by Andre Norton
“And have you, Master Trader,” asked the woman, “ever seen a man born of woman who can control the tides?”
“Control them, no, ride them, yes! That is my magic.” He thumped his corselet with a gesture which might have been theatrical, save that for him it was right. “But there is no riding with Kolder, and now they plan to strike at Sulcarkeep! Let the stupid wits of Alizon think to hold aloof, they shall be served in turn as Gorm was. But Sulcarmen man their walls — they fight! And when our port goes, those sea tides sweep close to you, lady. Rumor says that you have the magic of wind and storm, as well as those spells which twist a man’s shape and wits. Can your magic stand against Kolder?”
Her hands went to the jewel on her breast and she smoothed it.
“It is the truth I speak now, Magnis Osberic — I do not know. Kolder is unknown, we have not been able to breach its walls. For the rest — I agree. The time has come when we must take a stand. Captain,” she hailed Koris, “what is your thought upon the matter?”
His handsome face did not lose its bitter shadow, but his eyes were alight.
“I say that while we can use swords, then let us! With your permission, Estcarp will ride to Sulcarkeep.”
“The swords of Estcarp shall ride, if that is your decision, Captain, for yours is the way of arms and you speak accordingly. But also shall that other Power ride in company, so what force we have shall be given.”
She made no summoning gesture, but the witch who had spied in Alizon moved from behind the chair to stand upon the Guardian’s right hand. And her dark, slanted eyes moved over the company until they found Simon sitting apart. Had a shadow of a smile, gone in an instant, spread from her eyes to her lips? He could not have sworn to it, but he thought that was so. He did not understand why, but in that moment Simon was aware of a very fragile thread spun between them, and he did not know whether he chafed against the thinnest of bonds or not.
When they rode out of the city in the midafternoon Simon discovered by some chance his mount matched pace with hers. As the men of the Guard she wore mail, the scarfed helmet. There was no outward difference between her and the rest, for a sword hung at her hip, and the same sidearm at her belt as Simon carried.
“So, man of war from another world,” her voice was low and he thought it for his hearing alone, “we travel the same train once again.”
Something in her serene composure irked him. “Let us hope this time to hunt instead of being hunted.”
“To each his day,” she sounded indifferent. “I was betrayed in Alizon, and unarmed.”
“And now you ride with sword and gun.”
She glanced down at her own equipment and laughed. “Yes, Simon Tregarth, with sword and gun — and other things. But you are right in one thought, we hasten to a dark meeting.”
“Foretelling, lady?” His impatience ripened. For that moment he was an unbeliever. It was far easier to trust in steel which fitted into the hand than in hints, looks, feelings.
“Foretelling, Simon.” Her narrow eyes regarded him still with that shadow smile somewhere in their depths. “I am laying no geas, nor quest upon you, outland man. But this I know: our two strands of life stuff have been caught up together by the Hand of the Over Guardian. What we wish and what will come of it may be two very different things. This I shall say, not only to you, but to all this company — beware the place where rocks arch high and the scream of the sea eagle sounds!”
Simon forced an answering smile. “Believe me, lady, in this land I watch as if I had eyes set around my head in a circlet. This is not my first raiding party.”
“As has been known. Else you would not ride with the Hawk,” she pointed with a lift of her chin to Koris. “Were you not of the proper metal he would have none of you. Koris is a warrior bred, and a leader born — to Estcarp’s gain!”
“And you foresee this danger at Sulcarkeep?” he pressed.
She shook her head. “You have heard how it is with the Gift. Bits and patches are granted us — never the whole pattern. But there are no city walls in my mind picture. And I think it lies closer than the sea rim. Loose your dart gun, Simon, or bare those knowledgeable fists of yours.” She was amused again, but her laughter did not jeer — rather it was the open good humor of comradeship. He knew that he must accept her on her own proffered terms.
V
DEMON BATTLE
The troop from Estcarp pushed the pace but they had still a day’s journey before them when they rode out of the last of the frontier posts and headed along the curve of the seaport highway. They had changed mounts regularly at the series of Guard installations and spent the night at the last fort, keeping to a steady trot that ate up the miles.
Although the Sulcarmen did not ride with the same ease as the Guard, they clung grimly to saddles which seemed too small for their bulk — Magnis Osberic not being unique in his stature — and kept up, riding with the fixed purpose of men to whom time itself was a threatening enemy.
But the morning was bright, and patches of purple flowering bush caught radiance from the sun. The air carried the promise of salt waves ahead and Simon knew a lift of heart which he had thought lost long ago. He did not realize that he was humming until a familiar husky voice cut from his left.
“Birds sing before the hawk strikes.”
He met that mockery good-naturedly. “I refuse to listen to the croaking of ill — it is too fine a day.”
She plucked at the mail scarf wreathing her shoulders and throat, as if its supple folds were a kind of imprisonment. “The sea — it is in the wind here—” Her gaze roamed ahead where the road rippled to the horizon. “We have a portion of the sea in our veins, we of Estcarp. That is why Sulcar blood can mingle with ours, as it has oftimes. Someday I would take to the sea as a venture. There is a pull in the very surge of the waves as they retreat from the shore.”
Her words were a singing murmur, but Simon was suddenly alert, the tune he had hummed dried in his throat. He might not have the gifts of the Estcarp witches, but deep within him something crawled, stirred into life, and before he reasoned it through, his hand flashed up in a signal from his own past as he reined in his horse.
“Yes!” Her hand was flung to echo his and the men behind them halted. Koris’ head whipped about: he made his own signal and the whole company came to a stop.
The Captain passed the lead momentarily toTunston and rode back. They had their flankers out; nothing could be charged to lack of vigilance.
“What is it?” Koris demanded.
“We are running into something.” Simon surveyed the terrain ahead, laying innocently open under the sun. Nothing moved except a bird spiralling high. The wind had died so that even its puffs did not disturb the patches of brush. Yet he would stake all his experience and judgment upon the fact that before them a trap was waiting to snap jaws.
Koris’ surprise was fleeting. He had already glanced from Simon to the witch. She sat forward in the saddle, her nostrils expanded as she breathed deeply. She might have been trying the scent as does a hound. Dropping the reins she moved her fingers in certain signs, and then she nodded sharply with complete conviction.
“He is right. There is a blank space ahead, one I can not penetrate. It may be a force barrier — or hide an attack.”
“But how did he — the gift is not his!” Koris’ protest was quick and harsh. He flashed a glance at Simon which the other could not read, but it was not of confidence. Then he issued orders, spurring forward himself to lead one of those circling sweeps which were intended to draw an overanxious enemy into the open.
Simon drew his dart gun. How had he known — how did he know they were advancing into danger? He had had traces of such foreknowledge in the past — as on the night he had met Petronius — but never had it been so sharp and clear, with a strength which increased as he rode.
The witch kept beside him, just behind the first line of Guards, and now she chanted. From inside her mail shirt she had brought out that clo
uded jewel which was both a weapon and the badge of her calling. Then she held it above her head at arm’s length and cried aloud some command which was not in the tongue Simon had painstakingly learned.
There came into view a natural formation of rocks pointing into the sky as fangs from some giant jawbone, and the road ran between two which met in the semblance of an arch. About the foot of the standing stones was a mass of brush, dead and brown, or living and green, to form a screen.
From the gem a spearpoint of light struck upon the tallest of those toothstones, and from that juncture of beam and rock spread a curling mist which thickened into a cottony fog, blanketing out the pillars and the vegetation.
Out of that clot of gray-white stuff burst the attack, a wave of armed and armored men coming forward at a run in utter silence. Their helms were head-enveloping and visored, giving them the unearthly look of beaked birds of prey. And the fact that they advanced without any calls or orders along their ranks added to the weirdness of the sudden sortie.
“Sul… Sul…Sul…!” The sea rovers had their swords out, and swung them in time to that thunderous shout as they drew into a line which sharpened into a wedge, Magnis Osberic forming its point.
The Guard raised no shout, nor did Koris issue any orders. But marksmen picked their men and shot, swordsmen rode ahead, their blades ready. And they had the advantage of being mounted, while the silent enemy ran afoot.
Simon had studied the body armor of Estcarp and knew where the weak points existed. Whether the same was true of Kolder armor he could not tell. But he aimed for the armpit of one man who was striking at the first Guard to reach the cresting wave of the enemy forces. The Kolder spun around and crashed, his pointed visor digging into the earth.
“Sul… Sul… Sul…!” The war shouts of the Sulcarmen were a surf roar as the two bands of fighters met, mingled, and swirled in a vicious hand to hand combat. In the first few moments of the melee Simon was aware of nothing but his own part in the affair, the necessity for finding a mark. And then he began to note the quality of the men they battled.
For the Kolder force made no attempt at self-preservation. Man after man went blindly to his death because he did not turn from attack to defense in time.
There was no dodging, no raising of shields or blade to ward off blows. The foot soldiers fought with a dull ferocity, but it was almost mechanical. Clockwork toys, Simon thought, wound up and set marching.
Yet these were supposed to be the most formidable foemen known to this world! And now they were being cut down easily, as a child might push over a line of toy soldiers.
Simon lowered his gun. Something within him revolted against picking off the blind fighters. He spurred his mount to the right in time to see one of the beaked heads turn in his direction. The Kolder came forward at a brisk trot. But he did not engage Simon as the other had expected. Instead he leaped tigerishly at the rider just beyond — the witch.
Her mastery of her horse saved her from the full force of that dash and her sword swung down. But the blow was not clean, catching on the pointed visor of the Kolder and so being deflected over his shoulder.
Blind as he might be in some respects, the fellow was well schooled in blade work. The blue length of steel in his hand flashed in and out, in its passing sweeping aside the witch’s weapon, tearing it from her hand. Then he cast aside his own weapon and his mail-backed glove grabbed for her belt, tearing her from the saddle in spite of her struggles, with an ease which Koris might have displayed.
Simon was on him now and that curious fault which was losing his comrades their battle possessed this Kolder as well. The witch was fighting so desperately in his hold that Simon dared not use his sword. He drew his foot from the stirrups as he urged his horse closer, and kicked out with all the force he could put behind that blow.
The toe of his boot met the back of the Kolder’s round helmet, and the impact of that meeting numbed Simon’s foot. The man lost his balance and sprawled forward, bearing the witch with him. Simon swung from the saddle, stumbling, with fear that his jarred leg would give under him. His groping hands slid over the Kolder’s plated shoulder, but he was able to pull the fellow away from the gasping woman and send him over on his back, where he lay beetle-wise, his hands and legs still moving feebly, the blankness of his beaked visor pointing up.
Shedding her mailed gloves the woman knelt by the Kolder, busy with the buckles of his helm. Simon caught at her shoulder.
“Mount!” He ordered, drawing his own horse forward for her.
She shook her head, intent upon what she was doing.
The stubborn strap gave and she wrenched off the helm. Simon did not know what he had expected to see. His imagination, more vivid than he would admit, had conjured up several mental pictures of the hated aliens — but none of them matched this face.
“Herlwin!”
The hawk crown helmet of Koris cut between Simon and that face as the Captain of the Guard knelt beside the witch, his hands going out to the fallen man’s shoulders as if to draw him into the embrace of close friends.
Eyes as green-blue as the Captain’s, in a face as regularly handsome, opened, but they did not focus either on the man who called, or the other two bending over him. It was the witch who loosened Koris’ grip. She cupped the man’s chin, holding still his rolling head, peering into those unseeing eyes. Then she loosed him and pulled away, wiping her hands vigorously on the coarse grass. Koris watched her.
“Herlwin?” It was more a question addressed to the witch than an appeal to the man in Kolder’s trappings.
“Kill!” She ordered between set teeth. Koris’ hand went out to the sword he had dropped on the grass.
“You can’t!” Simon protested. The fellow was harmless now, knocked partly unconscious by the blow. They could not just run him through in cold blood. The woman’s gaze crossed his, steel cold. Then she pointed to that head, rolling back and forth again.
“Look, outworld man!” She jerked him down beside her.
With an odd reluctance Simon did as she had done, took the man’s head between his hands. And on that moment of contact he nearly recoiled. There was no human warmth in that flesh; it did not have the chill of metal nor of stone, but of some unclean, flabby stuff, firm as it looked to the eye. When he stared down into those unblinking eyes, he sensed rather than saw a complete nothingness which could not be the result of any blow, no matter how hard or straightly delivered. What lay there was not anything he had ever chanced upon before — an insane man still has the cloak of humanity, a mutilated or mangled body could awaken pity to soften horror. Here was the negation of all which was right, a thing so loathsomely apart from the world that Simon could not believe it was meant to see sun or walk upon wholesome earth.
As the witch had done before him, he scrubbed his hands on the grass trying to rub from them the contamination he felt. He scrambled to his feet and turned his back as Koris swung the sword. Whatever the Captain struck was dead already long dead and damned.
There were only dead men to mark the Kolder force, and two slain Guardsmen, one Sulcar corpse being lashed across his horse. The attack had been so strikingly inept that Simon could only wonder why it had been made. He fell in step with the Captain and discovered that he was in search of knowledge.
“Unhelm them!” The order passed from one group of Guardsmen to the next. And beneath each of those beak helms they saw the same pale faces with heads of cropped blond hair, those features which argued they were akin to Koris.
“Midir!” he paused beside another body. A hand twitched, there was the rattle of death in the man’s throat.”Kill!” The Captain’s order was dispassionate, and it was obeyed with quick efficiency.
He looked upon every one of the fallen, and three more times he ordered the death stroke. A small muscle twitched at the comer of his well-cut mouth, and what lay in his eyes was far from the nothingness which had been mirrored in the enemies’. The Captain, having made the rounds of the bodies, came b
ack to Magnis and the Witch.
“They are all of Gorm!”
“They were of Gorm,” the woman corrected him. “Gorm died when it opened its sea gates to Kolder. Those who lie here are not the men you remember, Koris. They have not been men for a long time — a long, long time! They are hands and feet, fighting machines to serve their masters, but true life they did not have. When the Power drove them out of hiding they could only obey the one order they had been given — find and kill. Kolder can well use these things they have made to fight for them, to wear down our strength before they aim their greater blows.”
That lip twitch pulled the Captain’s mouth into something which curved but in no way resembled a smile.
“So in a measure do they betray a weakness of their own. Can it be that they lack manpower?” Then he corrected himself, slamming his sword back into its sheath with a small rasp of sound. “But who knows what lies in a Kolder mind — if they can do this, then perhaps they have other surprises.”
Simon was well in the van as they rode on from that trampled strip of field where they had met the forces of Kolder. He had not been able to aid in the final task the witch urged on them, nor did he like to think now of those bodies left headless. It was hard to accept what he knew to be true.
“Dead men do not fight!” He did not realize he had protested that aloud until Koris answered him.
“Herlwin was like one born in the sea. I have watched him hunt the spear fish with only a knife for his defense. Midir was a recruit in the bodyguard, still stumbling over his feet when the assembly trumpet blew on the day Kolder came to Gorm. Both of them I knew well. Yet those things which lie behind us, they were neither Herlwin nor Midir.”