The Silver Horn Echoes

by Michael Eging

  He raised the horn, sucking in air that smelled of death. A shadow fell across him, and Oliver struck the horn away from his lips.

  “Not now!” he said, anger bubbling up in his voice. “Not now! Why should you, after all this? What of your oath to protect Charles’s withdrawal? Was that for nothing? Have our deaths meant so little that you call him back now?”

  “This has not been for nothing. But, Oliver, please—”

  “Look at you—look at us covered in blood! Saragossan blood! We’ve engaged the enemy and driven them back! We bought Charles the time he needed to exit the pass. It has been purchased with the final breaths of good men. Our men! Sounding the horn now will only bring us all shame. Sound the horn, and Charles will return—he has sworn to—and more men will die, and your oath, and the deaths of all these men will be meaningless!”

  The horn slipped from Roland’s grasp to dangle on the worn leather cord slung over his shoulder. He clasped Oliver’s shoulders with both hands and stared at his friend’s face, covered in blood, sweat, and dirt.

  “My brother,” he started. “Oh, God …”

  Oliver’s eyes never wavered, crusted as they were with his and his enemies’ blood. He embraced Roland without losing the sternness that clung to his eyes. “Oh, Roland, your prowess in battle—we’ve never seen its like before, and it will never be seen again! Through our lives, we’ve kept faith, you and I. We were companions, brothers. But everything we were ends today, cold and final on this field. No one will live to sing the tales of our deeds. Valor on this battlefield will be forgotten with the dawn. But if you sound the horn now, we will be remembered, as the ones who lost their courage in the final test!”

  Turpin approached, chewing at the corner of his filthy mustache, thoughtfully listening to the exchange. His surcoat was stained and torn, his mail battered. Yet his fierce face was colored with emotion. “Sounding the horn won’t save us, Oliver, you are right,” he growled. “We’re all dead men regardless. But still, do it. Do it, Roland! Not to call back the army but because Charles must know we have breathed our last. And if he chooses to return—if he chooses—he will be forewarned. Then he can bear our bodies home with honor—and keep our bones from being picked over by the crows!”

  The remaining marchmen, Demetrius in their midst, closed ranks before the gates of Roncevaux. Roland scanned their grim faces. Most he knew well, though here and there he found ones he had only seen in passing on this long slog through Spain. His gaze fell again on Oliver, whose fierce eyes never wavered.

  He picked up the horn.

  To you, Uncle, I leave my last report. Muscles straining with this simple effort, he raised the Oliphant to his lips and unleashed a long, hauntingly clear note, crisp and defiant. It echoed off the hills, seeming to gain strength with every reverberation, rushing northward to the ears of the king.

  On the plain below, the Saracens regained their courage, found their places in line, and charged the slopes once more.

  AOI

  CHAPTER 28

  The Silver Horn Echoes

  A day’s ride to the north, Charles sat upon his regal steed inspecting the ranks of soldiers still streaming from the depths of Roncevaux. The men sat a little taller, and their horses stepped a little higher with the soft earth of Francia beneath them, as if the very strength of their native land rushed through their limbs.

  Charles glanced back at the gloomy pass, obscured in shadow interlaced with stabbing shards of light.

  “My king?” asked Naimon.

  “What’s that? What’s that sound?” Charles gave his horse a boot, trotting a few steps toward the pass. “A horn? Or was it—?”

  Ganelon rode forward, straining in his saddle and striving to appear vested in discerning fading strains on gentle breezes.

  “Probably a herdsman trying to scare off a rabbit, sire,” Ganelon mused. “Nothing to worry about, I would wager.”

  Charles nodded uncertainly before his eyes reverted back to the army that continued spilling into Francia.

  AOI

  The Saragossan battalions lost their discipline on the advance, mad with the smell of enemy blood finally within reach. The entire horde came en masse at the remaining Franks—a veritable flood of men and beasts, straight at their center. But the Franks stood firm with spears grounded under their feet against the impact. Saragossan horses and riders alike impaled themselves on the shafts as lead elements slammed to a halt and were overrun by their own trailing echelons. The dead piled up, but the ones behind simply rode over them and continued on.

  Turpin stepped into a gap in the line and lay about with his war hammer, crushing skulls with the heavy mallet and piercing flesh with the spiked butt. He grinned, gore covering his face, and croaked out a bawdy song. To his left, he lent a soldier the safety of his shield as the other fended off riders seeking to exploit the gap. The hammer caved in one rider’s helm that leaned too far and toppled him to a crushed heap, and for good measure the bishop drove his shield down into the man’s throat to smash his windpipe. At that moment, a Saragossan trooper drove his lance into Turpin’s chest and threw the priest to the ground. He struggled to rise, a growl frothing through his lips, but the Saragossans pushed the gap wider and swarmed him down, plunging their curved blades into his body until he struggled no more. Demetrius spurred his horse through the chaos to the breach. An arrow to the chest staggered his steed. Its knees buckled, and it fell with a crushing clank of weapons and armor. The marchmen struggled to lock shields and regain their footing, but step by bloody step they were driven steadily back toward the gaping maw of the pass.

  Across the field of death and mayhem, enemy horsemen surrounded Oliver and dragged him from his steed. But the count of the Vale twisted out of their grasp. He scrambled between their horses’ hooves to pounce on a Saragossan infantryman. Halteclare’s sharp edge bit through cloth, leather, and flesh, and he shouldered the man’s carcass aside to lunge at a rider trying to reach in with his saber. Oliver thrust Halteclare up into the man’s face and dropped him to the gory muck. As he tugged the blade free, he spied a figure watching him from atop a spirited horse, clad in dark, ornate armor with a visor pulled over his features, but before he could wonder at the apparition, the enemy troopers fell on him once more. Halteclare again wove an intricate pattern of death as Oliver punched and slashed from ward to ward, attack to attack, knocking aside weapons, shattering bones, and carving open flesh.

  The dark figure beat back a Frank sergeant then dug his heels into the flanks of his energetic desert horse. The beast vaulted over broken bodies and found purchase in the ground made slick with blood. He charged. The wicked lance in the horseman’s hand dropped into position and, with a grating of steel on wood, pounded against Oliver’s shield, throwing the knight backward amid a shower of splinters. The horseman tossed aside the shattered lance while enemy troops swarmed the fallen knight.

  Roland burst through them with a wordless cry. He was a specter of death, Durendal slaughtering any who hazarded to stand between him and Oliver, leaving a bloody path in his wake with rushing marchmen following close behind. They threw up their shields to create a perimeter around the stricken knight. Roland dropped to his knees and gathered him into his arms. Hot tears wetted his cheeks. Oliver raised his hands to Roland’s face.

  “There’s no time—do not mourn!” Oliver choked on his own blood. “Strike. Strike hard!”

  Roland nodded. “I will, my brother.”

  Oliver sagged against Roland, his breath rasping and ragged, while his life’s fluids leaked from the seams of his mail coat. They left bright stains on Roland’s torn and filthy garments. Roland brushed aside Oliver’s matted hair as his tears purged the grime from his friend’s pale skin.

  Oliver drew a last rattling breath and was gone.

  Roland roared over the din of battle, his anguished cry a paladin’s wordless vow of retribution. He leapt
to his feet and, with Durendal gripped tightly in his hands, plunged shoulder to shoulder into the line with the marchmen, the small wedge driving against the Saragossans, crowding them into the narrowing walls of Roncevaux.

  Yet while the enemy continued to fall beneath the marchmen’s boots and Roland’s avenging blade, each comrade who fell left fewer to step forward to plug the gaps. Roland stood in the center of the line, cutting and thrusting at the endless enemies scrambling over the bodies of the fallen. Above their heads, Roland spied the dark horseman who had ridden Oliver down, hanging back from the fore, barking commands and urging his men forward.

  Roland pummeled and carved a swath through the Saragossans toward him. This time the warrior raised his scimitar and charged. Roland dodged a stroke as the horseman passed and sliced at his saddle harness. The warrior savagely dragged his mount’s head around for another pass. Roland crouched on the balls of his feet as they pounded closer. At the last instant, he lunged under a scything cut and plunged Durendal deep into the horse’s belly. The horse careened past then collapsed to its knees, ripping Durendal from his hands. The horseman tumbled from the saddle, helmet flying but still clutching his saber.

  “You?” Roland shouted. “You had a nation’s trust!”

  Saleem spat dust and brushed his tangled hair back from his face. “Now I’ve the renewed love of a father! What price could you place on that, Frank?”

  Roland drew the long dagger from his belt then rushed to meet Saleem’s charge. He caught the saber in midair on his blade, but Marsilion’s son danced away. Without missing a beat, Roland sprang after him. Roland took an awkward cut on his mailed arm then thrust the dagger low into Saleem’s groin, the blade parting flesh. Roland’s mailed fist smashed his face, staggering him backward. Saleem clutched at the thigh wound and desperately waved his saber in circles above his head.

  “Men of Saragossa!” he cried with fading strength. “To me! To me!”

  But no one intervened. Those closest remained consumed by the raging battle, for the few remaining Franks were unleashing a berserker fury staining the earth in streams of red. Saleem limped to shake off the wound, raising his saber and daring Roland to strike once more. But the Frank silently circled him, waiting. Saleem thrust high, thrust low, but the champion continued around, his steps graceful and firm over the littered ground. Saleem licked the blood from his mouth. Armed with only the dagger, Roland didn’t intend to close. The visibly weakening Saleem lunged, and once more Roland danced away.

  “Stand, damn you! Stand and fight me!”

  Raising his sword unsteadily over his head, Saleem lunged again at Roland, the saber whistling through the air. Roland stepped to the side enough to allow Saleem’s artless downward cut to strike only a glancing blow on his mail shirt. He ignored the pain and the warmth spreading down his sleeve. He grabbed Saleem’s arms, tripping his foe backward to the ground. Saleem struggled for advantage, but the wolf of Breton March prevailed, pounding Saleem’s face with his mailed fist until the iron links tore Saleem’s skin.

  “Explain your faithless betrayal to God!” Roland drove the dagger up under Saleem’s chin.

  Blood erupted from the prince’s mouth, his eyes widening one final time. Roland held Saleem’s head firmly in place and forced him to look upon his executor until he finally gave up the ghost.

  Roland staggered to his feet. All around him the Saragossans were losing their stomach to fight after beating themselves against the Frank wall of sinew and steel. A trickle of troopers turned and ran, and within moments those few grew into a flood of chaos. And with the martial ebb, the battle-madness in Roland’s veins faded. He knew his few remaining comrades had borne their final wounds with honor, for once the immediate threat receded back down the slopes, the last of the Frank rearguard sank to the ground.

  Roland, standing alone between the eternal columns of the mountains framing Roncevaux, raised the Oliphant to his bruised lips. With his hands shaking, he drew a deep breath then unleashed another note.

  Impatient oxen with the smell of fresh pastures in their nostrils strained ponderously out of the pass dragging rumbling wagons behind them. The last of the baggage train had arrived. Charles prepared to dismiss his court for the evening but glanced over his shoulder back into the pass, hoping to spot some trace of the rearguard.

  The ghostly trill drifted out of the gap again. “There! There it is again!” He looked around anxiously for agreement.

  Ganelon coaxed his horse closer.

  “Surely it’s nothing to worry about, my king,” he purred. “Wind upon the mountains.”

  Alans and the Tournai men murmured their agreement as they mingled with the king’s guard.

  The slopes before the narrow southern mouth of Roncevaux lay littered with broken men, horses, and equipment. Crows fluttered darkly from corpse to corpse while flies choked the lungs of the dying. Honorius covered his nostrils with a silk kerchief, picking through the carnage and ignoring the desperate pleas of the wounded. He continued until he came upon the familiar form of a man in Roman armor, his body broken and twisted.

  Demetrius struggled to disengage himself from his dead horse’s tangled harness. Honorius crouched next to him, lifting his head from the ground. A flicker of recognition touched Demetrius’s eyes.

  “Honorius?” he croaked through cracked lips.

  “Yes, my friend,” Honorius said. “It’s been so long.”

  Demetrius reached up and clutched at Honorius’s armor. “The emperor, did he send aid?”

  Honorius smiled, wiping at crusted blood along Demetrius’s brow. “Much has happened since that time we were together last. Remember that tavern on the Bosporus? The waves gently lapping the shore as we sipped the finest wine?”

  “You treated with Saragossa and Cordova, didn’t you?” Demetrius spat blood in Honorius’s face.

  “I did our emperor’s bidding,” Honorius said. “As did you.”

  Steel scraped as Honorius drew his dagger. Cradling the broken man close to his breast, he drove the blade into Demetrius’s throat. Demetrius struggled as blood rushed to drown him, but Honorius continued to hold him tight until his body stilled.

  He looked down then at Demetrius’s slackened face.

  “Sleep well, my brother,” he whispered. “Your duty is at an end.”

  The sun was dying, the day’s work haunted by shadows that could not mask the butcher’s final bill. Roland found Saleem’s horse and, placing a boot on its shoulder, heaved Durendal loose. His fingers gripped the familiar hilt. In his hands the weapon seemed possessed of its own life. He brought its comforting familiarity before his eyes—each line of the blade and facet of the cross guard by now was burned on his soul. When he lowered it again, he began to walk the ridgeline, alternately staggering and regaining his footing on the broken stone. Still he continued on, searching the lengthening shadows. A rock slipped beneath his boot, and he crashed to his knees in a shallow stream that trickled from the heights of the mountain before him—nature’s own altar to the Almighty.

  “You are truly a weapon of the ages—and I’m honored to have borne you,” he whispered to the sword, his lips reverently touching the reliquary in the hilt. “But I’ll not have you used against good Christian men. God will call you back, I’ve no doubt, when the kingdom again has need.”

  He cast about for a moment, finding what he sought a short distance away. A handful of ragged, splashing steps downstream brought him to the edge of a still, dark pool. He gazed into it, trying to judge its depth, but was unable to see the bottom and judged that to be sufficient confirmation. He brought the blade to a salute to the everlasting sky and then hurled it into the water, watching the last rays of the sun flutter off its bright surface until he lost sight of his father’s weapon for good.

  He sloshed weakly out of the pool and crested the bank.

  Snorting horses and iron-shod hooves on
rocks clattered nearby. Roland emerged into a company of Saragossans searching the slopes for Frank resistance. One of them cried out. Roland grabbed a shattered lance from the ground and charged afoot. With the length of wood, he gutted the closest one, unhorsing the rider in a crash. Then he jerked the tip free when another horseman charged, dragging his saber across Roland’s shoulder.

  Roland dropped to one side. By now the rest of the raiding party clattered closer, drawn to the noise of weapons. His attacker spun around and charged again. Roland slumped wearily to conserve his strength until the last instant before planting the end of the lance under his boot and impaling the man’s chest on the second pass. Without pause he reached down to rip a saber from a dead hand and launched himself into the remaining horsemen. Roland lunged and thrust into men and beasts alike. Trooper after trooper fell to his onslaught, yet blood also dripped from the edges of his scale shirt, his breath rasping in painful gasps.

  His ferocious attack chilled the bones of the men trying to kill him. They slashed and stabbed, and though they wounded Roland over and over, he tore through them with savagery. Riderless horses trotted over the loose flinty stones back down the slopes toward Marsilion’s camp. Finally the remaining troopers had a bellyful, and they broke, galloping away.

  Roland chased them for a few steps, his vision and mind clouded by a veil of crimson that refused to be sated. He jabbed the curved weapon at the sky, Saint Michael’s name upon his lips, but blood pooled deeper in his boots with each stride. The air was dry and fetid with death. Regardless, he hungrily sucked it into his lungs. His fevered eyes narrowed when he saw the Saragossans regroup and urge ranks to dare the slope once more.