The Horse Lord

by Peter Morwood

  As for cu Ruruc's mangled throat, Aldric could see it closing up before his eyes, ripped flesh running like hot wax until in seconds there was only the torn coif to show a thrust had ever been received. Some healing-spell at work, he guessed: made by Kalarr himself. Did you really expect a sorcerer to rely on armour by itself? Not in your heart, no. So start to think, man! Quickly!

  Kalarr laughed harshly at the shock on Aldric's pain-blanched face, then pressed home his attack. More blood spurted onto the black-lacquered armour and smeared the tiled floor underfoot. It came from small cuts, wounds without importance in themselves—but the very fact that Aldric suffered them was like a premonition of the end.

  It seemed to Gemmel that his foster-son was fighting in a dream, his reactions automatic and often far too slow. Spells began to fight for precedence within the old enchanter's mind, but none were selective enough; all required at least some space between the duellists if both were not to share the same fate. Then abruptly Gemmel realised what it was he had to do. "Ykraith, Aldric!" he yelled above the clamour. "Use the Dragonwand!"

  Aldric twitched as if he had been stung, and the fog of pain cleared somewhat from his eyes. That was the knowledge he had been seeking, the reason why his mind had not been on the fight. Breaking ground, he enveloped yet another thrust in a sweeping circular parry, trapped cu Ruruc's blade in Widowmaker's deep, forked quillons and twisted it from the sorcerer's hand. He sent the weapon skidding out of reach with a kick from one booted foot, then as Kalarr dived after his taiken, Aldric ran the other way. "Here, altrou" he cried. "Throw it!"

  The Dragonwand flashed across the hall as Gemmel hurled it like a javelin, but it landed in the palm of Aldric's hand more like a falcon settling on a trusted perch. If he had expected his several wounds to heal at once, the eijo was mistaken—but if he had expected Kalarr to be dismayed, his wish was more than granted. As the Alban swivelled on one heel and lashed out with the talisman, cu Ruruc flung himself out of its path so hastily that he almost fell.

  "Now, warlock… shall we try again?" gasped Aldric, levelling Ykraith's carved dragon-head at Kalarr's face. "With the odds not quite so stacked against me this time, eh?" He assumed, a dyutayn position, handling the Dragonwand as he would a second taiken. "Well, come on, you scarlet bastard," the eijo hissed, teeth bared in a tight-lipped feline snarl. "Or must I go after you? Come on!"

  Kalarr whirled his sword down in a blow to shatter armour and go cleaving on through flesh and bone, but the great cut never landed. Aldric sidestepped, warding off the blow with Isileth as he began a gliding turn. Both blades met amid a shower of sparks and a steely screech before Kalarr came charging past, carried by the momentum of his fully-harnessed body.

  Ignoring what it did to his torn hip, Aldric slewed his upper body round and stabbed out with Ykraith. Its crystal flame drove between cu Ruruc's shoulders, punching through lamellar scales as if they were thick parchment, and the Echainon stone flared so blue and vivid that for just an instant it cast shadows. Then its light went out.

  Cu Ruruc chuckled thickly as he reached behind him to pluck the Dragonwand out of his flesh as if it was the sting of some small, irritating insect. There was no blood either on its point or on his back.

  Aldric said something under his breath as the sorcerer turned once more to face him, this time with both sword and talisman outstretched. When he saw the young man's startled, disappointed face, cu Ruruc laughed aloud.

  He was still laughing when Widowmaker scythed down onto his helmet, splitting its vermeil metal and the coif beneath, silencing his laughter, dazing him. Echoes of the impact rang down the pillared hall. Kalarr reeled, and the weapons slithered from his nerveless fingers to clash against the floor. A thin, bright crimson trickle wandered down his face, as if the battered helmet bled.

  Aldric looked at the blood, the pallid skin, the dark, unfocused eyes, and drew a long breath deep into his lungs. His armoured fingers clenched the braided leather of Isileth's long hilt, double-handed, tighter, tighter, the blade beginning to tremble as his energy came boiling up as it had done against Duergar. Except that this way was the kailin's way, taiken-ulleth, and clean.

  "No… my son… !" The eijo winced as a daggerlike feeling of memory and loss bored into him, and stared again at Kalarr's face. It was… changing. Shifting even as he watched to a blue-eyed, white-bearded, lovingly remembered outline. A face that had been dust and ashes these four long years, and yet…Something hot and painful swelled up in the Alban's chest; his throat grew dry and choked so that the name he spoke was just a muted whisper:

  "Haranil-arluth… ?" Aldric whispered, wanting to believe. "Oh, father…" The wise, dignified face smiled benignly from inside its vermeil war-mask, then the figure leaned forward slightly to lift something from the floor. There was a faint sound of steel.

  And the charm broke. Haranil's face crumpled, became again cu Ruruc's visage grinning past an upraised longsword—and collapsed again into a smear of oozing ruptured tissue. Kalarr's spell had not been illusion but true Shaping, an enchantment of High Magic that his weakened body was unable to maintain. And for which he paid the price.

  Widowmaker blurred out in a single thrust that had four years of grief and hatred riding on her blade. "Hail" Aldric shouted as the taiken hammered home, an unstructured, formless cry that unleashed power from deep inside him to drive the longsword half her length in armoured bone and muscle.

  Isileth burst between the tsalaer's lacquered scales, snapped two ribs below and sliced the vessels leading from the wizard's heart, then slowly, slowly twisted one half-turn before she wrenched free. This time blood spewed from the wound as if from any ordinary man and spattered on the floor with a sound like rain, laying ruby droplets over Baiart's shrouded face and on the once-more softly glowing stone of Echainon. Aldric backed away, his features immobile, wondering why he had not taken off the suppurating head. To leave it on was to invite a dying curse… although cu Ruruc should have been beyond the power of speech.

  Yet he was not. Slumping to his knees, Kalarr stared upwards at his slayer's face, lips fumbling to shape the words that refused to come. "It seems that… all along… I have underestimated you, Talvalin," he croaked at last. His mouth twisted briefly as a spasm of pain ripped through him; then it relaxed and even tried to form a smile. "Sh-should have known… a better k-killer than myself." He coughed and pink froth dribbled down his chin. "Foolish, I… I'll not make… that m-mistake… ah—! again…"

  The smile remained fixed as all life left his face, and he slumped forward into a final First Obeisance at Aldric's feet. The venjens-eijo stared down at the corpse for several seconds, oblivious to the gore that puddled boot-sole deep. His oath was fulfilled, his vengeance now complete. Was it sweet? Aldric did not know; all he could taste was blood and fear and sourness in his gullet. With a single double-handed sweep he lopped off Kalarr's once handsome head, but did not bend to pick it up. The thing repelled him.

  Uttering a small sound lost between a snarl and a half-stifled sob, he kicked the grisly trophy out of sight.

  "He is dead, Lord King. By his own choice and his own hand in the rite of tsepanak'ulleth. I… did not witness it."

  "I see." Rynert looked beyond Aldric's respectfully bowed head and caught Dewan watching them both with an odd expression on his face. Almost like a smile. "You knew," the king continued, "that such a suicide would forestall my seizing Clan Talvalin's lands? If I intended such a step."

  Aldric looked up, and all the stiff-lipped pride of sixty generations was frozen on his face. The grey-green eyes remained unreadable. "Of course I knew it, mathern-an. If I said otherwise I would be a liar or a fool. But my concern was first and foremost with my brother's honour. Believe me or not, as you will."

  "I believe you, Aldric-arluth." Rynert used that title quite deliberately, watching for a reaction. It was not what he had expected.

  "I would… would plead exception from the title for a while yet, Lord King," the young man venture
d softly. "1 was never trained for it and… Mathern-an arluth, this citadel holds memories for me; too many for my peace of mind. In a year, maybe. Or two. Appoint a castellan to hold this place for me—until I come back."

  "Come back from where, my lord? Valhol, perhaps?"

  "I think not, Lord King. The memories are there as well, you see."

  "Then if you should venture to the Empire—"

  "Mathern-an, why should I do that?" Something in his tone of voice suggested Aldric's question was not as naive as he made it sound, and Rynert let a faint smile cross his face.

  "As a favour to your… to a valuable, high-ranking friend, shall we say?"

  "Why not? I may well visit the Drusalan Empire after all. Sometime or other."

  "When … If you do, then convey, ah, certain messages of some delicacy to my allies there. Prokrator Bruda and—"

  "Lord General Goth?"

  "Quite so. You know what the situation of the Empire is; those two want no more wars of conquest and especially no invasion of this realm. They need my personal assurances that I believe them. You, Lord Aldric, are of sufficient rank to carry such assurances. Certain codes and phrases will be implanted here"—Rynert almost, but not quite, touched his fingertips to Aldric's head— "where they will be forgotten by yourself until Goth and Bruda speak words which will release them. Only then will you remember. Do you understand me?"

  Aldric understood—and did not like it very much. "Is that all?" he asked, a little sharply. Rynert smiled again, without amusement now, and shook his head.

  "Not quite. If there is any favour you—and Isileth— can do to further prove my friendship then I expect it to be done. Purely as a token of good will, you understand?"

  "I probably do…" Aldric fitted a sardonic, careless grin on to a face which did not want to carry it; then he rose, bowed as a clan-lord and walked swiftly from the room. He was uncertain which would have been more hazardous, his acceptance or a blunt refusal. Somehow he fancied the refusal would have made him feel more comfortable… Then he shrugged. The thing was done, one way or another.

  It was chilly in the courtyard; the sun had not yet risen and there were threads of mist hanging in the air. Aldric swung into his saddle and with a packhorse in tow, rode out of Dunrath and cantered east to join the Radmur road. From the ramparts of the donjon, three people watched him go.

  "Hold this place till I come back," King Rynert muttered, somewhat dubiously. "Now that we've let him go, will he come back at all?"

  The rider and the sun crested the eastern slope together, so that he was lost in a glare of white light and golden vapour. Gemmel leaned against the battlements and watched, even though there was nothing he could see. The enchanter made no reply to Rynert's question. He might not even have heard it. Within the fortress walls, a bell signalled the coming of dawn.

  "He will," said ar Korentin firmly. "Duergar and cu Ruruc learnt that much, to their cost. Aldric Talvalin always comes back. When it suits him, and in his own good time."

  Warmed by the sun, the mist thinned from the empty ridge, then faded and was gone.

  End