The Anvil of Ice

by Michael Scott Rohan

  Kermorvan's sword clanged back into his scabbard. "Fare you well, then! And our thanks!" Ils blew her father a kiss.

  "Take care!" he called. "Send word when you can! And may the good will of the mountain folk go with you!"

  Elof raised his hand, unclenching the fingers, and captured light sparkled a moment from the jewel as he waved. Ansker's way was lit clear. The duergh turned and went stumping up the slope toward the citadel. Ils was already running, but as they reached the wharf he saw her stop once, look back, and run on, and knew that the high carved gate had opened.

  The deck of the little boat boomed and swayed as they sprang down onto it. Kermorvan swore; a plume of smoke rose from where the dart had fallen, heated by dragonfire. Elof ran to it at once and began hacking at the planking, leaving Kermorvan and Ils, who knew what they were doing, to seize the flapping sheets and halyards and secure the sail. Suddenly he laughed, and closed his armored left fist around the dart; the fire died at once, and he was able to wrench it out and toss it overboard. A light spurt of flame danced on his palm and was gone.

  "Well done, my smith!" laughed Kermorvan as he ran to cast off. "It has other uses, your little toy, than giving firedrakes a taste of their own!" They laughed, slightly giddy with the sudden release. Kermorvan clapped him on the back. "It was bravely done, that! You may call yourself a mighty warrior now, and no mistake!"

  "I do not wish to!" said Elof, as Kermorvan thrust a pole into his hands. Ils leaned hard on the tiller, and together they pushed the bows out into the stream. He looked around at the mess of smoke and flame on shore, the carnage and the noise of battle. "A smith is all I wish to be, and at peace!"

  "Time enough when you're old!" called Ils from the stern, angling the tiller delicately as the tunnelmouth gaped wider ahead. "Kermorvan! Take you the halyard and hoist the topsail, if you want to live that long!"

  Kermorvan cursed under his breath, but sprang to obey. With the topsail up the little craft gathered speed rapidly, cleaving the dark water cleanly under its keel. They slipped slowly under the high arches, and darkness folded over them. The tunnelmouth became a patch of flickering light, dwindling behind them, and the sounds of conflict dispersed into echoing rumbles in the unseen roof. "The lanterns—" began Ils, and then said, more softly, "no. Better we go as far as we can without them. I can see enough, for now. This part of our way is well-traveled and deep, we have only to keep with the current."

  "Will boats not be coming from the southern towns also?"

  "Yes, but not for some time yet. The cavewinds are against them for now, and going against the wind is a long haul on a narrow river. They will row until the wind changes, and not reach this stretch till morning. By that time I think the dragon will be slain, or have fled, if it can. We have dealt with such attacks before, though none so powerful."

  They sat silent for long, their exhausted bodies ringing with the fury of the last hour, while the boat glided on peacefully and the row of battle died away. A feeling of peace settled around Elof in that cool darkness, and yet he found himself resenting it. "I don't know why!" he muttered, groping his way across the deck. "My hand was burned by that brute's blood, it pains me. But there is something else…"

  "Does that gauntlet gall you?" suggested Kermorvan. "Take it off, man, and relax!"

  "Not I! And your hand yet lay on your sword, the last I saw it!" said Elof sharply.

  "Kerys!" barked the swordsman. "I cannot rest either, after all that. My heart halts in this murk, it tells me all's not yet past. The lanterns, girl!"

  "As you wish," said Ils, "I can lower their covers from here." The familiar smoky red glow flickered slowly to life at either side of bows and stern, and at the masthead. "It feels as if the breeze is freshening, anyway. As well to see our way clear. Hasn't it fallen silent back there?" And as she spoke, a cool gusty wind did indeed billow out the sail, and the small ship bobbed and bounded ahead.

  All of a sudden Elof sprang up. "Silent indeed!" he hissed, seized a lantern from the rail and bounded high onto the stern, clutching the carved post. He hung there a few breaths, peering; was he imagining things? The wind's chill fingers ruffled his sweat-soaked hair— the wind! He shouted, and swept out his sword, "Kermorvan! To me! The brute is on our heels!" Ils sprang up with a cry. Kermorvan came stumbling along the deck and up to where Elof stood. "What? I see nothing—"

  "The wind! And the fighting has stilled back there! Feel how it gusts and freshens!"

  "But why—" began Ils.

  "Its wings!" shouted Elof, and then there was no more arguing. A low coughing rumble echoed out of the darkness, a great blast of the dragon-stench swept about them, and it was as if the shadows beyond the stern folded down and fell. A firebolt struck the water only just astern, burst and scattered across the dark surface in a hiss of steam. Pale eyeless fish leaped in alarm and fell back dying. Gobbets of flame floated flaring upon the water, and the tunnel was filled with firelight. A pulsing, snaking shadow, the second dragon came gliding across the roof.

  Downward it swung toward the little boat. But as it came, the sails boomed tight, the rigging thrummed and the boat gave a great leap forward, its lean bows lifting on a sudden foamcrest. The dragon, aiming for where it had been, plunged down astern, flailing its wings desperately to avoid the cold blackness beneath. The boat shuddered and ran before the blast, and Ils had to slacken the straining mainsail lest it burst. She shouted with laughter, "He's driving us along!"

  It was true. Unfolded, the wings of the beast were vast, many times greater than the sails, and the wind of them that had heralded its coming was enclosed in this narrow passage. The more it strained to catch up, the faster it drove them, though the blast was gusty and hard to handle. But at last it seemed to see what it was doing. As they came out into a wider, higher stretch of the river, it rose suddenly, wheeled away, and with wings outspread sank slowly downward toward the deck.

  Barely in time did Elof raise his hand, for the blast of fire was better aimed this time, and again the mist of flame billowed around him. Then it was gone, and an iridescent pool settled on the river, flickering into flame as it touched the rest. Elof closed his fingers as if around some invisible sword hilt, and a blade of fire roared from the hollow of his palm, too quickly for the beast to escape in this narrow space. There was a shriek of pain, a gap appeared in the edge of one membranous wing, and the beast tumbled awkwardly aside.

  Kermorvan's voice echoed defiantly under the roof. "Save your spark, worm! We Ve the match of it here!"

  And it was as if the creature understood him, for without another blast of fire it rolled over in the air and fell hawklike upon them. Down across the stern it swooped, long jaw hanging as if to rake the blind fish from the water on its crest of teeth. Ils slammed the tiller toward the wind, the two men swung round, and blades gray-gold and black swept up to meet the dragon. Elof, clinging to the backstay, reeled in stench and windrush, heard Kermorvan shout "Morvan morlanhal!" and himself struck out blindly at the vast arrowing mass as it flashed past, eyes glinting, jaws snapping. Elof heard a crash, felt the backstay leap and thrum against his arm, and then it was gone, past, rising away. Kermorvan was sprawled on the deck, but already picking himself up. Dark drops slid steaming from his blade, and Elof saw the like on the point of his own. He looked up at the dragon, saw it circling, pawing frantically at great welling slashes along its muzzle.

  "One more swipe like that and he'll fetch down the mast!" yelled Ils. "He'll be back any minute! Hold on! There are old side channels along here—"

  She leaned on the tiller and kicked the sheet winch rattling free. The sails flapped, the boat lurched and heeled slowly to port and swept in between two rising spears of rock that stood like sentinels from the water. The gunwale scraped and splintered along the rock, and the hull bounced as something underneath chewed at it. The high mast rattled and bent among hanging teeth of rock; some snapped and fell spearlike toward the deck, and then they were through. Sails flapping slack, the goat
glided over a surface that shone green and scummy under the lamps, a stagnant pool, and stopped with a gentle jolt and low booming sound against something in their path.

  "Ils, it's blocked!" shouted Elof, running for the bows, where something bulky protruded from the water.

  "Idiot!" shouted the duergar girl, bouncing from her seat. "Haven't you ever seen a lock before? Kermorvan, grab a pole and shut the gates behind us!"

  Looking astern, Elof saw the high posts protruding from the water, the system of chains and pulleys leading to what must be massive counterweights overhead. Kermorvan, who had evidently seen these things used before, reached out with a boat pole and tripped a mechanism. The weights fell clicking downward, and the scummy water swirled as submerged gates swung shut. From beyond the bows came a sudden trickle of water, growing to a spilling fall. But across the water astern flame licked, and a great streak of it came splashing between the high rocks. One splintered at its narrow top as a spear-tipped tail swung against it, then the dragon was climbing away again.

  "He'll be through next time!" called Kermorvan, looking at the reflection that writhed and scudded over the disturbed river.

  "Can't wait for the basin to empty!" Ils yelled. "Elof, your sword! Cut the counterweights free—"

  Elof looked up. In the light of the bow lanterns, he saw another set of chains and weights above the forward gates. Sword in hand, he hoisted himself up on the forestay, swung out as far as he could, and chopped at the hanging loops of chain.

  Even the blade he had made for Kermorvan might not have served, for this was duergar steel of vast and ancient age, and there was set on it a great virtue of neither corroding nor growing brittle; time had but tempered it. But older yet was the black blade, and it sheared screaming through one chain to starboard, and then to port. Slowly, majestically, like the redwood trunks they were shaped to represent, the counterweights toppled forward. One fell into the dark beyond the gates with only a sullen splash, but the other dropped upon the gate beneath and knocked it sagging on its hinges. Elof had the barest instant to drop back into the boat. Water gushed and swirled through the gap, the gates were thrust aside in its rush and the little boat was flung forward into the dark upon a toppling cascade of foam and a last great blast of air. High above, fire spurted into the blackness and splashed along the cavern roof, dripping a blazing drizzle into the ruined lock. The travelers, clinging to what they could in their heeling craft, had a last glimpse of a long wicked head thrust baffled into the narrow space, where its wings could not be spread to their full, and heard a final shriek of rage ring jagged along the walls. It was an animal sound, and yet Elof could almost believe he heard words in it, though he could only guess at their meaning.

  He saw Ils wrestling with the tiller, Kermorvan hauling on the mainsheet and unable to help, and as the bows lurched upward he took his chance and went sliding down the deck to her. They seized upon the jerking, lurching bar, forced it down between the teeth of its retaining rack and leaned on it, clinging together and grinning foolishly at each other. If felt good, very good, in the first relief of escape. Ils's wide eyes were brighter than ever under her wet tousled hair, her bare arms warm against his, and there was a heedless exhilaration in this mad rush down into the dark, a joy in being alive among noise and spray and turmoil and cool air rushing by.

  Kermorvan was less happy. The sail had backed violently, forced against the mast by the sudden rush, and only his quickness in freeing the sheets had saved it from tearing, or even dismasting them. But now he was hanging onto the flailing mainsheet with all his weight, and seeing himself slide nearer the gunwale every time the little boat lurched.

  "We've got to stop her heeling!" he shouted. "This keel-less little cockleshell, she will capsize!"

  "It's all right!" shouted Ils. "Any moment now the channel grows wider, the outrush will slow down soon enough!"

  And even as she spoke its momentum faded, quite suddenly, like a rough child losing interest in the toy it shakes. The boat bobbed and bounced sickeningly for a few minutes, swayed dangerously under the jagged outcroppings of the low roof, and suddenly was straight and upright once again, gliding calm as a swan down the center of the new stream.

  Ils and Elof sank down on either side of the tiller, gasping, and then clambered up to help Kermorvan rein in the gently flapping sail. "Kerys!" he said, massaging his arms and looking back into the shadows. "That was a well-turned escape, Ils. Bad fortune on us that the brute chose to flee south instead of north."

  "Bad fortune?" asked Elof, to Kermorvan's surprise.

  "What else?"

  "Only that it was also bad fortune that the other brute also lay in wait for us, when it had the whole town at its feet."

  Kermorvan and Ils stared at him, and at each other. Finally the warrior shrugged. "Well, I see no sign of the creature now, so it would seem we have truly escaped it, this time. But I would we could have slain the thing, as we did its fellow, whether it was hunting us or not! I do not like it left free in your people's realm, Ils. Surely there are many places under the mountains it may hide…"

  "None where we may not hunt it down!" said Ils grimly, and the heavy bones of her face stood out. "Have no fear of that! Do we not have old Andvar to avenge, and many more, our homes and our forges left ruined and ashen? My folk will harry that thing without ceasing, if we have to hunt it from end to end of the hills and back, until it lies smoking in its own fires before us, or quenched in our deep waters. Its mate slain, it can breed no others to help it. We will have it!" She looked up at the roof and the walls around. "As for us, we have other concerns more urgent."

  "Why?" asked Elof. "Do you not know where we are?"

  "I believe I know well enough, though I must check on our charts. It is where we may go that worries me, and how we may come to our destination. This is an old channel that has lain unused for longer than I have lived, and I would not have taken it save in desperation. It will take us some way south, but not as the main ones do to our southern lands and their gates. Instead it turns southwest, without branch or tributary that may be sailed, and leads out under the lower hills, coming at last to their cliffs on the coast, north of the Debatable Lands." She bit her lip. "Somewhere there it ends in a way out; so much is marked on the chart. But where, or how, I have never heard."

  Kermorvan peered at her in blank dismay. "Can we not go back?"

  "Not through that broken lock," said Elof. "Unless we abandon the boat, and climb the walls. And then? Would you make your way along that narrow riverbank on foot, with the dragon still sniffing around after us?"

  "No, indeed," said the swordsman ruefully. "Not now that it has learned better than to use fire! Very well, our path must be dark, in every sense. It was a sorer blow that beast-thing smote us than it knew. May we still get there in time! How far have we to go?" Us was hauling a mass of rolled charts from the locker. Keeping a weather eye on the tunnel ahead, she spread out one on the deck, and the men gathered round to see.

  "How far?" she said. "Seven days' sailing, perhaps, if we could sail all the way. It is marked here as a good fast flow, fed by many small springs and without silting or other hazard, save when the roof grows low on leaving the mountains. Then we must lower the mast at times, and drift so it may take a little longer."

  "In this stifling blackness!" sighed Kermorvan. "With nothing to see beyond the light of our lanterns, not even a one of your towns to pass through. Seven days sunless! How shall we mark their passing?"

  Elof shrugged. "I am sorry for you, my friend. But we have seen little enough of the sun for two long years; a few days more will surely make little difference. If nothing else, we have plenty of time to rest and think."

  "And drink!" said Ils, turning from the chart locker to another. "And sing! Here is wine to wash the dragon-reek from our throats, and put a merrier light on our journey!"

  They settled down in the stern with food and drink, though always within reach of tiller and winches. Ker-morvan took the heavy f
lagon he was offered, twisted out the cork in powerful fingers, sniffed, raised his light eyebrows, tilted it to his lips and drank deep. Then he lowered it, and drew a long breath. "There is Sothran sunlight in that wine, summer sunlight spilled warm across a hillside. And song, and the clash of arms in honorable contest, and the stirring of blood. With that, and in such company, I could almost be happy, even here. But my heart will not cease its yearning for my Southlands, and its deep unquiet. Bryhaine!" he cried aloud, and the echoes rolled under the stone. "Kerbryhaine! How close are the raiders upon you? How strong now your walls, how fast your gates? But be they hard as the mountains, as immovable, a power comes that will strike at where you are weakest, I know. How firm holds your soul, my city?" And he sat beside Ils at the tiller, and softly he began to sing, to an old tune, but with hard and bitter words.

  Kerbryhaine! Your Seven Towers stand gilded by the

  sun, Beneath your walls the fields lie green, the tree-lined

  waters run. Yet in your heart what light is there, what grows and

  comes to flower? Does mind grow cold, do weakened hands slip their

  ancient power?

  Kerbryhaine! I see you now, once noble, high, and

  fair, Your greatness gone, your wealth dispersed, as empty

  as the air. What wasting sickness struck so at the flesh beneath

  the skin,

  Took might and honor at a stroke, and withered from within ?

  Kerbryhaine! A sapling tall, but one that dies, not

  grows! The greater tree you left to fall, but now your own

  sap slows! The winter comes to all that lives, the Ice that slays

  the root— If Spring shall ever shine again, will you still bear a

  shoot?

  Kerbryhaine! If worth remain, if aught is left to show, The smallest leaf, the slightest bud from ancient bark

  to grow, The gain is worth the sacrifice, the battle worth the

  slain— But will your spirit yet endure the healing stroke of

  pain?