The Anvil of Ice

by Michael Scott Rohan

  Elof stepped forward to peer at the wreck, wondering furiously just who these men were. The fat man and the others could easily be corsairs, but this big swordsman spoke like something better than a brigand, or at least more intelligently. Elof had more sense, though, than to ask outright, at least for now; he bent all his attention to the broken skeg, running his fingers over the twisted metal. It had been solid and sound once, but there must have been one impact too many… Suddenly he straightened up and swore. "This was damaged before—wasn't it?"

  The swordsman looked tellingly at the fat skipper, who ducked his head unwillingly. "Aye, t'were so, a few months gone. Almi fixed it good enough—"

  "He did not! Look here and here at the barb, these are cracks, but there's rust inside them, and some other filth! He must just have covered them over, so no wonder they've failed you now. And here he's just soldered the break, where it should have been forged fast again—"

  "Typical," murmured the swordsman. "Well, smith, it speaks well for you that you're so keen of eye. But can it be remade now?"

  "Oh, easily enough…" began Elof casually, and then faltered. An awful ache of loss and helplessness settled on him, so strongly it must have showed. The captain's face hardened, and he looked significantly at his men, but Elof caught his breath. "If I had my tools here, that is. Naturally enough I wasn't carrying them when I—got lost."

  "Naturally enough," said the swordsman unconcernedly. "Down by the fire there you'll find Almi's. I was about to try to use them in default of all else. But I know of this art only from books, I would not set myself against any smith and least of all a northerner. Will they do?"

  Elof handled them distastefully. "They're poor things for the most part, the only good ones among them old and worn beyond belief. And little or no feeling of power or even personality on any of them." Only now, encountering a lack of it, did he realize how strong it had been in his own and the Mastersmith's gear. "I can't imagine how your southern smiths manage without it—"

  But the faces around him, even the dark-skinned ones, ranged from baffled to contemptuous; even the swordsman's bore a look of tolerant amusement, as at a popular superstition. So even a Sothran with some reading—wide reading, if he'd studied smithcraft—made nothing of the true craft. If only he could show them—

  It might be that he could.

  "They'll do," he said. "Yes, I can repair it. But I'll need a proper anvil—"

  "Almi'd a little block of metal he used," grunted the captain. "Popped it on a stump or anything 'andy. That do?"

  "Very well, I expect. And a better forge—you can build one here on the beach, with stones, like this…" He drew a square box fireplace on the sand. "We can improvise bellows, of a sort. But if the wind gets up we can pull out a few stones on the right side and channel that instead."

  "Clever!" murmured the swordsman. "And how long—"

  Elof shrugged. "A day, a day and a night—"

  "Too long!" barked the swordsman, with a sudden lash of anger that triggered Elof s own.

  "That's no damned fault of mine!" he snapped, standing up and glaring furiously into the lean hard face, fists clenching. Oddly enough, it was the captain who intervened.

  "Let 'im alone, Almi'd take a week, and you or I longer if we did it at all. You want t'give 'im a whack, make it a fair whack. There's a good chance we can still catch 'em in that time."

  Slowly the lean man relaxed, and Elof realized that he had been tense and worried all this time. Many lines smoothed out of his brow, and suddenly he looked only a few years older than Elof, in his mid-twenties at most. "So," he said. "I agree, we should be grateful for what we have. To work, then, my lad—"

  "After I've eaten, by your kindness," said Elof calmly, "and slept a bit; I'll need that, to give you of my best. Oh, and had my sword back, if you please. I can't do much till the forge is built, anyway."

  The captain growled his wrath, but the swordsman laughed suddenly. "Very well! I will go bail for your good faith. You shall eat and rest while we labor on it, that is fair exchange for our rough handling. The sword, though—" He turned and scooped it up from the sand, and hefted it admiringly. "A fair blade, I confess I covet it. And I did best you of it…" Elof frowned. "But that only makes me understand your concern all the better. I was going to say you would have it when you were done, but you might rest ill without it. Here!"

  He passed it over formally, hilt forward across an arm. Elof took it, and bowed equally formally. "You are generous, and I will honor your trust. I will do the very best I can, in the least time."

  The swordsman nodded. "A fair-spoken smith for your boldness. My name is Kermorvan, second-in-command of this desperate crew under Captain Ermahal here. May I know yours?"

  "Elof, smith of the Causeway, now of no guild or master."

  "And all of the better for that, I am sure," said Ker-morvan lightly. "Well, Elof, you'll be wanting your food and rest—Maile, do you go and find him some. The rest of you, up, about and find big stones, flat if you can, and bring them up the beach there—"

  Later, when his stomach was full, and he was winding himself in a coarse blanket by the fire, Elof thought over all that had happened. It had been a dangerous spot, that, at first. But he had been right to be bold with this Ker-morvan fellow, who seemed to be the real power in the crew; it had got him what he wanted. Or had it? With a slight shock he realized that the swordsman's generosity and courtesy had effectively turned the whole scene on its head, had been calculated to do so. He was now under obligation to these people, instead of the other way round. For a moment he bridled at that, but sighed. It would only bind a man of honor—which meant that Kermorvan considered him one. It was a compliment, of a sort, but a mightily awkward one, when he had no idea who these cutthroats were, or what use they would make of that fearsome skeg. But he simply could not worry about all that now, his whole frame was one leaden ache of exhaustion. The soft sand drifted away from under him.

  To his surprise Kermorvan was waiting by the new-built forge, tapping experimentally on the little anvil erected next to it. The clear ringing knifed through Elof's head; he had slept no more than an hour or two, after missing what might be one night or many. But the swordsman was eager to be about the work, for which they first had to detach the tangled mess from the prow. That meant hammering parts of it away above and below to get at the big rusty bolts, and while Elof was perched on a stack of seachests, straining at one of these, his hand barked painfully against a rod that felt like wood, not metal. Reaching down into the tangle, he found it was a heavy catapult arrow, stuck into the hull timbers, and he worked it loose with his pincers. But as he pulled it out he let out a gasp of surprise, for he remembered those black and white fletches only too well. Kermorvan looked up from the bolt he was working on, and nodded. "Yes, smith, those are our enemies. And if I guess right, yours also. It is the Ekwesh we fight. And in that lies our need for haste!"

  Between them they manhandled the unwieldly ram up the sand to the forge. "From what we hear," Kermorvan panted, "a strong flotilla will be sailing northward along this stretch of coast before night tomorrow, and it would burn my heart to let them pass unchallenged!"

  Elof nodded fiercely, and turned to stoke up the forge-fire. "Then haste you shall have. And… anything else I can bring to the work." There were words he remembered, fragments of chants, snatches of verse, that had to do with the striking power of spearheads. If some of those could be adapted to the ram, if he had truly seen more than the firelight in that swordhilt— Then a thought struck him, and he turned again, in sharp and sudden puzzlement. "You say northward? When the Ekwesh are on their way home? But why not attack when they're headed south in the first place, before they've done their pillaging—" Then he saw the look on Kermorvan's face. "Oh," he said, "I see."

  "It is the only way they will give battle," said Kermorvan, his face sullen and defensive. "When there is loot to be gained, profit to be made. They are corsairs, after all, these lads; I cannot ch
ange their nature all at once. And they are few, and must lurk here in the cover of these mists, picking off a boat at a time here and there. But at least they will fight! And that's more than anyone else I could find!"

  Elof stood there horrified, the true import of what he had heard only just coming home to him. "You mean— the Ekwesh have come this far, and beyond, into the rich south itself? And nobody will resist them, not even there?"

  "Not after what happened to the first who tried. Every year they have grown bolder, working their way down the coasts of your lands and nearer to Kerbryhaine, that you call Suderney, till at last a sizable fleet came to harry our northern ports. The Marchwarden of these parts, a powerful lord and a kinglet in his own domain, he grew impatient waiting for the syndics to act. He raised his own levies against the raiders without waiting for help from the city. By weight of numbers it should have been enough to obliterate them, ten times over. But the levies were cut down to a man, an utter rout and massacre. So now nobody will march against the raiders."

  "But—but we always thought of you sothrans as so rich, so powerful, with high walls to dwell behind and armies no lord would dare challenge… I don't understand it."

  Kermorvan shrugged. "We have armies but no fighters, captains but no leaders. We have been at peace too long, no bad thing save that we cannot now preserve it. The Syndicacy is all the government we have now, a gaggle of fat men who cannot agree the time of day without a full session in council. The Marchwarden, being charged with the peace of our northern borders, he had more knowledge of war than most, but that only in skirmishes with reivers in the Debatable Lands, and corsairs such as th—as we. And the syndics squat behind the city walls and find reasons in their purses not to fight, hoping the blow will not fall in their time." He drew a deep breath. "And since they cannot vent their fears on the cause of them, instead they do so upon any who—never mind! Something must be done, however little, to convince the barbarians that they will not have the Southlands to themselves as they have had Nordeney—"

  "My folk didn't just lie down before them!" said Elof sharply, levering at a cracked joint with heavy pincers, surprised at how easily he could forgive the poor folk of Asenby now. "They fought!"

  "Aye," said Kermorvan, "when they had no other choice, I would wager. So no doubt will mine, when the enemy is at their gates. But by then it will be too late, because he will have dealt with the country piecemeal, as he did with yours, instead of finding it a solid bulwark against him. If they could wipe out the Marchwarden's troops without crippling loss to themselves, then no one region or town, not even the city itself, can stand against them alone."

  Elof nodded, remembering the well-fed complacency of Harthaby, while the ruins of Asenby, only a few days' sail away, were still smoking. Was Harthaby yet standing? "You have the right of it. So it has been with us, indeed."

  To his surprise Kermorvan shook his head. "I blame your land much the less. It has never been united, nor had much chance to be. Its first settlers deliberately chose independence over dominion, and I shall not say they were wholly wrong."

  Elof looked at him, surprised. This was a man of lore, in his way, and no mere swordswinger. "You seem to know more of the histories of the north than I do. I used to think my master had led me deep into knowledge, and so he did—but along a very narrow path, I now see. Tell me something of this lore as I work!"

  "As we work!" said Kermorvan, more cheerfully. And at first he did his best to make his boast true. In the taking apart of the damaged ram his wiry, unflagging strength was a great help, but he had scant breath left for talking. When that was achieved, though, there was little he could do save stand and watch Elof at his filing and hammering and grinding, and take a turn at the crude bellows when needed. Then he did indeed tell many tales, as the night wore on, in the tongues of both south and north, in which he seemed almost equally fluent. Elof could only marvel at how little he had known before of either Nordeney or Suderney, and the wider world around them.

  Of the land of Kerys the swordsman told, now a name of legend, no more, and of how the first coming of the Ice was there foreseen, and of the many of its two kindred peoples who then ventured across the wide oceans to settle in the eastern lands of this vast country they called Bra-say hai, hoping that their children would live free of its malice forever.

  "But that was not to be," said Kermorvan, the dark burr of the north as deep in his voice as any native's, "and when after many generations the Ice made its dread way down toward them, there was division in their state. As our Southlands are today, it was centered around the great city known as Strangenburg in your tongue—the City by the Waters, heart and mind of its realm, and to which the other towns, even their first strong settlement on the eastern shore, were as mere outposts. They dearly loved that place, high and fair, mirroring the lost splendors of Kerys. But many in terror of the Ice now wished to abandon their lands altogether and to flee southward and westward, despite the dangers of the forests and the mountains in the heart of this land which they must either brave or skirt round. But they did not know how long that would take, or even if it was possible, or whether it would lead them to habitable lands at all. In the end, it came to a sundering of the kindred; most of one chose to go, most of the other chose to stay. Those who stayed had come originally from the more northerly ranges of Kerys, and perhaps yet endured the worsening cold more gladly. Their kings, though, came of both peoples blended many times over; they stayed, and tried to persuade or compel as many as possible to do the same. But the others fled." He fell silent for a moment as Elof chanted a scrap of harsh verse over one of the tines of the comb, and he stood staring into the forgeflames.

  Shining steel! Spirit of falcon!

  Spearpoint, mark you my word!

  As a shaft of sunlight

  Cleaves the cloud-roof

  Strike asunder where you are sent!

  "Some called them brave," said Kermorvan at last, "to undertake so perilous a journey. Others said that by fleeing they were only serving the will of the Ice, and called them cowards and fools for choosing to risk terrors unknown rather than helping preserve what they could of their own hard-won domain. Myself, I do not know; but I think I would have stayed. As it befell, in the end there was much bravery on both sides. For the ones who fled came across the mountains to these warm Southlands only after many trials, and a good half of their number perished along the way. There are tales of high heroism and great sacrifice in the journey, and the forging of the new realm.

  "But in the east also there were heroes. Then, if ever, lived Vayde and many other mighty names. They held the realm together for two generations more, as the cold grew worse around them and the Ice and all it brought with it came sweeping across their northern borders. But in the end it made a great spearhead southward, and the glaciers came right up against the whole proud City by the Waters and ground it to powder beneath them. And there it lies to this day. Then those who were left abandoned their kings in bitterness, who had persuaded them to stay, and they too fled. Some went to the lesser towns in the east, but a good number went in the wake of their brethren, west and south. Many perished; some won through, at a cost even more appalling than their forerunners, for they were fewer, and ill prepared. That too was a time for heroes. But they found scant welcome in the birthpangs of the new realm of Kerbryhaine, for the bitter words and names once given had not lost their force, and some, it is said, yet lived who had endured them. So against heroism must be set great cruelties, and treachery and villainy on both sides. In the end the newcomers left their brethren and escaped to the more northerly parts of the lands between mountains and sea, which the first-come, preferring warmer climes, had not cared to settle. There, as time passed, they met and mingled with fellow refugees, brown-skinned folk from far westward across ocean and Ice. And that was the origin of your Northlands.

  "The new settlers made widely scattered settlements, for the northerners had always been the outlivers of Kerys and the Eastland
s. But without a central city to serve, this left them poor and weak, and though the enmity between north and south long ago grew cool, and there has been trade and a measure of friendship between us for many centuries, still the cities of the north cannot combine with each other to defend themselves, let alone with us. The habit of independence is grown too strong."

  Elof nodded somberly, watching the two ends of a weld begin to glow in the fire. "I remember my own little town. The only link with the world beyond the walls was the guilds and the traders, and the word of Headman and elders the only law. They would never dream of submitting to a greater."

  "Yes. It was only reinforced by the brown-skinned folk, for they were fleeing the bloody rise of the Ekwesh empire, and feared nothing more than creating another. They were peaceful farmers and fishers, not used to looking much beyond soil, sea and season, and they had paid their own toll in blood to find that peace. The settlers then were realizing how few they were against the south, which they feared, and how slow to increase; small wonder they made these sturdy newcomers welcome. So today's northerners are a good folk, but ever an inward-looking one. And that is a perilous thing to be, when the Ice is shaping its malice against you!"

  Elof put down his hammer a moment, and looked at him. "My master talked as you do about the Ice, as if it was a live thing—"

  Kermorvan's eyes widened. "But it is! He told you no more than that?" He shook his head in wonder. "Then it was no narrow road your master led you down, but a crooked one. Know what every child of our land learns! There is indeed a living will behind the Ice, and a malign one. It—or they, for it is said there may be more than one—hates all living things; I do not know why, but it does. Most of all it hates us, we humans, and what little order and civilization we have won for ourselves. It may make use of men for a time, but it seeks to drive us back to the level of the beasts, so that it may destroy us as freely as they. Thus it especially hates we of Kerbryhaine, furthest from its grasp, strongest against its purpose. The Ice is its weapon, slow but inexorable in its advance. Did I not tell you how it spearheaded south to cover the great city? Nowhere else has it yet dared come so far, though it chafes ever at the mountains north of your land—"