened weight, and huddled almost childlike on the big dun war-horse, wrapped only in a thin mantle of white wool over her white shift, her face tense and anxious beneath a tumble of dark gleaming hair.

  “Surrender, Ariella!” Cullen shouted, pulling his horse up on its haunches as his men formed a matching line. “Your army is routed. You cannot escape. Surrender, and pray for the king’s mercy!”

  “The king’s mercy?” Ariella retorted. “What care I for that?”

  “There is no hope of escape,” Cullen repeated. His horse plunged under the restraint of the curb, and he controlled it with his knees. “Surrender now, and avoid yet more meaningless deaths. Your cause is lost.”

  Ariella did not speak, but suddenly the glade filled with the glow of Deryni shields being raised by all of Ariella’s men. Coruscating brilliance surrounded them as they charged, the power as quickly countershielded by Cullen’s Michaelines, as they took up the challenge and spurred forward as well. The glade echoed to the screams of men and beasts, rang with the clash of weapons on shields and energies being launched and parried.

  The horses were among the first casualties. Grim-faced warriors, desperate to gain any advantage in a battle which could mean life itself, struck men and animals without compunction; aimed especially for the horses i
n the first seconds of combat—for a knight unhorsed, even a Deryni one, faced grave odds when thrown afoot among mounted men.

  Cullen fought like a madman, wheeling his charger in desperate circles, trying to protect as many of his men as possible and to inflict as much damage to the enemy as he could, before he, too, was unhorsed. A man from either side and several of the horses were killed outright in the first clash of power. From there it progressed to a grim, hacking battle, shouts giving way to screams and the clang and thud of weapons striking shields and flesh.

  Jasper Miller killed two of Ariella’s seven before he, too, was slain; and the man who killed him was, himself, struck down by another Michaeline’s avenging sword—and that man fell to the sword of Ariella’s Healer, who was acquitting himself appallingly well for one of his calling.

  Cullen, though unhorsed after a few minutes, fought valiantly, taking several dangerous wounds and giving many more, until at last he alone stood in the glen, blocking Ariella’s only escape route like an avenging angel, his dripping sword held two-handed before him in guard.

  One of his Michaelines still moaned feebly to Cullen’s left, and the mortally wounded Healer was trying pitifully to crawl toward his mistress, one arm severed at the elbow and dangling by a shred of muscle. Other than those two, only Cullen and Ariella remained upright and reasonably functional.

  Ariella herself was still mounted, but her stallion was plunging with terror at the noise and the smell of blood, nostrils flared and eyes white-rimmed. It was all she could do to keep her seat and still hold the animal on the side of the glade away from Cullen and his sword. Her mantle had fallen back on her shoulders with the exertion, and her hair tumbled loose down her back like a second cloak. She was not unaware of the visual impression she presented as she brought her mount under trembling control. She tossed her head pridefully as she leveled her glance at Cullen.

  “You fight bravely, Vicar General,” she cried. Her horse snorted at her voice, finally calming enough to stand fidgeting beneath her. “I could yet pardon your treason, if you will swear to serve me faithfully.”

  Cullen stared at her in disbelief. “Swear to serve you? Are you mad? You speak as if it is you who have had the victory. You are my prisoner, not I yours.”

  “Your prisoner?” Ariella laughed, a harsh, contemptuous rasp, and her horse danced and sidled a few steps closer, eyes rolling nervously. “Vicar General, it is I who remain mounted and unharmed. Look at you. You are sorely wounded, your men dead or dying. Be reasonable. Give me your sword, and I will spare your life.”

  A strangled, half-animal cry came from Cullen’s throat as he shook his head, and it came as no surprise when, in the next instant, she spurred her skittish mount toward him. He had time only to throw himself to one side and lunge at the horse as it went by, flapping his cloak in the animal’s face and shouting as it started to rear. The animal shied violently—right onto his sword—screamed as it tripped in its own entrails.

  Ariella was catapulted into the brush, and Cullen thought for a moment, as he struggled out from under the dying horse, that she had been stunned by her fall. But as he threw aside his blood-soaked cloak, he saw her staggering to her feet, her face white with fury as her hands moved in spell.

  He shielded with all his strength. He counterattacked, drawing on knowledge he had never used, knowledge he had never believed he would use—for if he could not vanquish her in the beginning, he knew he would not last long with his wounds. Already he could feel his strength ebbing, his vision blurring, as blood pumped from his body. Already he was having to pour far more energy than he should into just repelling her attack. He had not much offensive left in him.

  He was dying. Suddenly, he could deny it no longer. He could feel his faculties starting to go, one by one, his vision dimming now, his hearing dulling, sensation fading from his hands. In an infinite second, he knew that if he hoped to stop her, he must wager all his life and hope and faith on one last, desperate act—must summon up the last dregs of his strength to destroy her.

  It was not easy. Leaning heavily against his sword, he fought his way up from his knees—first one foot under him, then the other. With a massive exertion, he forced his knees to straighten, to bring him upright.

  He could see her standing half across the clearing, her eyes closed, her arms outstretched to either side as she built her power and increased the strength of her attack. He could feel her pressing against his shields more and more relentlessly, and he knew that if he did not act in the next few seconds, he would never act—and she would be free!

  He braced himself on spraddled legs, taking all his remaining strength to raise the hilt of his sword to his lips, to kiss the sacred relic in its pommel and pray as he had never prayed before.

  Then he grasped the sword, spearlike, and hurled it straight and true, never noticing that the steel had cut his fingers almost to the bone.

  He fell as it left his hands, eyes closing upon a darkness which became more and more profound.

  He heard no other sound.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  And thou shalt be called by a new name, which the mouth of the Lord shall name.

  —Isaiah 62:2

  The shadows were lengthening and fading when the forces of Gwynedd began to reassemble. Cinhil was off with Jebediah at the base of the ridge, receiving grim preliminary reports on casualties, but Camber and Joram reached the crest almost simultaneously, and now sat their horses side by side to survey the darkening plain.

  Shadows moved amid the gloom—hospitalers searching among the slain for any men yet alive, and grooms putting foundered beasts out of their misery, and lesser-wounded men limping their slow way back to camp. Away to the left, the watch fires of the infirmary tents were being kindled, bright points against the lowering dusk, and behind them the previous night’s camp began to come to life.

  Far across the plain, an occupation force moved through the enemy’s encampment, taking provisions and occasional prisoners and securing the camp against further belligerence. Troops of Gwynedd cavalry patrolled the edges of the battlefield to guard against looting and to protect those who tended the wounded against attack by any remaining invaders. The cries of the injured and dying drifted up faintly to the ridge crest, the only sounds in the gathering twilight.

  Camber and his son sat quietly for some minutes. There was a smear of blood across Joram’s right glove, and another across his forehead, but none of the blood was his. His mail was still mostly intact, if somewhat bloodied, and his hair shone in damp bronzed tendrils where he had pushed back his coif. Camber, too, was relatively unscathed, save for a liberal coating of mud and a giant rip across the back of his Culdi surcoat. His bare head gleamed silver in the waning light as he handed helmet and shield to a squire who approached to take them.

  “How many did you lose?” Camber finally asked, glancing below where the Michaeline banner identified a sizable troop of Joram’s order escorting a train of prisoners.

  “Too many—but then, that is always the case.” Joram dropped his own shield on the ground beside his horse and eased steel-shod boots out of the stirrups. “And you?”

  “The same.” He paused. “I see that Cinhil is still functional, at any rate. Have you any idea how he fared?”

  Joram shrugged. “You see him riding. One can only assume that he’s all right. Right now, I’m more concerned that no one saw Ariella after midday. You don’t suppose she’s escaped again, do you?”

  “Dear God, I hope not,” Camber murmured. He raised a hand as Rhys cantered up the hill and reined in before them. Though he had thrown on his Healer’s mantle against the growing damp and chill, the hem of his tunic showed bloodstains where he had wiped his hands or tried to ease an injury, and there was dried blood around his knuckles. His face was drawn and pale with exertion already, his eyes dark-circled. He took a gasping breath as he nodded greeting to them.

  “I can’t stay long unless one of you needs me, but I wondered whether you’ve se
en Father Cullen recently. We’re going to lose some men down there, and a few of them wanted him, in particular, to give them absolution.”

  Joram’s face became more still, and he glanced distractedly around the battlefield again. “I haven’t seen him for hours. Father, have you?”

  Camber cocked his head as though trying to place the memory, then gestured toward a wooded area to the right.

  “He and some Michaelines were chasing a band of stragglers over there. That’s been half an hour ago, though. I hope nothing’s happened.”

  There was a shout from the bottom of the hill, and Rhys raised a hand in acknowledgment.

  “Well, I’m afraid I haven’t time to help you look. My services are needed below. When you find him, would you send him down?”

  “Of course.”

  “Godspeed, then.”

  As he turned his horse and started down, Joram glanced at his father, reining his own horse sharply to keep it from following Rhys’s.

  “Do you think something has happened?”

  “Let’s find out,” Camber replied.

  For answer, Joram touched heels to his mount and began picking his way down the hill. Camber followed a few paces behind, trying to ease the limp his own horse had developed.

  Dead men lay in the wood—enemy slain, at first, but then the first Michaeline, his blue surcoat stained almost black in the feeble light. Camber lingered there a little, trying to ascertain what had happened, but Joram hardly paused, calling from ahead that he had found another body—this one wearing the tunic of the Festillic invaders. He rode on, disappearing from sight in the trees ahead.