The Doomfarers of Coramonde

by Brian Daley

  They set off again, as rapidly as the night before; but this time it was much easier, since they had light. Within moments they passed one of the places remnant of the time antedating the Great Blow, a collection of tall columns of some black stone overgrown with vines sprouting orange orchids. Gil wanted to ask more questions but withheld them. The course was winding, but not as difficult as last night’s. He calculated that they were making respectable progress due east. Once, as they rode through a tight dell, a noise to his left drew his glance and he saw a figure duck back out of sight on the ridge line.

  “Outlaw, maybe,” Duskwind said without being asked or looking around, “Or a peasant hiding from the levies, or possibly just some curious, careful hunter.”

  They ate in the saddle, quick bites of salted meat and gulps from water skins. By now, Gil had concluded that they were testing him, seeing how well he’d stand up to being led along, waiting for him to give in and start demanding they pause, like some raw recruit. Instead, he kept a sharp eye on their route for ambush and concentrated on improving his riding.

  They paused to rest their horses and he took the occasion to stand next to Duskwind. He thought to offer her a Lifesaver—butterscotch, and much the worse for being in his pocket for two days—and she accepted it and was delighted with the taste. He found it difficult to begin a conversation; even with the trail dust on her face she was a very attractive girl.

  “Er, are all the squad leaders here good-looking, or are you the exception?”

  A weak gambit, but she allowed it a smile, showing deep dimples. “I am no combat leader, indeed. But I’ve been through this country in the past and I’ve familiarized myself with the maps at Earthfast, and none of Bonesteel’s scouts had been here ere now. What’s more, I was growing tired of Freegate. Palace life is boring, and when I tried for a commission in one of the new units, I found my martial skills were insufficient—for the nonce. Still, I can learn.”

  He found much of the answer obscure, but didn’t want to bog down now. “Why would you want to learn? I mean, it’s unusual, isn’t it?”

  “Truly. I’ve always been impatient with woman’s traditional lot. When the Wolf-Brother, my cousin King Reacher I mean, offered the assignment of spying for him at Earthfast, I took it right away. I’d long admired his sister her freedom and activity. But I’d never had the chance to practice the soldier’s arts as much as I would have liked. Not for me to sit around a Court cooing, my friend.”

  He sympathized. It would be awfully rough for a woman to get ahead in a culture where muscles and reflexes settled most of the issues of the day. He supposed he’d better get acquainted with local weapons as soon as he could.

  “We must move quickly yet for some time,” she said, “even though it’s hard on the horses. We shouldn’t run into any of Strongblade’s troops, since they’ve mustered at one central Keep, but it’s just as well to avoid main roads. We don’t want to risk losing your books or you.”

  “I think that’s a terrific attitude,” said Gil MacDonald sincerely.

  That evening they stopped and made proper camp, unsaddling their horses and rubbing them down. They even lit a tiny fire, since no outlaw or refugee was likely to go against so many well-armed men. The prowlers were inclined to leave Duskwind and Gil alone. He welcomed the situation. He let her fill him in on the background of the war and the Crescent Lands in general, at the same time availing himself of long looks at her. He was rather shy and a bit clumsy at this unfamiliar, agreeable predicament of being thrown together in the wilds with a delectable female. But he persevered, and found it all captivating.

  They went with minimal provisions, moving hard and as long as conditions permitted, the limiting factor usually being the horses. Often, a prowler would shoot some small game during the day for the night’s meal. Gil was astounded at their proficiency with the bow while ahorse,

  He enjoyed Duskwind’s company thoroughly, more so as he became used to the constant riding. Though younger than he, she had a self-reliant, confident air appropriate to an older woman. She was an enigma, at times speaking to him of the intricate etiquette and elaborate ceremony of Court and possessed of dainty bearing in jest; at others, joining in the rough joking of the prowlers, who fairly worshiped her. She plainly savored the unpolished life they shared. She often looked tired and he knew that she wasn’t used to crude living conditions, but exhausted as she was, she was evidently thriving on it all.

  During their talks he learned that war might begin any day now. Bulf, the brother of the late Rolph Hightower, had proclaimed defiance of Strongblade’s reign and resolved to have vengeance. Springbuck, Andre deCourteney and their allies were irked by the premature move, but Bulf was a man of conviction, not discretion, and it was generally conceded that a punitive expedition would not be long in coming.

  * * * *

  During one campfire dialogue Gil confessed that he was still vague about the origins of the situation in Coramonde. Duskwind, lying on her stomach with chin on hands, came at the subject obliquely.

  “What are good and evil in your world?” she queried.

  “Uh-uh, Babe. I’m not biting on that one.”

  “Well, I’ll tell you what they are here. They’re two classes of forces that have been tottering the world back and forth throughout history.

  “Good? Oh, you could say it’s a grouping with emphasis on the benign. Peace. Human weal. A constellation of attitudes that, in sum, are beneficent. Evil—and this is handy terminology only, my friend—lusts for dominance, hungers for self-indulgence regardless of others, wallows in violence, revels in pain.”

  He was lying on his back surveying unfamiliar stars, listening and cracking his knuckles.

  “Are you interested in this or not?” she snapped sharply, convinced she was being ignored.

  He chuckled. “Go ahead,” he said without looking around. “Please excuse my musical joints.”

  She giggled. “Now, labels sometimes obscure more than they clarify. Good has often masqueraded as evil and vice versa. Not all participants in the struggle are human, either. There’s constant warfare between transcendent personalities: demons, elementals, even gods. Humans who participate on those levels are called witches, enchanters, and so forth.

  “At any pass, two centuries ago saw a pivotal battle, when the sorcerers of Shardishku-Salamá tried to liberate the hosts of the Inferno into the real world.”

  His mind flew to that place. Beads of moisture started at his forehead.

  “They were prevented,” she continued, “but not before they did grave damage. We’ll never know how many heroes rose to heights of glory only to fall in sanguine battle.

  “This was the Great Blow and it altered the world. Altered, did I say? Bent, twisted, turned topsy-turvy is better but still understatement. The fabric of reality was rent and many strange things entered the world, and many others left it forever.

  “To jump intervening years, Gil MacDonald, Shardishku-Salamá tried its penultimate attack again thirty years ago. This time they were struck down almost at once, and what I’ve called evil fell back on all fronts.

  “In the north, Fim—Lord Roguespur’s father—drove the druids out to exile with the island wildmen. In the south, Thom, the Land’s Friend and the Sisterhood of Glyffa solicited the help of the men of Veganá to break and raze Death’s Hold, a stupendous coastal fortress that threw its shadow across the Outer Sea and harbored foulness. The Prince of the Waves even sent Mariners to help that final assault. Quite unprecedented.

  “What happened then we only know now. Yardiff Bey was privy to those who commanded the fight for good, but he was a creature of Shardishku-Salamá—”

  “A sleeper,” Gil interjected.

  “A what?”

  “Sleeper. He was huddling with you, but he was playing for them.”

  “Hmm. I think I see. Bey embarked on this grand scheme of his, using people and spirits, bartering with his own soul and others’. He worked Fim’s downfall, and
the druids and wildmen hold the north. He had Thom tempted and destroyed. He undermined the throne of Coramonde and set the desert hordes against the Crescent Lands.

  “So we’re at a crux. Van Duyn tells me that issues of right and wrong aren’t as clear-cut in your world. I envy you and pity you at the same time, but one thing’s certain; this war coming at us with such speed could fix the destiny of the world.”

  Gil rolled over and stared at her across the campfire. “It is clear-cut, isn’t it?” He lay back, head resting on his arm.

  “That’s the most jolting thing about this place,” he whispered. “Maybe that’s what drew me back, but it scares me stiff; a showdown of total opposites. Can anything survive a battle like that? Isn’t everyone tainted with at least a little bit of both?”

  She watched him drift in thought, and had the fleeting impression that he was mad, or Enlightened.

  * * * *

  They crossed the wide, bleak, rocky passage at Barren Ford, taking the moody Blackflood River at its least treacherous point, and swung south to the Western Tangent, eventually passing the giant merestone that Springbuck and the other renegades had left behind them long weeks before.

  The small villages and towns he’d seen hadn’t prepared him for his first sight of Freegate, and the tall spires on the far side of the forbidding chasm made him gasp. Their escort was dismissed at the barbican after transferring the precious cargo to the metropolitan Guardsmen, and Gil and Duskwind were ushered without delay into a room adjacent to the throne room where yet another consultation of war was under way.

  Bewilderingly hurried introductions were made by Van Duyn, who seemed honestly pleased to have him back. Springbuck, sporting the beginnings of a beard, clasped Gil’s arm warmly; and Andre pounded him on the back. He discovered that the pudgy wizard was a good deal stronger than he’d thought, just looking at the man. Even Gabrielle vouchsafed him a smile and an inclination of her gorgeous head, sending a shimmer through the swirling scarlet mass of her hair. She was arrayed in a long, close-clinging gown of purest white, which bared her proud shoulders and haughty neck and the green gemstone nestled in the cleft of her scented bosom. Springbuck was proprietary toward her and Gil saw that she’d shifted her favors. Seeing her, he could only pity the scholar.

  As he eyeballed the Snow Leopardess and Reacher, Van Duyn took him aside for a hasty conference.

  “We rolled snakeyes on the books,” Gil said. “I can make out the diagrams and pictures, but I don’t seem to be able to read ’em. Every time I try, it’s like I’ve got whadayacallit, word-blindness?”

  “Dyslexia,” Van Duyn said absently, disappointed. “The translation effect.”

  “Aw, well, no sense getting bent out of shape about it. I can remember all the important military stuff, I’m sure. You’re just going to have to reinvent the rest.”

  Van Duyn mumbled something. Gil grew indignant. “What’re you crying about, Ace? You’ve got me, haven’t you? You know what contour plowing is, and the Bill of Rights. And movable type and Mercator projections.”

  The other nodded reluctantly.

  “I talked to some of those prowlers on the way here,” Gil continued. “Want to know a good bet we missed? Something that might’ve really given us an edge in a long campaign?”

  Van Duyn, the problem solver, was curious in spite of himself.

  “A couple of crates of antibiotics. Or malaria pills. Seems that during a protracted war around here, there’s almost always plenty of disease among the troops. Just as many men get knocked down by dysentery as by arrows. It never occurred to me; when you go into the U.S. Army, they inoculate you for everything but horniness. I was thinking: maybe a few rules for field sanitation would mean as much as an extra regiment. Be careful about food, water, rats and lice and it might make quite a difference, no?”

  Van Duyn was already lost in thought along this new avenue. Did communicable diseases function the same way in this cosmos as in his own?

  Gil was checking out the royal siblings. “How about them?” he asked the scholar. “The shrimp and the babe in the tough-girl outfit? Can we count on them?”

  Van Duyn was suddenly angry. How to tell this insolent punk of the Princess’s political expertise? And her fine mind and indomitable spirit? Yes, and her brother’s courage and prowess, of course. Let him find out for himself!

  “I think you’ll find them quite adequate allies,” he replied frostily, but Gil didn’t miss the look in his eye when it fell on the Snow Leopardess, or her wink when she caught the scholar’s gaze. That being the case, the ex-sergeant withdrew his pity.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Bring down thunder to the land, wrap the lightning in my hand, muster, angry, eager madmen at my back.

  Have us revel in the din as the foeman rushes in; joyous slaughter, laughing havoc, glad attack.

  Help me sever limb and life; feed my swordarm, send me strife; that I pay in full my death-demanding debt.

  And when friend and foe lie slain and I’ve worked my brother’s bane, though I don’t deserve it, gods! Let me forget!

  —From “Doomfaring”, The Antechamber Ballads

  The next few weeks were devoted nearly exclusively to preparation for battle and defense. Reports from Coramonde grew steadily less auspicious as more levies were brought from the northwest and southwest, anticipatory of the thrust against the Hightower. While debate raged in the allied councils on whether or not aid should be sent to the ill-omened resistance there, Gil decided to avoid involvement in policy decisions and concentrate on learning to stay alive in this strange style of warfare.

  From Freegate’s armories he was given a light suit of closely woven metal mesh, wonderfully supple and protective, but he found it inhibitive and heavy on his shoulders in particular, where the bulk of the weight settled. Too, he was issued comfortable cavalryman’s boots. Over his armor, he wore a harness to which he fastened the Mauser at his right hip and the Browning under his left armpit, also strapping on his ammo pouches. He kept his trench knife, but presented his bowie to Springbuck, who’d greatly admired it and, forced by the American to accept it, immediately tied its sheath to his right thigh.

  Gil also reclaimed the two fragmentation hand grenades—all that had been left aboard Lobo after the sortie into the Inferno—from Van Duyn, who’d kept them for him. He was given a medium-weight sword, a hand-and-a-half bastard blade, and found that using it wasn’t as easy as it had looked. He got a great deal of help from cadremen and instructors of the allied armies, but his main coach was the Prince-Pretender to the Throne of Coramonde, Springbuck. The American spent the majority of his time at riding and swordsmanship, the former barely sufficient and the latter nonexistent on his arrival at Freegate. He had no particular talent in either area; but by dint of sheer determination and practice, he improved rapidly.

  He had good reflexes and excellent hand-eye coordination, but found he had to work hard to build strength and endurance. The fighting men of this violent world took great hardships for granted and considered tremendous exertions part of their everyday life. They’d spent years fighting and exercising in weighty armor with bulky weapons, leading extremely active lives. The result was that the average armsbearer was capable of extraordinary feats of brawn and stamina. The first time he trailed a crew of veterans over a rude obstacle course in armor, it began to dawn on Gil that he had a lot of catching up to do. He worked harder, and they helped him.

  His way with a sword was more the cut-and-hew mode than that of the subtle fencer, but his confidence grew. His ability with a bow was nothing this side of atrocious. An archer informed him that it would serve, perhaps, if he could arrange to kill all his opponents from ambush, and them dead drunk. Gil remarked as how that would be difficult to organize in the midst of battle, to which the archer agreed dismally.

  The American wasn’t much bothered by this, though, since he expected to use guns in combat if he had to. To this end he convinced the prowler-cavalrymen he’d met to
teach him to ride as they did in skirmish, reins held in clenched teeth, guiding their horses with their knees, with hands free to use sword or bow, spear and shield. He was assigned the use of a horse of his own, a big chestnut, a seasoned campaigner and well trained to war. Gil immediately dubbed him Jeb Stuart. It was difficult, and he could afford to use little ammunition in practice, but he got some of the knack of managing a horse while fighting, and got Jeb Stuart familiar with the crack of gunfire. Any face he’d lost in early fumblings was forgotten when he used his pistols in a brief, accomplished mounted practice.

  In return for Springbuck’s tutoring, Gil taught him some of his own tricks. Not forgetting how easily the outlander could disable a man with bare hands and feet, the Prince applied himself to lessons in boxing, karate and other unarmed skills. He also drilled daily with sword and parrying dagger with the best masters-of-arms in Freegate, aware that he might yet have to face mighty Strongblade in single competition.

  He and Gil also rode with the various units of the allied armies as they maneuvered and exercised, sometimes watching from the commander’s vantage point and at others riding or running in the thick of the clashes. Springbuck often took command, demonstrating growing virtuosity. Gil contributed what he knew of applicable tactics from the history of his own world.

  They were soon true cavalrymen. Their reins bore marks and cuts left by their teeth.

  The American had only marginal time for activities of the Court in the evening, usually consulting with Legion-Marshal Bonesteel or other major commanders on the relative merits of this or that innovation, or advising on the doings of the growing underground in Coramonde. He saw Duskwind, but was unable to speak to her. She always seemed to be accompanied by this or that male associate, often of what struck Gil as covetous demeanor, and he had no wish to intrude.

  The Horseblooded had begun to fill the dales set aside for them near the city, and their massing waxed and grew. Their coming was marked by warm greetings from the people of Freegate with gifts of food, drink and weapons, and toys and sweets for their children. They occupied their time with endless competitions. Primary among these were games on horseback: races, hurdling and other, more dangerous sport. The Wild Riders were fond of jumping saddles with each other at full gallop, changing mounts in midair, of straddling two horses at once and of shooting their bows as they stood in the saddle, or on the back, of a madly racing horse. There was nothing they wouldn’t do ahorse on a dare, since the darer was obliged to try it himself.