Adjonar patted his shoulder. “We will always honor them. The miracle is that so many of us survived. Our discipline held. We learned.”
Pelicar, who had settled down beside them, gave a nod. “If the men of the tribes will let us teach them, we will do better another day. And we gave them a savaging. The scouts who have gone back to spy on Galid’s men say that the giant is coughing blood, so that sword of yours did not entirely fail!”
It broke . . . Velantos gave him a dark look. He drank the soup they gave him, though the spreading warmth did nothing to ease his aching heart. They do not understand. I fought well, but Mikantor has many warriors. I am a smith. Only I can craft the weapon that will protect him, and I failed.
He did not protest when Ganath washed his wounds and bound up the worst of them, and presently, for there were many who had far more need for the services of the healers, they left him alone.
And so it was Velantos, distracted neither by the body’s pain nor by the need to treat it, who first noticed when the old men arrived. Or perhaps, he thought later, it was some other sense that had brought him upright and staring as they came into the circle of firelight, dressed in kilts and capes of deerskin, and carrying a burden wrapped in yellowed cloth.
At first he thought them scouts, for they clearly belonged to the people of the elder race who had been helping Mikantor, but he had never seen any of that folk who were so old, their black hair gone silver, the brown skin hanging loose on the fine bones. They were old, he thought as they looked about, both in years and in wisdom, so old there was not much in this world left for them to fear. They did not seem overly impressed by the tall warriors, and though they nodded respectfully to Mikantor, they continued to examine the company.
Velantos felt his skin chill as one by one those dark faces turned toward him. One of them said something to Grebe in the elder tongue. Mikantor’s foster brother pointed, and they came to where he sat on the other side of the fire.
“He asks are you the one who shapes metal—” said Grebe. “The one from a far land.”
If Velantos stood, he would tower over them, though he was not the tallest man there. Still sitting, he nodded. Grebe said something more and turned back to him.
“I tell them that you made all the swords for our king’s Companions.”
And the one that mattered most, thought Velantos, failed. But he did not say that aloud. His gaze kept turning toward the bundle the strongest of the old men was holding. What was it? He could feel the throb of power. The elder gestured and the burdened man came forward. He spoke again.
“He says . . . this is for you.” Grebe paused, seeking for words. “Long time ago, light came in the sky. Hit earth, set it on fire. The fathers of his fathers find this stone—but they know now it is not stone. It is metal from the stars—”
The old man spoke again, and Velantos understood, not with his ears but with his soul.
“Some of our people saw when you bore the lightning. Our fathers hammered this with stone and made a club, but the god will give you the power to shape it. You take it now, make a sword such as your people use—”
The old man put back the wrappings and held out a rough pillar of dully glinting dark metal half the length of his arm. Iron . . . thought Velantos, bracing against the weight as the elder set it in his arms, a mass of iron such as he had never seen.
“A Sword from the Stars . . .” he whispered, remembering what the god had promised. He saw Mikantor watching him, eyes wide and dazzled as his own must be. He lifted the iron. “I will forge a new sword for you—a Sword from the Stars for the hand of a king . . .”
TWENTY-TWO
“Lady of flame,
Praise to thy name,
Endless thy fame—be with me . . .”
With each verse Velantos heaved at the bellows, watching the light pulse through the coals as the fire fed on the blast. With each push the warm glow flared on the walls of the smithy, for he had waited until darkness so he could gauge heat by the color of the flames. Outside, the rain had started up once more, the drip of water from the eaves blending with the whisper of the fire, but in the smithy, thank the gods, it was dry.
“Fire in the heart,
Fire be my art,
Fire every part of my working . . .”
In the midst of the coals the crucible was beginning to glow. The mass of iron lay at an angle within it. It was too big, really, but he had broken two of his hammers and shattered the surface trying to crack it cold. Perhaps it would melt from the bottom—that worked sometimes with scrap bronze.
“Do you want me to ply the bellows, sir?”
Velantos looked up and saw Aelfrix, who was polishing a bronze spearhead. He had forgotten the boy was there. He shook his head.
“Keep on with the bronze,” he said. I wish I could. He glanced at the worktable, where he had left the wooden bowl filled with crumbled bits that had flaked off when he tried to hammer the star metal cold.
The euphoria with which he had received the gift from the elder folk had lasted for barely a day. Long before he got the iron back to the smithy on the Maiden’s Isle he had begun to realize that no one he knew of had ever worked with so large a piece of iron. His experiments with Katuerix had taught him only that it would not behave like bronze. The smith of Bhagodheunon had not been able to melt bog iron, but perhaps this star stuff would be different.
“Lady of skill,
Wisdom, and will,
Guide me and fill me with learning.”
Fine words, he thought bitterly. But his whole prayer could have been expressed in a single phrase—Please, Goddess, don’t let me fail. . . . If he was unsuccessful with a bronze sword—and when he was learning to shape the leaf-shaped blades he had ruined several—he could melt down the metal. If he destroyed this piece of iron, the gods were not likely to send him another meteor.
He straightened, sweating in the waves of heat the came off the forge. The charcoal blazed with the radiance of the rising sun in his own land, not the pallid, mist-shrouded orb that he saw in this chill northern isle. That was hot enough to melt bronze. Was it the right heat to soften the iron? He did not know, but he had to try something.
“Now you can work the bellows,” he told the boy. “Keep the coals at just that color.”
He glared at the crucible as if the heat of his gaze could ignite it. Some of the priests said that the stars were balls of fire. If so, how hot must they be? Could this metal be melted by any fire made by men? The crucible was white-hot now. He peered at it and swore—the shape of the iron had not changed so far as he could see.
A breath of air lifted the hair on his neck and teased a spurt of flame from the coals. He looked over his shoulder and stiffened, seeing Anderle in the doorway. She let the leather rain cape slide from her shoulders, shaking off the water before hanging it on a post by the door.
His instinct was to order her out, but she had been right about the need for a special sword. Perhaps she was supposed to be here. She lifted an eyebrow as she met his glare, and took Aelfrix’s place on the log.
“Does the work go well?” she asked pleasantly.
“The work does not go well—” He grasped one end of the bar with the tongs and lifted it. It was glowing a soft red, but the surface was unchanged. He scowled, resenting the compulsion to try to explain. It was hard enough to talk about his work when he knew what he was doing.
“Are the coals hotter than the crucible? Could you perhaps get it started if you put the iron directly into the fire?” she asked.
It was even worse when the person you were talking to started to offer suggestions, especially when you had no better ideas.
“Maybe . . .” he said aloud. “Maybe I can break it if it’s hotter. Smaller pieces will melt, I think . . .” He took a deep breath to focus his energies, checked the color of the coals, and reached for the tongs once more.
“Lady, bless the work—” he whispered. Gripping the iron at both ends, he lowered it caref
ully into the forge. Then he set the largest of his granite hammers in the warm ashes at the edge. Hammers had been known to break when hot metal met cold stone.
He banked the coals around the bar and turned to face her. “I told you, I never worked with iron like this before. If I succeed it is mercy of the goddess, not my skill.”
“Then I will pray to Her—”
“You do that,” he snarled. “You are the one with visions. You want your king to have an iron sword, you ask your gods how I make it!”
“It is the gods who want that, not I—” she replied, flushing in turn. “I never asked for a vision. It cost the life of a man I loved.”
Velantos winced. Anyone who looked at Tirilan could see how fair a man her father must have been. Of course Anderle would have no interest in a soot-stained, muscle-bound smith who barely spoke her tongue . . . and thank the gods for that. The woman was a sly, managing bitch, even worse than Queen Naxomene. But he must not say so. He saw Aelfrix watching them wide-eyed as he continued to work the bellows, and took a deep breath.
“Then blame the gods, not me! I never ask to be carried from my home to this wretched cold country for a cause not even my own!”
“Not even for Mikantor?” she asked softly.
“If not for Mikantor I would be dead,” he replied. And maybe better so.
“And he would be dead, if not for you—” she retorted. “In this, the gods command us all.”
He closed his eyes, shaken even by the memory of terror he had felt when he saw the boy struck down.
“Should the iron be doing that?” Aelfrix asked.
Velantos whirled. The coals were white-hot, and sparks were spitting from the lump of metal in the forge. He grabbed for the tongs, tried to grip the iron, missed, caught and swung it across to the anvil, trailing fire as it had when it first fell from the stars. The iron itself was burning—he had to put out those sparks—he dared not lose any more! Shifting the tongs to his left hand, he took up the hammer. It seemed to rise of itself, propelled by his fear.
Before he could plan the stroke the hammer was descending. Sparks fountained upward as it hit, and the iron seemed to explode. There must have been an air pocket within. Velantos yelled as a flying shard seared his shoulder. Another came to rest sizzling at the hem of Anderle’s gown. Aelfrix had ducked the one that was now smoldering by the wall. The boy leaped up to sweep it back with the broom.
Shaking with fear and fury, Velantos turned on Anderle, the hammer still swinging in his hand.
“Out!” His roar shook the smithy. “This is not your magic!”
“I am the Lady of Avalon and I go where I will!” She rose, drawing her skirts away from the smoking shard.
The hammer whipped around. With the last of his control he changed its direction and sent it crashing through the smithy wall. As a final bit of plaster fell, they stood staring, their harsh breathing the only sound.
“Then I leave! Before I kill you.” His voice hissed with the effort it took to form the words. “I will make another forge. The elder folk will help. If the gods will, I make the Sword, but I want no help from you!”
Her face went white, then red, but he had silenced her. Skirts flaring, she grabbed her cape and strode through the door.
Still shaking, Velantos began to search for the scattered pieces of iron.
IT WAS STILL RAINING. Mikantor wiped away the water that had crept in beneath his hood and peered at the track they were following. Beyond the edging of trees the meadows were flooded by the brown waters of the Sabren. By now he had hoped to be safe with Pelicar’s people in Ilifen, but on such muddy roads no one could travel fast. It had been a risk to take this route, so close to the eastern Ai-Ushen clanholds, but with the river running this strongly, surely King Eltan’s men would keep close to their own hearths.
He turned as Pelicar came splashing back down the line.
“There’s a village a little ways up the road. I think we should make for it. It’s early to stop, but this will be our best chance to sleep dry.”
Mikantor nodded. “Send someone ahead to ask their hospitality. We all need hot food. We can share our supplies if they will share their fires.”
At the beginning of this journey he would have begged shelter for the women, but it had become clear that despite her apparent fragility, Tirilan could outmarch him. She was at the end of the line now with the men who were carrying Tegues, whose wounded leg was going bad. Pelicar had his arm in a sling, and Mikantor himself was still limping. There was not a man among them who was not marked somewhere, and they were the ones who could still march. He had been forced to leave four of his Companions and nearly a quarter of those who had fought for him at the White Horse Vale. And they were better off than those who had been burned in the great pyre on the battlefield.
He slid on a patch of mud and forced his attention back to the road. Pelicar was approaching again, followed by an old fellow who must be from the village. He began to chatter in the local dialect before they had even reached the column.
“He says they are a small place,” translated Pelicar. “They will help as they can, but it has rained so much their stocks of wood are low.”
“Then we will go into the woods and gather more,” said Mikantor. When I have rested a little, he admitted as they forded a swollen stream and trudged up the track, his leg muscles trembling from the effort of slogging through mud all day. The rain had started up again.
The village was called Three Alders, a cluster of roundhouses and out-buildings built along a ridge of higher ground above the flood plain where another river joined the Sabren. It was a flooded plain now. To one who had grown up in the Lake Village the expanse of gleaming water broken by clumps of trees seemed almost like home. Mikantor found himself missing Grebe, sent home to recover from a slash across the shoulder.
Despite their guide’s warning, the villagers found shelter for everyone, for the junction of the rivers brought trade, and they often had visitors. Mikantor found himself being treated with a mixture of anxiety and respect that would have concerned him if hot food and warmth of the house had left him with the energy to do anything but doze by the fire. Tirilan was still on her feet, conferring with the chieftain’s wife about herbs to treat a sick child. He only realized that he had fallen asleep when he was roused by shouting at the door.
“We’re not the only travelers caught by this storm—” Pelicar squatted by his side. “Men are stranded between the rivers. Their boat capsized crossing the Sabren. The waters are rising, and the second stream is too rapid for them to get through. The chieftain here is organizing the men to try a rescue.”
“Do they need our help?” Mikantor rubbed his eyes, momentarily diz zied as the prickle of danger warred with his fatigue.
“They mean to send men into the river. I think they can use everyone who is fit.”
“All right then—give me your shoulder—” He gripped Pelicar’s arm and heaved himself upright.
“Are you fit, my lord?” Pelicar steadied him.
“I will be,” grunted Mikantor, avoiding Tirilan’s anxious gaze. As Pelicar went to find his leather cape, he took a deep breath and then another, drawing on the disciplines he had learned at Avalon. By the time the other man returned, his head was clear, and his warmed limbs seemed willing to obey him again.
The first blast of rain as they emerged from the roundhouse nearly sent him back inside again. But the others were slogging down the village street and he was ashamed not to follow them. And then he saw the surging waters glinting in the light of the torches, and in the need of the moment all other awareness fell aside. A line of trees showed him the other bank of the river, though most of it was already underwater. Several men were clinging to the lower branches. They waved as they saw the light.
“They cannot try a boat—the river runs too fast—but a line of men on a rope may be able to cross without being swept away,” Pelicar shouted in his ear. The villagers were already fastening a heavy lengt
h of braided hemp around a tree a little way upstream.
“Our warriors are heavier than most of these folk,” said Mikantor. “We had better help them.” Pelicar and Ulansi and the others fell in behind him as he made his way toward the tree. An inner voice questioned why he should take this risk for people he did not even know, but if his combat with the King Stag meant anything, it was that whether they knew it or not, these were his people.
The villagers began to uncoil the rope and the men got into line. The stranded travelers had seen them and answered the chieftain’s hail. At the words, Ulansi hissed suddenly and gripped Pelicar’s arm. “Ask them where these people are from!”
“From the hills to the west, the chieftain says—” Pelicar’s voice faded as Ulansi dropped the rope and stepped away.
“Ai-Ushen!” exclaimed the Ai-Zir man. “I thought I recognized their lying tongues.”
He should have known, thought Mikantor, his own grip loosening. If they were coming from the other side of the river, what else could they be? Ai-Ushen, who with Galid had made him an orphan and a wanderer, wild folk from the hills, always at war with the other tribes. Most of his own men had as much reason to hate the Ai-Ushen as he did. One by one they dropped the rope and stepped aside. The village men stopped in confusion, looking at Mikantor.
He peered across the heaving waters at the wretched figures clinging to the trees. They did not look like enemies.
“They are men—” he said at last. “And death by water is as evil as death by fire. If I need to kill them, I will do it when they can face me with a sword in hand. I am going to pick up the rope, follow me who will.”
One by one all except Ulansi took up the rope once more.
The shock of the cold water sent a shudder through his limbs as he edged in, one arm wrapped around the rope while the other gripped it. Two of the local men were ahead of him, his own men mixed with the villagers behind him. He felt for footing, swaying as the current slammed against him. Inevitably they were carried downstream, but that had been expected, and even at an angle the rope was long enough to reach the trees. As they reached the bank the first man fell to his knees, clinging to an outthrust root, then pulled himself upright and worked his way back again, taking up the slack by getting the end around one of the sturdier trunks, and making a riverman’s knot that would hold.
Sword of Avalon: Avalon Page 36