Cast a Bright Shadow

by Tanith Lee

  Moons would rise. Or would they? Nameless had known three moons, and nights of triple moonrise when dark was vivid as day. That was when he had been a king and ruled many thousands of men.

  He stood up on the slope in the stone-littered landscape, looking mostly away to the north, or the west. In those two quarters, other lights than stars were becoming dimly visible. Presumably they blazed in the war camp of Shabatu’s enemies.

  All the men who had come with him from the sea, the men called by numbers, were accustomed to fighting. They had dropped easily into a pre-battle stance, part tension, part bravado, and part resignation. They had no tent, but made a fire down the slope, using flints from the beach, and sat there now, below.

  There was food. Thin, small-featured persons, like the priests but dressed in secular style, brought round baskets of bread and citrus fruits, while others turned spits over several larger fires, roasting carcasses that seemed to be those of deer or some bovine animals. There was liquor too, wine and beer, even raw spirits. You could discover what you wanted, what you liked. One man – Seventeen – had already asked a passing snake-haired guard if tonight women would be available. The guard failed to answer. Nor did any women manifest. ‘We haven’t earned them yet,’ said Eighteen. ‘It’ll be tomorrow, after we fight.’ The guards must have said this at some point – or else other men already in the camp had said it. It seemed there had been for the camp a wait, an interval, until enough men were present to provide an equal force to that of the enemy. A couple of the men already in the camp had complained that Nameless’s band had kept them hanging about for a year. ‘A year? Can it be?’ ‘No. He’s cracked.’

  The camp was very great, as befitted an army under such gigantic walls as Shabatu’s. And also, going on the fires, the enemy camp seemed enormous. Had all these warriors had to linger on the advent of twenty-four more men?

  Kuul had come up the slope. He brought Nameless a chunk of roast meat that smelled enough like beef, and a jug of black Jafn-like wine.

  They ate and drank for a time in silence. Then Kuul said, ‘You are a Borjiy. I’ve recalled. You were my Chaiord. I think that was it.’

  ‘What garth are you from?’ asked Nameless, finding that the right words came now, or seemed to.

  ‘Irhon.’

  ‘Yes, Irhon. I know you – but still I can’t remember—’

  ‘My name. Nor I. Nor can I yours. Only my people. Oh, and I think I can recollect my wife, but her name’s gone too. I can only see her hair and breasts and her sweet lower mouth.’

  ‘Not too bad a bargain, then.’

  They laughed.

  All through the camp men were laughing, play-sparring, wrestling, shooting at marks, telling tales, burnishing and honing weapons.

  Familiar, this, as his own skin.

  And across the landscape, in the second camp, no doubt it was just the same.

  ‘They don’t know or won’t say who we’re to fight,’ said Kuul, very low. ‘Do you reckon it’s human? I’ve seen no seefs or glers or such here, but God only knows. This is a weird and wondrous spot. It’s like a dream – or a legend.’ Nameless said nothing. Kuul swigged wine. He said, ‘We are dead. I believe so.’

  ‘Then,’ said Nameless, ‘if dead, death means life, for we live.’

  ‘You think this is the Other Place? The land beyond the world? I thought that would be merry. And not so biting cold.’

  ‘I think I live, and you live. I can smell you, Kuul. Even in the biting cold.’

  Kuul grinned.

  The sun was all down. The sky was growing luminously black, and more huge stars scattered out, thick as the shards on the beach, but even now not bright. As yet there was no sign of any moon.

  ‘Look there,’ said Kuul.

  Nameless gazed behind him.

  Shabatu, the War City, was slowly lighting up. It was not that torches, lamps or windows appeared. The walls themselves began to gleam and glow with a pale golden translucence. Around their fire, all twenty-two of Nameless’s other men had got up and were staring, impressed, at this spectacle. But everyone else either took no notice, or mocked the newcomers’ amazement.

  ‘Tomorrow,’ murmured Kuul, ‘I mean to fight my best, and take the damned leer off their faces. We are Jafn.’

  But the city shone like radiant golden ice. Who would need a moon, with such a city? Perhaps none, for no moon rose all through the long, cold night.

  During the night, too, much of the camp slept. The slumber involved most of the men from Nameless’s group. The Jafn Kuul naturally spurned sleep as most nights Jafn did, and Nameless felt no need of it. But eventually the one called Choy came up the slope with another man, Lifli – Five – who seemed to be a Kelp of the north seas. His nation was known for going seven days and nights awake at a stretch. The Kelp’s face was sad and bewildered, but he had painted it with stripes for war. Nameless did not know him, nor did the Kelp know Nameless, but they sat down together on the slope and drank, looking at the city, or away to the east for sun-up. Choy too kept awake with the others. He said he had never slept very well.

  If we live, how do we stand this extreme of cold? If we are dead, why do we need sleep or to stay insomniac?

  ‘We are far from home,’ lilted Kuul, who had a fine light singing voice. After the song he told them the Jafn story of the hero Star Black, made by God from snow to aid the garth of the Kree. ‘When he came alive at God’s breath, he also became blacker than night.’ Later, Choy said that in his country there were black men, though not perhaps as black as that. They were all remembering – their women, their sons, their histories and fights, their myths and peoples. Only Nameless, despite his earlier optimism, felt the sightlessness still enfold acres of his memory in dense ice. He recalled no kindred, no lover, no friend. He recalled no Jafn stories, and certainly not his own. He waited for the dawn.

  TWO

  In the morning the sun that rose was transparent as a glass. Its edges only had any blue, and from it poured beams of frigid light.

  Nameless saw how the sky was like a piece of palest grey marble, veined and polished, probably tactile, if you could reach.

  After all, Choy had lapsed asleep.

  Lifli was praying to a small image made of shell, with four arms and the head of a wicked-looking bird.

  Kuul had gone but now came back with bread and beer. ‘They’re on the move.’

  ‘The enemy.’

  ‘Yes. See – you can make out the sun catching points on spears – or shields—’

  ‘That’s a big Cesh,’ said Choy. He meant, Nameless knew, a war force. It was one of the words the priest had used. Choy scowled and for a split second reminded Nameless of … someone.

  But already the hideous mouth-trumpet was yowling from the gates of Shabatu. All around men were prancing up. The cold, colourless air was also full of shouts and curses.

  The snake-heads were coming too, riding through the disrupted tent lanes on their spider-horses with the jatchas running to heel, lean heads down, seeing their way by scent.

  Nameless swung about among his men. He drank with them, passing round the cup, and reviewed the weapons they demonstrated. All were eager now, or to seem so. He congratulated them. Nameless this far felt no excitement such as he had known on the beach. He guessed that would change, once he could properly make out their foe.

  Despite the guards, no other here was mounted, and there were no chariots. What of the enemy?

  ‘Come on,’ said Nameless. ‘Let’s get down. We’ll take the front. There’s no organized plan – they don’t know what they’re at, but we do.’ He put his hand on their shoulders, and they looked at him in the way he remembered, and did not know why. He had bound them to him. Therefore he must take care of them.

  They advanced, loping, exchanging banter with those they passed, some of whom then trotted after, through the sprawled camp, out on to the plain of stones. No one now turned any of them back or tried to argue.

  ‘You stay with me,
’ called Nameless. ‘I go ahead, then you. Hold together. Look out for each other, as I will.’

  ‘We’ll be first – more glory.’

  ‘Listen,’ said Nameless, ‘we’re immortal now. Not one of us can die.’ Their faces barely altered. Some smiled, nodding, others flinched, afraid of that where danger had not distressed them. But it was tepid and soon over. ‘This,’ said Nameless, ‘is to prove us to be what we know we are. Warriors. Stay together. This enemy – we’ll smash their fucking souls to pulp. Tonight, women and feasts. If not, we’ll take what we need and go on to where they appreciate us. Either this is the Afterlife, or we’re still in the world under some magic limitation. We have only to fight to be free.’

  They sent up a cry for him, even those who had only followed his twenty-three did that. But all across the amassing armies other such affiliations rose. There was no coherence, and no commander over all.

  At the front of the horde they pulled out, clear of the main force, and posted themselves on the stones. Again, there was no remonstrance from the guards. Several more of the other bands poured down to join them.

  Every man looked into the north and west, and a few minutes after, you could see the foe. At first they were only like a hurriedly moving mass, but presently it was apparent they were a mirror image, a second horde of men, jewelled with the blaze of metal, running towards them over the plain.

  Nameless bounded across the stones. Though aware of them, he no longer, despite his promise, properly saw any of his own men. His eyes were fixed irreparably it seemed on what came to meet him.

  Then something strange suggested itself about the advancing battalions.

  It did not slow him, yet his brain began to work in another way, and at the same time he heard the ones following him shouting out the news, deriding and exclaiming.

  ‘They don’t bear any weapons …’

  ‘No swords – not even knives …’

  ‘Shields – that’s all – see, one shield slung on each arm …’

  ‘What will they do, flap them together and clap us to death?’

  They still spoke of death, but Nameless noted their fierce laughter. He saw something else. The enemy were slowing down, stopping. They were motionless, and still a quarter-mile away.

  That was when he experienced the unknown power, which rushed into him, from the atmosphere or the ground. It was like the strongest wine, although wine had never much affected him, he thought – had he ever been drunk? Now he was. Still running forward, he seemed suddenly to have achieved an additional, incredible speed, beyond anything possible to him in the world, and in his skull electric fires ignited, so his vision began to tinge everything with crimson …

  At his back now he could sense that the others had been imbued with a similar genius. Growls and brayings erupted from them, like the outcry of contesting stags or elephants that charged.

  Nameless, even running, stretched himself. He believed he felt himself grow much larger – every sinew, muscle, bone – even sexually he rose up, angry, not to enjoy, the phallus only another weapon … His body was fluid, invincible – Borjiy berserker – the spell he had thought had been made for him there about him once more. Opening his jaws, he too roared.

  There were lions in his voice, grey lions with beaded manes, and wolves, snarling under their silver pelts …

  Lion – wolf—

  I am—

  I am Lionwolf—

  And I will tear them all in shreds—

  He was far in front of the whole Gullahammer now, and the bellowing of a beast detonated from his heart, throat and mouth. Cool above his own tumult, a diamond in his mind assessed the assault. Two minutes until he struck the enemy forward line – they could not stand against him. He, he alone, could shatter them into bits.

  It had happened before.

  This was when he finally saw the faces of those he was to destroy.

  Had he ever truly seen that in the past?

  Conceivably not. It shocked him, but only with delight. What did they matter? They were his to rend and splinter.

  His hand that held the knife, his other hand that held the sharp stone he had picked up, combined with the long thick talons which his nails had become. Was his face that of an animal? A lionwolf?

  There was one face in front of him, there in the enemy vanguard. He noticed it more than the rest. What was that face? It was only the face of a man …

  The sun was low in the east, but it burned on the shields the enemy held before them. Did they intend to form a shield-wall? That would do them no service. Two shields to every man, defence not aggression: insanity.

  Then the shields moved. Running full tilt Nameless – the Lionwolf – watched the shields draw in, fold out wide—

  Something changed.

  The forward line of the foe was breaking, lifting into the air, the sky—

  The shields flared. They had changed their nature.

  They were great wings.

  Every man of the opposing force was going up into the air, and swooping now in over the racing, bestially roaring army of Shabatu.

  And that face, that one face – the dark eyes had marked Lionwolf, even as Lionwolf’s eyes – no longer blue, blood-red now as his hair – marked the stranger’s.

  Lionwolf sprang upward. It was a jump no man, however mighty, could ever have accomplished, the wrath-frenzied vault of a lion. As he did so, the winged man stooped low to seize him.

  They met, between sky and land.

  The impact was gargantuan, as if two mountains collided.

  Lionwolf felt his talons sink through flesh, even as the talons of his enemy nailed themselves into his own. The flyer’s hands were unimpeded – the wings independent.

  They were eye to eye, like lovers struggling to a climax of death. But there could be no death now. Then what could there be, what invented alternative to destruction?

  Like Lionwolf’s the man’s features had set in a rictus of fury; he might have been carved from bronze.

  Lionwolf roped his adversary with his legs. This lock of limbs seemed impervious, but somehow the other dismantled it. In turn, he twined Lionwolf, and raked up one hand, clawed like that of the giant bird he had half become, to grip Lionwolf’s neck.

  Lionwolf instantly broke this hold, both of legs and hand. The stranger leaned away to give himself room and smote Lionwolf across the torso, a blow like that of a hammer. The stone Lionwolf had secured was gone.

  They reeled apart.

  The flyer, graceful as a hawk, balanced on the beating, dull-shining wings. He glanced behind and under him, searching it seemed to see how his comrades fared.

  Lionwolf too looked down. His opponent and he had met some distance from the earth, then gone up higher, borne by the winged adversary’s flight. Let go in nothing, Lionwolf found he did not drop, and was not astonished. Wingless, he too had the knack of withstanding gravity.

  Below, he saw his own men, those first twenty-three, and many more, battling, kicking and writhing in the clasp of flying men, or crashing the flyers to the plain, rolling over them, stabbing with blades—

  Lionwolf spun in air. He launched himself again straight at the one who had chosen to fight him and whom he had chosen to fight. Why procrastinate? Lionwolf thrust his knife up into the other’s guts. There was slight resistance. The flyer had no armour, only leather and woollen garments like Lionwolf’s own. The muscles beneath were hard enough, but not any match for steel.

  The flyer showed his teeth in pain, but Lionwolf saw also he was amused.

  ‘No death,’ the flyer said, and pulled out the knife and slung it down the sky to the plain.

  Lionwolf once more took hold of him then. He bent the flying man backward to snap his spine – but the flyer coiled and veered and lunged, seizing Lionwolf instead and pummelling his body so the punches rang.

  ‘This is beguiling. You fight so nicely, like a lovely girl,’ the flyer said, rocking back from the complementary blows Lionwolf slammed at his
jaw.

  Lionwolf kissed his lips to the flyer, grabbed his shoulders above the roots of the wings, and tore out his throat with teeth that were those of lions and wolves.

  As the blood filled Lionwolf’s mouth, even then, some memory, dank as despair, slunk through him. But he did not let go. He could feel the other weaken, toppling – and then a tilting judder as some shaft hurled from the ground went through one of the wings.

  When he raised his head, face half masked in blood, hair of blood, eyes of blood, the Lionwolf saw the barely open eyes of the other watching back at him. The flyer could not speak, but somehow he swerved in the air, and, taking hold once more of Lionwolf’s own neck – broke it.

  Broke it. The ghastly grinding snap screamed through Lionwolf’s skull and brain.

  Death. There was death.

  Deaf and unseeing, darkness like a cloud – falling now in an insulting rain of feathers shaken from the wings of what still clutched him—

  Before they smashed into the stones, Lionwolf felt life come back. But it was too late. Healing, nevertheless he plummeted on rocks and on the mattressing bodies of men. He lay some minutes, only part living, and next to him the other – his foe – also part living, also coming back.

  When he could turn his head, Lionwolf turned it. He looked again into the eyes of the other fallen man.

  All that could come so far from either man’s voice box was a hoarse whisper.

  ‘I will kill you tomorrow, then,’ rasped the winged one.

  ‘And I you.’

  The mantra it seemed was no longer ‘No death’.

  ‘Tell me your name, so I can be sure to find you again,’ said the winged man, ‘when you turn tail to run away.’

  Lionwolf decided to hide his recovered name. He gave another version of it to this enemy.

  ‘Know me. I am Vashdran. You?’

  ‘You can know me by the name of Curjai.’

  The spilled blood on his throat was already flaking off, the skin and tendons beneath were whole.