by Glen Cook
He had that air. You knew he was as mighty as any force of Nature, as cruel as Death Herself. Cowering was instinctive.
He looked me in the eye. I couldn't see anything through his mask. But a coldness hit me. It made the cold of that land seem summery.
He looked at Chenyth, too. Baby brother didn't flinch.
I guess he was too innocent. He didn't know when to be scared.
Lord Hammer dropped to one knee beside Toamas.
Gloved hands probed the old man's ribs. Toamas cringed. Then his terror gave way to a beatific smile.
Lord Hammer strode back to where Fetch pursued her regular evening ritual of battling to erect their tent.
"You're a damned idiot, girl," she muttered. "You could've picked something you could handle. But no, you had to have a canvas palace. You knew the boys would just fall in love and stumble all over themselves to help. Then you hired lunks with the chivalry of tomcats. You're a real genius, you are, girl."
The euphoria had reached her too. Usually she was louder and crustier.
Chenyth volunteered. Leaving me to battle with ours.
That little woman could shame or cajole a man into doing anything.
I checked Toamas. He was sleeping. His smile said he was feeling no pain. "Thanks," I threw Lord Hammer's way, softly. No one heard, but he probably knew. Nothing escaped him.
When the tents were up Fetch chose wood-gathers. I was one of the losers.
"Goddamned, ain't fair, Brandy," I muttered as we hit the ice. "Them sumbitches get to sit on their asses back there..."
He laughed at me. He was that kind of guy. No empathy. And no sympathy even for himself.
Some lessons have to be learned the hard way.
The circle had turned me lazy. Malingering is a fine art among veterans. I decided to get the wood-gathering over with.
What I did was go after a prime-looking dead branch laying just past the first standing tree. I mean, how hard could it be to find your way back when all you had to do was turn around?
I whacked and hacked the branch out of the ice. All the while Brandy and the others were cussing and fussing behind me as they wooled a dead tree.
I turned to go back.
Nothing.
I couldn't see a damned thing but ice, those gnarled old trees, and more ice. No circle. No woodcutters.
The only sound was the ice cracking on branches as the wind teased through the forest.
I yelled.
Chips of ice tinkled off the nearest tree. The damned thing was laughing! I could feel it. It was telling me that it had me, but it was going to play with me a while.
I even felt the envy of neighboring trees, the hatred of a brother, who had scored...
I didn't panic. I whirled this way and that, moving a few steps each direction, without surrendering to terror. Once a man has faced the legions of the Dread Empire, and has survived nights haunted by the unkillable savan dalage, there isn't much left to fear.
I could hear the others perfectly when I turned my back. They were yelling at me, each other, and Lord Hammer. They thought I had gone crazy.
"Will," Brandy called. "How come you're jumping around like that?"
"Tree," I said, "you're going to lose this round."
It laughed in my mind.
I started backing up. Dragging my branch. Feeling for any trace of footsteps I had left coming here.
Good thinking. But not good enough. The tree hadn't exhausted its arsenal.
A branch fell. A big one. I dodged. My feet slipped on the ice. I cracked my head good. I wasn't thinking when I got up. I started walking. Probably the wrong way.
I heard Brandy yelling. "Will, you stupid bastard, stand still!"
And Russ, "Get a rope, somebody. We'll lasso him."
I didn't understand. My feet kept shuffling.
Then came the crackle of flames and stench of oily smoke. It caught my attention. I stopped, turned.
My captor had become a pillar of fire. It screamed in my mind.
Nothing should burn that fast, that hot. Not in that weather. But the damned thing went up like an explosion.
The smell of sorcery fouled the air.
The flames peaked, began dying. I could see through.
The circle and my friends glimmered before me. Facing the tree, a few yards beyond, stood Lord Hammer. He held one arm outstretched, fingers in a King's X.
He stared at me. I peered into his eye slots and felt him calling. I took a step.
It was a long, long journey. I had to round some kink in the corridor of time before I got my feet onto the straight line path to safety.
I made it.
Still dragging that damned branch.
I stumbled. Lord Hammer's arm fell. He caught me. His touch was as gentle as a lover's caress, yet I felt it to my bones. I had the feeling that there was nothing more absolute.
I got hold of myself. He released me.
His shoulders slumped slightly as he wheeled and stalked back to the circle. It was the first sign of weariness he had ever shown.
I glanced back.
That damned tree stood there looking like it hadn't been touched. I felt its bitterness, its rage, its loss.. .And its siren call.
I scooted back inside the circle like a kid running home after getting caught pulling a prank.
V
"Chenyth, it was on fire. I saw it with my own eyes."
"I saw what happened, Will. Lord Hammer just stood there with his arm out. You stopped acting goofy and came back."
The campfires cast enough light to limn the nearest trees. I glanced at the one that had had me. I shuddered. "Chenyth, I couldn't get back."
"Will..."
"You listen to me. When Lord Hammer says do something, do it. Mom would kill me if I didn't bring you home."
She was going to get nasty anyway. I had taken Chenyth off after she had sworn seven ways from Sunday that he wasn't going to go. It had been a brutal scene. Chenyth pleading, Mom screaming, me ducking epithets and pots.
My mother had had a husband and eight sons. When the dust of the Great Eastern Wars settled, she had me and little Chenyth, and she hadn't seen me but once since then.
Then I came back with my story about signing on with Lord Hammer. And Chenyth, who had been feeding on her stories about Dad and the rest of us being heroes in the wars, decided he wanted to go too.
She told him no, and meant it. It was too late to do anything about me, but her last child wasn't going to be a soldier.
Sometimes I was ashamed of sneaking him out. She would be dying still, in tiny bits each day. But Chenyth had to grow up sometime...
"Hey! Listen up!" Fetch yelled. "Hey! I said knock off the tongue music. Got a little proclamation from the boss."
"Here it comes. All time ass-chewing for doing a stupid," I said.
She used Itaskian first. Most of us understood it. She changed languages for the Harish and a few others who didn't. We drifted toward the black tent.
From the heart of the meadow I could see the pattern of the fire pits. Each lay in one of the angles of a five-pointed star.
A pentagram. This meadow was a live magical symbol.
"It'll only be a couple days till we get where we're heading. Maybe sooner. The boss says it's time to let you know what's happening. Just so you'll stay on your toes. The name of the place is Kammengarn." She grinned, exposing dirty teeth.
It took a while. The legend was old, and didn't get much notice outside Itaskia's northern provinces, where Rainheart is a folk hero.
Bellweather popped first. "You mean like the Kammengarn in the story about Rainheart slaying the Kammengarn Dragon?"
"You got it, Captain."
Most of us just put on stupid looks, the southerners more so than those of us who shared cultural roots with Itaskia. I don't think the Harish ever understood.
"Why? What's there?" Bellweather asked.
Fetch laughed. The sound was hard to describe. A little bit of cack
le, of bray, and of tinkle all rolled into one astonishing noise. "The Kammengarn Dragon, idiot. Silcroscuar. Father of All Dragons. The big guy of the dragon world. The one who makes the ones you saw in the wars look like crippled chickens beside eagles."
"You're not making sense," Chenyth responded. "What's there? Bones? Rainheart killed the monster three or four hundred years ago."
Lord Hammer came from his tent. He stood behind Fetch, his arms folded. He remained as still, as lifeless, as a statue in clothes. We became less restive.
He was one spooky character. I felt my arm where he had caught me. It still tingled.
"Rainheart's successes were exaggerated," Fetch told us. She used her sarcastic tone. The one that blistered obstinate rocks and mules. "Mostly by Rainheart. The dragon lives. No mortal man can kill it. The gods willed that it be. It shall be, so long as the world endures. It is the Father of All Dragons. If it perishes, dragons perish. The world must have its dragons."
It was weird, the way she changed while she was talking. All of a sudden she wasn't Fetch anymore. I think we all sneaked peeks at Lord Hammer to see if he were doing some ventriloquist trick.
Maybe he was. He could be doing anything behind that iron mask.
I wasn't sure Lord Hammer was human anymore. He might be some unbanished devil left over from the great thaumaturgic confrontations of the wars.
"Lord Hammer is going to Kammengarn to obtain a cup of the immortal Dragon's blood."
Hammer ducked into his tent. Fetch was right behind him.
"What the hell?" Brandy demanded. "What kind of crap is this?"
"Hammer don't lie," I replied.
"Not that we know of," Chenyth said.
"He's a plainspoken man, even if Fetch does his talking. He says the Kammengarn Dragon is alive, I believe him. He says we're going to kype a cup of its blood, there it is. I reckon we're going to try."
"Will..."
I went and squatted by our fire. I needed a little more warming. The dead wood of the forest burned pretty ordinarily.
The men were quiet for a long time.
What was there to say?
We had taken Hammer's gold.
Even professional griper Brandy didn't say much by way of complaint.
Mikhail had been right. You went on even when the cause was a loser. It became a matter of honor.
Ormson killed the silence. His action was a minor thing, characteristic of his race, but it divided the journey into different phases, now and then, and inspired the resolution of the rest of us.
He drew his sword, began whetting it.
The stone made a shing-shing sound along his blade. For an instant it was the only sound to be heard.
We were old warriors. That sound spoke eloquently of battles beyond the dawn. I drew my sword...
I had taken the gold. I was Lord Hammer's man.
VI
A metallic symphony played as stones sharpened swords and spearheads. Men tested bowstrings and thumped weathered shields. Old greaves clanked. Leather armor, too long unoiled, squeaked.
Lord Hammer stepped from his tent. His mask bore no paint now. Only chance flickers of firelight revealed the existence of anything within his cowl.
When his gaze met mine I felt I was looking at a man who was smiling.
Chenyth fidgeted with his gear. Then, "I'm going to see what Jamal's doing."
He sheathed the battered sword I had given him and wandered off. He didn't cut much of a figure as a warrior. He was just a skinny blond kid who looked like a gust of wind would blow him away, or a willing woman turn him to jelly.
Eyes followed him. Pain filled some. We had all been there once. Now we were here.
He was our talisman against our mortality.
I started wondering what the Harish were up to myself. I followed Chenyth. They were almost civil while he was around.
They were ships without compasses, those four, more lost than the rest of us. They were religious fanatics who had sworn themselves to a dead cause. They were El Murid's Chosen Ones, his most devoted followers, a dedicated cult of assassins. The Great Eastern Wars had thrown their master into eclipse. His once vast empire had collapsed. Now, according to rumor, El Murid was nothing but a fat, decrepit opium addict commanding a few bandits in the south desert hills of Hammad al Nakir. He spent his days pulling on his pipe and dreaming about an impossible restoration. These four brother assassins were refugees from the vengeance of the new order...
Defeat had left them with nothing but one another and their blades. About what victory had given us.
Harish took no wives. They devoted themselves totally to the mysteries of their brotherhood, and to fulfilling the commands of their master.
No one gave them orders anymore. Yet they had sworn to devote their lives to their master's needs.
They were waiting. And while they waited, they survived by selling what they had given El Murid freely.
Like the rest of us, they were what history had made them. Bladesmen.
They formed a cross, facing their fire. Chenyth knelt beside Jamal. They talked in low tones. The others watched with stony faces partially concealed by thin veils and long, heavy black beards. Foud, the oldest, dyed his to keep the color. They were all solid, tough men. Killers unfamiliar with remorse.
All four held ornate silver daggers.
I stopped, amazed.
They were permitting Chenyth to watch the consecration of Harish kill-daggers. It was one of the high mysteries of their cult.
They sensed my presence, but went on removing the enameled names of their last victims from amidst the engraved symbols on the flats of their blades. Those blades were a quarter inch thick near the hilt. The flat ran half the twelve inch length. Each blade was an inch wide at its base.
They seemed heavy, clumsy, but the Harish used them with terrifying efficiency.
One by one, oldest to youngest, they thrust their daggers into the fire to extinguish the last gossamer of past victims' souls still clinging to the deadly engraving. Then they laid their blades across their hearts, beneath the palms of their left hand. Foud spoke a word.
Chenyth later told me the ritual was coached in the language of ancient Ilkazar. It was an odd tongue they used, like nothing else I've heard.
Foud chanted. The others answered.
Fifteen minutes passed. When they finished even a dullard like myself could feel the Power hovering round the Harish fire.
Lord Hammer came out of his tent. He peered our way briefly, then returned.
The four plunged their blades into the fire again.
Then they joined the ritual everyone else had been pursuing. They produced their whetstones.
I considered Foud's blade. Nearly two inches were missing from its length. It had been honed till it had narrowed a quarter. The engraving was almost invisible. He had served El Murid long and effectively.
His gaze met mine. For an instant a smile flickered behind his veil.
That was the first any of them had even admitted my existence.
A moment later Jamal said something to Chenyth. The younger Harish was the only one who admitted to understanding Itaskian, though we all knew the others did too. Chenyth nodded and rose.
"They're going to name their daggers. We have to go."
Times change. Only a few years ago men like these had tried to kill Ravelin's Queen. Now we were allies.
The glint in Foud's eye told me that things might be different now if he had been the man sent then.
The Harish believed. In their master, in themselves. Every assassin who consecrated blade was as sure of himself as was Foud.
"What're they doing here?" I muttered at Chenyth. I knew. The same as me. Doing what they knew. Surviving the only way they knew. Still,.. The Harish revered their Cause, even though it was lost.
They wanted to bring The Disciple's salvation to the whole world, using every means at their disposal.
Toamas was awake and chipper when we got back. "I
ever tell about the time I was with King Bragi, during the El Murid Wars, when he was just another blank shield? It was a town in Altea..."
I guess that kept us going, too. Maybe one mercenary in fifty thousand made it big. I guess we all had some core of hope, or belief in ourselves, too.
VII
"All right, you goat-lovers! Drag your dead asses out. We got some hiking to do today."
Fetch had a way with words like no lady I've ever known. I slithered out of my blankets, scuttled to the fire, tumbled some wood on, and slid back into the wool. That circle may have been springish, but there was a nip in the air.
Chenyth rolled over. He muttered something about eyes in the night.
"Come on. Roll out. We got a long walk ahead."
Chenyth sat up. "Phew! One of these days we've got to take time off for baths. Hey. Toamas. Wake up." He shook the old man. "Oh!"
"What's the matter?"
"I think he's dead, Will."
"Toamas? Nah. He just don't want to get up." I shook him.
Chenyth was right.
I jumped out of there so fast I knocked the tent down on Chenyth. "Fetch. The old man's dead. Toamas."
She kicked a foot sticking out of another tent, gave me a puzzled look. Then she scurried into the black tent.
I tried to get a look inside. But there were inside flaps too.
Lord Hammer appeared a moment later. His mask was paintless. His gaze swept the horizon, then the camp. Fetch popped out as he started toward our tent.
Chenyth came up cussing. "Damnit, Will, what the hell you..." His jaw drooped. He scrambled out of Lord Hammer's path.
Fetch whipped past and started hauling tent away. Lord Hammer knelt, hand over Toamas's heart. He moved it to the grass. Then he walked to the gap we thought of as a gate.
"What's he doing?" Chenyth asked.
"Wait," Fetch told him.
Lord Hammer halted, faced left, began pacing the perimeter. He paused several times. We resumed our morning chores. Brandy cussed the gods both on Toamas's behalf and because he faced another miserable breakfast. You couldn't tell which mattered more to him. Brandy bitched about everything equally.